
	Server Rooms = SUVs



	This Entry: Date: 2007-12-03 Time: 17:45 Comments: 2 Return To: Recent Entries



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Server Rooms = SUVs

Jen is interested in environmental footprinting as a way of analysing environmental costs and benefits of various lifestyles.

Along the same lines, BLDGBLOG has an interesting essay today on the topic of the carbon footprint of internet servers. This is something I haven’t really thought about before, but it is true that even a small server room can pump out a lot of heat. Of course all this heat, and the energy to run the massive cooling systems that have to move it outside, come from electricity which has a fairly high carbon footprint.

One server (particulars not specified) is apparently equivalent to an SUV doing 15 miles to the gallon. One data farm (particulars not specified) uses up to a small city’s worth of power, primarily for cooling. Makes you think about what benefit we are getting for the costs.

ETA: In other news, it turns out that divorce is bad too (for the environment that is).

return to cmh blog

› environment 2007-12-03 17:45 ...2


	Off by an order of magnitude So, using a 300 Watt server, operating 24/7, and a 15 MPG SUV doing 20000 miles per year, and the figures from http://www.vtearthinstitute.org/carbonwksht.html, the server would have a footprint of 3942 lb/year, vs the 29333 lb/year of the SUV. at 2008-1-12 23:59 by Gav


	Hmmm. Without defending their position in any way, perhaps they're less concerned with a Linux server and more concerned with a SunFire or something like that. at 2008-1-18 01:10 by cmh

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