Our new report “How Clean is Your Cloud”
is out today – to show that the massive increase in Internet use is
mainly being powered by dirty energy. Apple, Amazon and Microsoft all
score badly in the report for relying on dirty coal and dangerous
nuclear power for their data centers.
Since 2010 and again in 2011 we have been calling on all the major
internet companies to come clean about the amount and type of power
behind the internet services we use everyday.
Today Apple responded:
"In a statement issued in response to the report, Apple
disclosed for the first time that the data center would consume about 20
million watts at full capacity — much lower than Greenpeace’s estimate,
which is 100 million watts. In territory served by Duke, a million
watts is enough to power 750 to 1,000 homes.
Kristin Huguet, a spokeswoman for Apple, added that the company is
building two large projects intended to offset energy use from the grid
in North Carolina: an array of solar panels and a set of fuel cells."
While it is good to see Apple acknowledge it should reveal more
details of the energy consumption of its data centers, the information
they released today does not add up with what they have reported to be
the size of the investment and physical size of the data center. When
Apple announced they were building a data center in North Carolina, they
announced a commitment to invest $1 Billion (USD) over 10 years. For a
number of the facilities in the “How Clean is Your Cloud?” report, we
made estimates of power demand using fairly conservative industry
benchmarks for data center investments: 1MW of power demand from servers
for every $15 million, though the number is often closer to $8 Million
for many companies. Thus, a $1B investment should net Apple 66MW of
computer power demand. Assuming a fairly standard energy efficiency
factor for new data centers for non-computer energy demand of 50% gives
you a 100MW data center. While Apple is well known for making more
expensive consumer products, if Apple’s plans for the $ 1Billion
investment only generates 20MW in power demand, that would be taking the
“Apple premium” to a whole new level.
Size matters
The size of the facility at 500,000 sq foot would also indicate a
much larger power demand. Amazon’s chief web engineer recently
conservatively estimated that based just on the size of the facility,
the iDatacenter would consume at least 78MW, and speculated that it is probably higher.
We made these estimates because companies like Apple and Amazon have not
disclosed details of how much energy data centers use now and will in
the future. We provided Apple with our data prior to releasing the “How
Clean is Your Cloud?” report, and while they did not agree with our
estimate, they declined to provide specific information on their energy
demand.
While we welcome Apple’s attempt today to provide more specific
details on its North Carolina iData Center, it does not appear to have
provided the full story, and is instead seeking to provide select pieces
of information to make their dirty energy footprint seem smaller.
The IT industry can be a part of the solution to old-fashioned
problems like emissions from coal. Some companies, like Google, Yahoo
and Facebook are already doing that, by taking steps to move toward
powering their clouds with clean energy, not coal or nuclear. This
campaign is creating an opportunity for Apple to join them and start
becoming a part of the solution to climate change, so that we can deal
with emissions from the growth of ‘cloud computing’ before it becomes an
irreversible problem. Step one in seizing this opportunity is for
companies to be transparent about their energy use.