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Data centers typically are high users of energy because of their cooling requirements; in fact, nationally, data centers are responsible for between 1 percent and 2 percent of total power consumption.

The Friday Oct.30 edition of the Peace Arch News that is distributed in South Surrey and White Rock, British Columbia in Metro Vancouver that borders on the U.S. contained a thought-provoking snippet on wind power by Dr. Roy Strang who covers the environment for the publication.

In it he writes: "Europeans are beginning to find that installing windmills to generate electricity has not led to any significant reduction in CO2 emissions--despite all the early hopes and promises. Because wind power blows only fitfully, backup conventional generators are needed, at full capital costs, for intermittent use."

"Denmark's costs are 15 cents per kilowatt hour while Ontario's cost is six cents. In the U.S., wind-powered generation is subsidized to the tune of $23.34/kwh; compare this to gas at 25 cents, coal at 44 cents, hydro at 67 cents and nuclear at $1.59. The wind itself costs nothing; harnessing it obviously is not free."

The study Dr. Strang appears to be referring to is titled "Wind Energy The Case For Denmark" published in September 2009 by the Center for Politske Studier. Among the findings are:

--"The wind power that is exported from Denmark saves neither fossil fuel consumption nor CO2 emissions in Denmark, where it is all paid for. By necessity, wind power exported to Norway and Sweden supplants largely carbon neutral electricity in the Nordic countries. No coal is used nor are there power-related CO2 emissions in Sweden and Norway."

--"Notwithstanding its many disadvantages wind power's one striking advantage is that, like nuclear, its marginal costs of operation are very small once the capital has been paid. However, unlike nuclear, many ten to fifteen year-old turbines are past their useful life. By contrast, most conventional rotating power plant can enjoy a working life of 40 to 60 years, as evidenced by most power plants in Europe today. This puts into question the strategic, economic and environmental benefits of a power plant that may have to be scrapped, replaced and resubsidized every ten to fifteen years."

Hmmm...do we have another case of well-intentioned greenwashing (with taxpayers' green) a la ethanol on our hands where the net benefits do not exceed the total costs? Wind energy, like solar, cannot effectively be used to shave the most critical need--namely coping with peak-power demands unless you want to invest huge sums in electricity storage schemes like batteries, capacitors, and flywheels; hydro has long used pumped storage that sucks up a lot of land.

Or is this an example where, like solar, wind can be harnessed only in rare and site specific cases in close implementation with other tools such as LEED-designed buildings as in the case of Other World Computing's corporate HQ in Illinois, that, as reported on TMCnet.com has become first U.S. technology manufacturer/distributor to become 100 percent on-site wind powered. OWC also installed the wind power plant and made other energy-saving and environmental-footprint-reducing investments like heat pumps and water conservation at the facility without subsidies.
 

How do you protect your profits when research emerges that what you make or how make your items causes or leads to death and destruction? You lie. Or more accurately you pay or finance others to lie for you.

That's what the tobacco companies did for decades, leading to countless painful deaths and needless suffering not just from lung cancer and emphysema but from fires started by matches and lit smoking materials by promoting a substance that former U.S. Surgeon-General Dr. C. Everett Koop told me in a newspaper interview in 1988 is "more addictive than heroin."

And according to James Hoggan, author of "Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming" (available on Amazon) that's what major industries i.e. the fossil-fuel energy outfits are doing in fighting climate change action. And if his book is to be believed it casts doubt on the validity of the arguments and the basis of them that such man-made destruction is not underway.

Hoggan should know. He is a master of the 'dark arts' i.e. a PR executive (when journalists go to work in PR they are said to have gone 'to the dark side': one ex-scribe told me she handed out Darth Vader dollars when she took a government communications job). He knows how to manipulate the opinions of the public, the media, and public officials. His book reveals the tricks such as by setting up, reports CTV.ca "groups with legitimate-sounding names that are actually funded by industries that would suffer economically by climate change legislation or other efforts to curb global warming. "

"What I would call them is Astroturf groups," Hoggan told Canada AM. "Basically fake grassroots groups of unqualified scientists saying that climate science is questionable."

Hoggan cited in a story carried last week by Canwest News Service a recent letter-writing campaign, supposedly from various seniors and community organizations protesting the potential increase in energy costs from new U.S. climate-change legislation but which in reality was funded by a coal industry association and managed by Bonner and Associates. A Congressional panel has launched an investigation after discovering the letters were not authentic.

"It's not even so much about climate change for me," said Hoggan, who chairs the David Suzuki Foundation and is co-founder of the desmogblog.com climate-change website. "It's more about the deception and the PR. It was just taken too far."

