Posts Tagged ‘green business’
Hp Planning To Build Cow-Powered Data Centers
Saying that there is a whole lot of b.s. in the world of green IT is certainly not an overstatement, but only Hewlett Packard could turn that truth to its advantage.
In fact, the company has just published a research paper showing how data center operators could put the oversized loads of crap that emanate from dairy farms to work in powering computing facilities.
The paper, “Design of Farm Waste-Driven Supply Side Infrastructure for Data Centers,” was presented today at the ASME International Conference on Energy Sustainability, taking place this week in Phoenix.
By turning cow manure into energy, the research paper shows how a mid-sized dairy farm — one that numbers about 10,000 cows — can generate one megawatt of energy, enough to power a mid-sized data center, saving on energy costs and cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 6,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent.
Manure-to-energy is not a new technology, of course; it’s been put to work in any number of areas, including a Chinese power plant, a Belgian cosmetics factory, and California’s gubernatorial inauguration. And that’s part of the benefit of the HP proposal.
“All of the components needed to develop something like this are already available,” explained Cullen Bash, a member of HP’s Sustainable IT Ecosystem Lab team and one of five authors of the report, along with Ratnesh Sharma, Tom Christian, Martin Arlitt and Chandrakant Patel. “It can be done today,” Bash added.
While waste-to-energy is nothing new, HP is envisioning its use in new areas and for a new application: Data centers. Waste-to-energy provides a reliable and steady source of energy in ways that solar and wind are not able to achieve, and with 21 times the heat-trapping potential of carbon dioxide, generating energy from the huge clouds of methane that would otherwise warm the atmosphere is a classic twofer.
The circular nature of the waste-to-energy-to-data-center systems works roughly like this: Cow manure is run through an anaerobic digester to generate electricity and heat. The energy goes to powering servers, storage, and HVAC systems in the data center, and the heat can be put to use in heating the turbine in the chiller for the data center’s HVAC system.
Then, waste heat from the servers and storage can be sent back to the anaerobic digester, which needs to be kept at a fairly constant temperature. And any additional energy generated by the digester can be used to power farm operations, or depending on where the farm is sited, tied back into the grid for general use.
The chart below, provided by HP, lays out how a waste-to-energy system could power a data center, and HP projects that such a system would save about $2 million per year in reduced energy costs and waste management fees, giving the project a two-year ROI.
Bash explained that Hewlett Packard is not currently exploring where to put this technology to work, and that in truth no company that he’s aware of is. But the technology is not that difficult, and there are plenty of areas around the world that could almost immediately benefit from these systems.
E-Waste Trade Celebrates As Ipad Consumers Dump Previous Gadgets
As I predicted during its launch, the iPad may be a green machine, but it’s going to have a number of not-so-green impacts.
Back in January, I wrote:
First and foremost, the production of electronics has a huge environmental impact. Precious and rare metals to build the gadgets, global supply chains to bring those materials to manufacturers (and bring those gadgets to market), and the energy used during their lifetime are the beginning of the problem.
There is also the huge problem of end-of-life management for these gadgets…. At worst, we’re throwing away far more gadgets than we should be, and neither manufacturers, retailers or governments have yet put in place a good way to collect even a fraction of what’s discarded.
But the biggest problem to my way of thinking is that the tablet will just be an addition, not a replacement.
But here’s a wildly different take: The head of Electronics Recyclers International issued a press release this week praising the device for just that reason.
ERI chairman and CEO John Shegerian on Friday issued the following statement, which I reprint in its entirety:
It’s a rare occurrence, but once in a while a consumer electronics product comes along — the flat screen television for example — that captures the imagination and interest of the public so well that the product immediately becomes a “must have” item and part of modern culture.
Apple’s iPad is such an item. We at ERI marvel at visionary entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs who lead their organizations to think outside of the box and provide groundbreaking devices such as this. The side effect of such innovative excellence is that millions of older, obsolete devices will be discarded and left behind as the new superior technology is adopted. Fortunately, organizations such as ERI are committed to the responsible recycling of such items so they do not end up in landfills or illegally exported.”
In other words, let us know praise the culture of waste and planned obsolescence that we have spent so much time developing.
Innovation Brings New Amazing Gadgets To The Poor
Imagine that you live in a poor country, without money for a pair of glasses or access to an optometrist, and you’re not seeing as well as you once did.
This product, a pair of self-adjusting eyeglasses, could change your life.
Or imagine that you are one of the 1.1 billion people on earth without access to clean, safe drinking water. Your child is in danger of contracting water-borne diseases, which kills 1.8 million a year. What would you give for this portable, water-filtration device, called LifeStraw?
Maybe you are one of the 1.6 billion people without regular access to electricity. Your children study at night using a kerosene lantern, but the fuel is expensive and dirty. A solar-powered lantern would be a dramatic improvement.
These breakthrough products, all of them invented in the last 5 o 10 years, are examples of what can be done when technology is designed for the poor. You’ve probably heard about One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), the low-cost connected computer developed by Nicholas Negroponte and the MIT Media Lab, but it’s just one of dozens of high-tech, high-impact products aimed at helping to spur global economic development. The trouble is, even though many of the products are low-cost — the LifeStraw, for example, sells for about $6.50 — they aren’t available to many who need them.
That’s where a nonprofit called Kopernik comes in. Kopernik connects innovative technologies, poor communities and people who want to help.
Source: greenbiz.com