Facebook: coal with a human face

For some 6 years, social networks have evolved from the unhealthy hobby of computer nerds and schoolgirls to the most important social institution, and when in July 2010 Facebook passed over 500 million accounts, people thought that every microscopic comment on the site also eats up electricity and that if you count the megawatts that data centers consume, it turns out that a massive "frivolous" craze rests on the body of an insatiable monster, which requires more and more fuel to digest countless photos, scheniya, status and views, views, views.

Bortsuny for the environment did not miss the reason for the work - I offer excerpts from the New York Times :

“Greenpeace International has launched a campaign against Facebook. The social network is building a new data center in Oregon, which is electrified by PacifiCorp, known to produce 58% of its electricity, burning coal. ”
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“In its anti-angle campaign, Greenpeace uses a two-minute video that warns Zuckerberg that if he continues to heat the server with coal, 500,000 people will leave the network forever - the number of Facebook users who joined the campaign at the time of the video creation in September. According to Greenpeace, 100,000 more Bortsuns have since pulled up. ”

Some household futurology:

“Data centers today consume 1.5% of all US electricity, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. By 2020, carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere should grow 4 times, to the level of 580 megatons per year, which will surpass even the aviation industry. "

“According to Greenpeace, if two key components of Facebook’s business - data centers and telecom networks - will continue to grow at their current pace, by 2020 they will triple, reaching two trillion kilowatt / hour. This means consuming more electricity than all of modern Brazil, Canada, France and Germany combined. ”

Facebook throws up his hands - it’s unlikely that coal can be found in the near future, all that remains is to reduce the amount of fuel that just flies into the pipe:

“Responding to green attacks, Zuckerberg defends the charter of his company. “Some of the old data centers that we rent are still using coal, but most of the centers have already managed to turn green,” writes Mark in his message to the Greenpeace, which was later published on the Greenpeace website. “The new datacenter we are building in Oregon will be powered by a hydropower plant. We are on the right path, comrades. ” PacifiCorp confirms that 10% fuel for generators in their data center consists of hydro and other renewable energy, 20% natural gas and 58% coal. ”

The need for a digital infrastructure is growing rapidly jack. But it is obvious that uncontrolledly increasing the megawatt iron, we will feed the planet to the data center:

“Greenpeace has been working with various IT companies for 5 years, including Hewlett Packard and Toshiba, to help them turn to the truth about green energy. Green people praise Google, which has invested $ 38 million in two wind farms (wind farms) in North Dakota and praises Yahoo, which promises to reduce the environmental impact of its data centers by at least 40% by 2014. "

Driven by responsibility to the world (or PR plans?), The global IT and telecom buttons recognize the social importance of their sector.
And Judging by the construction of data centers in the Volga region and other regions of the Russian Federation, this is understood not only by Yahoo and Google.

Obviously, data processing centers, not only the melting of icebergs in Antarctica (without going into the contradictions of this discourse), but the necessary foundation for the development of modern business, education, cultural development of society.

Leaving aside the "green horror stories", it is obvious that civilized principles of the development of digital infrastructure are necessary. It is necessary to identify development scenarios, consider possible threats and find a solution.

It would be interesting to know the opinion of habra people, how will the situation in the information sphere of the country change with the advent of a whole series of modern data centers?