Hoggan himself in his chat with CTV.ca compared the corporate effort to resist climate change action to that of the tobacco industry to resist measures to limit smoking, which used the same instruments. 

"An example of this, Hoggan says, is the Advancement of Sound Science Center, formerly the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition. It was founded in the early 1990s by a public relations firm and funded by tobacco company Philip Morris. 

"The TASSC's job was to discredit research that proved a link between exposure to tobacco smoke and health problems such as cancer and lung disease. 

According to Hoggan, such groups hire scientists who aren't devoted to the issue at hand -- "white coats for hire," as he calls them -- and charge them with sowing the seeds of doubt about the legitimate scientists' findings. 

"The thing that these groups have in common is that they don't have qualified climate scientists doing climate science and they have a tendency to hide their source of funding," Hoggan says. "So my view is, and what we try to argue in this book, is that we should strip these groups of their right to hide their funding, and so people would know who these groups actually represent." 

Hoggan says it's obvious the industry groups have successfully spread their message because media reports legitimize their claims, and because climate change legislation is stalled in both the U.S. and Canada. 

"This is serious. If you look at climate mitigation policy in Canada, we don't have one. Essentially Canadian policy would result in an increase in greenhouse gas emissions," Hoggan said. 

"So these groups have been highly effective at creating public doubt and taking the pressure off politicians to actually really do something about climate change."

However, he told Canwest that he believes the groups trying to confuse the public will wind up paying the price.

"I've been in this business a long time, and I think, ultimately, you get the reputation you deserve," said Hoggan. "Eventually, somebody is going to stumble across the truth and so you better have dealt with it yourself rather than having somebody force you into doing it."

 

 

Today's Globe and Mail newspaper has a great article written by Joanna Pachner on videoconferencing as a green technology. The article cites a December, 2008, report on "green IT" from Gartner Inc. points out that in some organizations, such as large global consultancies, business travel can produce nearly 50 per cent of the company's total greenhouse gas emissions. 

The story cited how noted Canadian scientist and environmentalist David Suzuki began substituting videoconferencing for travel when he realized how much emissions he was causing. That a round trip from Toronto, Ontario to London, England "spews a [metric] tonne of carbon into the atmosphere". 

Suzuki has been doing videoconferencing from the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, BC, where he is based. And beginning in December the David Suzuki Foundation, which he formed, will install Cisco's TelePresence that gives high-end 'being there' functionality.
 
"When I saw TelePresence," Suzuki told the newspaper, "the illusion was very real. The people seemed to be right there. Now I turn down 95 per cent of [travel] requests."

Yet while e-footprints coupled with high travel costs plus congestion, security and health concerns have boosted videoconferencing purchases--150,000 to 200,000 videoconference rooms per year-- Gartner analyst Scott Morrison told the paper "business videoconferencing adoption has lagged behind the hype." 

The high-end [high/senior level business travel-competitive] immersive systems like TelePresence are only a niche success, said the analyst. As of the end of 2008, only 2,200 rooms had been installed by clients globally.

"Cost is a major reason. A TelePresence room costs an average of $200,000, but that's just a start. Add dedicated high-end networks needed to transmit the video, plus the ongoing maintenance and services of a technician on call, and companies can expect to pay $600,000 per room over a four-year period, Mr. Morrison estimates."

Another reason is the age-old tech bugaboo of incompatible systems. This is more of an issue with telepresence than with standard if marginally lower quality videoconferencing units. 

Says a special report on videoconferencing that appeared in the July, 2009 issue of Customer Interaction Solutions: "some of these high-end units utilize different codec technology to optimize performance. That means a firm or office with one vendor's telepresence system cannot communicate with another firm or office that uses a competing product without sacrificing performance.

"Some vendors say the lack of standards could hurt the market for telepresence," the story adds. "They liken it to 'going down to the cellphone store and given a choice of a Motorola or a Nokia or an Apple iPhone and being told one of those models can only talk to phones of the same make'. You may not buy one, they say 'because you don't know which ones your friends or colleagues have'. "

Sounds like the videoconferencing suppliers and customers and users need to get reality checks and come somewhere in the acceptable middle, just as what has been happening with cellphones, before this technology can truly take hold as a popular green solution. 

You can go for 'being there' but do you really need all the bells and whistles? Or is there a next-step-down quality level that gives what only videoconferencing can provide but at a lower cost and greater interoperability? 

As a longtime virtual worker I've found that I don't have any need for videoconferencing, but then again I'm a journalist and PR person that works in words: I can flesh out emotions from language. That is part of the answer too; limit videoconferencing to the high-end interactions, use audio/web conferencing for just-the-facts communications. IOW 'is the ability to see the zits and/or unwanted facial hair necessary'?

