I recently wrote a 2 part series about green hosting companies and the environmental impact of data centers. Part 1 examines the challenges of trying to estimate the carbon footprint of a webhosting service or a data center. (In addition to discussing some known green hosting companies, I also talk about my unsuccessful attempts to figure out the carbon footprint of TeleRead). Part 2 takes a look at how various data centers are attempting to improve their data efficiency and how the EPA plans to release a new Energy Star rating system for data centers in April 2010. Near the end I include a question: which action has a bigger carbon footprint: ordering a book from Amazon.com or driving to the nearest Barnes and Noble to buy it?
For the record, the piechart of Rocky Mountain Power shows the energy mix of Bluehost (which currently hosts Teleread):
Factoid: An Amazon.com data center designer estimates that a 15 megawatt data center can "use up to 360,000 gallons of water a day."
See also my July article on Teleread about books, ebooks and climate change my recent post about a sustainability expert’s opinion about ebooks.
Related: Designer Sean McDougall wonders if the geek’s desire to have the latest gadget is contributing to the problem. See Annie Leonard’s 20 minute Story of Stuff video about product lifecycles.