At the same time the suppliers need to get the message that 'ok, fat profit-per-sale-time is over, let's go for volume.' It is very nice to sell Lincolns but if you want to get the products on the road--and maximize total profits--you need to have and market Tauruses. 

There are signs that this is beginning to happen. The Globe and Mail story said that Cisco's recent purchase of videoconferencing supplier Tandberg is "partly in an effort to beef up its consumer and small-business share of video-conferencing." It also reported that "Hewlett-Packard [makers of the Halo telepresence system], meanwhile, has unveiled SkyRoom, a personal video-conferencing system that an HP executive said would cost less than a plane ticket from San Francisco to Los Angeles."

The story reports that Gartner analyst Morrison increasingly sees firms making videoconferences an option within their travel-booking systems, with staff having to justify why a trip is necessary. That is music to the ears of environmentalist Suzuki.

"We haven't yet made that adjustment," he [Suzuki] says, "to looking at having people fly [to meet with you] as a luxury." But, he thinks, in time we'll be forced to."
 

Jeff Wiener's excellent The TelecomBlog.com contains a prescient entry discussing and a pic showing old Nortel phones going into an Avaya box. Prescient in that Avaya is awaiting word from the Canadian government whether it can complete its $915 million purchase of Nortel's enterprise division.

Jeff, who writes TMC's The Canadan Angle blog explains that Avaya gives his firm Digitcom, which is based in Toronto, Ontario "some amazing credits for the old Nortel hardware. We pack it up, call Fedex, and say good-bye to our old faithful friend who finds its way to an e-waste processing plant."

Avaya, and other manufacturers, should get ready to expect to receive more Nortel e-waste now that once-vaunted communications equipment maker is being dismembered at the same time more firms are switching to VoIP, softphones, hosted platforms, and smartphones. 

While Avaya will if it is successful continue to support the Nortel lines, and the sets that are out there are for the most part rugged and well made the writing is on the wall for them. 

After all, what is a better time and reason than now to buy or get the budget approval to switch to that new IP phone that you've always wanted? While the economy is still slack, the prices are reasonable, and the sellers are hungry?

The interesting question from an environmental perspective is how much new junk will be produced per employee with these new technologies compared with the old ones. Smartphones are becoming de facto disposable fashion items. The sophisticated headsets you need with softphones last 2 maybe 3 years in unforgiving mobile or contact center environments. In contrast an AT&T/Lucent/Avaya or Nortel set can last 10 to 20 years. 

Perhaps here's the challenge for Avaya: how about coming up with an "e-set" of reused, reusable, low-impact/low-toxic materials, perhaps partner with a headset maker to devise likewise, and make the money off software hosting and upgrades i.e. "appliance-as-a-service"?  And while it is at it come up with the same kinds of guts for smartphones and in doing so lob one at Ericsson, Nokia, RIM et al? 

IOW keep the box, keep the headset, and change the programming. The combination of low prices and e-friendliness would make it worth while in more ways than one to trade in, and recycle a Nortel or another phone system.

Forget about turning in old gas guzzlers for slightly more efficient vehicular monsters. 

If governments want a 'cash for clunkers' deal that will really have a positive green impact, both environmentally and in keeping money in taxpayers' wallets, they should offer to take over office space leases and buildings--prioritizing on those in car-oriented 'office parks'--in exchange for organizations sending their workforces to home offices.

Governments can then recycle the spaces, working with the owners and real estate firms (and giving them tax breaks to get their buy-in), for other uses: i.e. schools, hospitals, child/eldercare facilities--including tearing them down and cleaning them up to create parks or market gardens. Or they can flip these buildings and land around as brownfield sites, driving property prices so low to make greenfield development i.e. sprawl not attractive. Both means will actually stabilize property values that will benefit landlords of existing properties.

The payoffs from this true cash for clunkers program are plentiful and immediate. There would be fewer cars gouging up expensive 'freeways'  thereby reducing congestion and accidents that cost vast sums in lost productivity and in providing emergency services respectively. Not to mention enabling a much-needed shrinking of healthcare costs by minimizing harmful pollution and communicable disease spread i.e. H1N1 in offices. 

There would then be less need for billion-dollar/years-to-build mass transit systems, and the need to subsidize sprawl with servicing costs. And there would be less risk of destructive blackouts caused by A/C, lights, TVs, and computers suddenly clicking on when commuters get home.

These gains are on top of the environmental benefits. These include less energy used, cleaner air and more open space. And yes, fewer cars that need to be recycled.

 

A new, and telling, report by CDW on energy efficient IT is at first glance is positive, that more firms are successfully doing more to boost energy efficiency, and those that do achieve savings that ultimately translate into fewer dangerous emissions from their operations. 

Yet the report also reveals that efficiency too often takes a back seat to other considerations like purchase price. A point that serves as a stark reminder that unless the costs and subsequent financial pain of pollution--and this blog has outlined them in spades--is felt by the users i.e. those who pollute directly and indirectly no real progress will be made to stabilize let alone clean up the environment.

Here are highlights:

"The survey found that organizations are doing more to improve energy efficiency in IT compared to 2008, and as a result, are realizing significant savings in their energy bills.  However, CDW also found that energy efficiency became less of a consideration in the IT purchase decision year-over-year, highlighting recessionary pressures to reduce equipment costs, even at the expense of greater, longer-term energy savings.   
 
"According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, energy use in the nation's data centers doubled between 2000 and 2006 and is projected to double again by 2011.  The Energy Efficient IT Report examines where energy efficiency ranks in IT decision-making priorities, along with improvements in IT energy efficiency and remaining challenges.  Additionally, the report identifies top strategies for IT energy reduction employed by organizations that successfully reduced their IT energy bills.  CDW surveyed IT executives in business, Federal, state and local government, and K-12 and higher education.
 
 "'IT executives appear to be caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place," said CDW Vice President Mark Gambill.  "Under extreme budget pressure in a recessionary economy, their No. 1 IT purchasing concern is the current cost of equipment and services, which can put a damper on efforts toward lowering total cost of operations.  While IT executives are trying to do the right thing - buy the best technology with the right capabilities at the best price - some may sacrifice greater long-term savings from reduced energy use by downgrading the importance of energy efficiency in the purchase equation."
 
"That said, CDW found that IT executives who are responsible for the IT energy bill take the longer-term view.  They are twice as likely to place high importance on energy efficiency in the purchasing process as executives who do not own the IT energy bill. 
 
"The 2009 CDW Energy Efficient IT Report revealed that 52 percent of IT professionals whose organizations have energy management initiatives successfully reduced their total IT energy costs, up from 39 percent in 2008.  Respondents reduced energy costs by focusing on energy efficiency in the purchase and management of IT equipment, employing measures including:

* Buying equipment with low-power/low-wattage processors
* Using network-based power management tools
* Using software tools within uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) to monitor power demand and energy use
* Monitoring data centers remotely to keep lights off when employees are not on site
* Managing cable placement to reduce demand on cooling systems
* Implementing server and storage virtualization to reduce the number of servers and storage devices drawing power
 
"CDW's Energy Efficient IT Report found that industry and government are providing clearer information about what constitutes energy efficient IT equipment, enabling IT managers to make more-informed purchase decisions.  Eighty-three percent of respondents said energy efficient products are becoming easier to identify, and almost all said the ENERGY STAR® label is very important for identifying energy-efficient products. 
 
"In fact, although the Federal government's new ENERGY STAR® standard for servers is just three months old, two-thirds of IT executives with server procurement responsibility said they were familiar with the standard, and more than 90 percent of all survey respondents said their next server purchase would likely be an ENERGY STAR®-qualified product.  Further, 92 percent of respondents with access to utility rebates said they have become a significant incentive for investment in energy efficient IT.
 
"Despite reliable product information and real energy savings, just 26 percent of IT executives with procurement responsibility say energy efficiency is a very important consideration when purchasing new equipment - down from 34 percent in 2008.  Yet the potential savings from energy efficient IT is enormous.  In fact, respondents indicated that if they implemented all available energy-saving measures, they could reduce their annual IT energy bill by an estimated 17 percent.

The firms that get the message, and have, says CDW successfully increased IT energy efficiency employ three tactics:

* Ask IT to Manage:  Organizations that asked their IT department to reduce energy costs have seen significant results - 57 percent reduced costs by 1 percent or more vs. just 39 percent of organizations that did not ask IT to make a change

* Assign IT Responsibility:  Sixty percent of organizations in which the IT department is responsible for the amount and cost of energy used in IT operations have taken specific action to reduce energy consumption, compared to 24 percent of organizations without IT accountability

* Incent IT Success:  Organizations in which the IT department is incented to improve IT energy efficiency are more likely to make energy reduction a priority - 58 percent vs. just 30 percent of those who are not incented
 
"'Unfortunately, organizational leadership sometimes overlooks relatively straightforward ways to increase energy efficiency," Gambill said.  "Simply asking the IT department to reduce its energy costs yields hard dollar savings.  And incenting the IT department to reduce energy use - whether with financial, performance or other rewards - helps prioritize energy efficiency efforts.'"