Green IT/Broadband and Cyber-infrastructure Overview

One of the greatest threats to our future society and economy is global warming. It is estimated that the CO2 emissions of the ICT industry alone exceeds the carbon output of the entire aviation industry. The ICT industry and research community has a collective responsibility to help address this problem. Fortunately, as compared to the aviation industry, the ICT industry and research community has the tools at hand to reduce its direct CO2 output to zero and the additional capability of enabling other sectors of society to reduce their carbon footprint through "Carbon rewards" rather than unpopular "Carbon taxes". Governments around the world are wrestling with the challenge of how to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The current preferred approaches are to impose “carbon” taxes and implement various forms of cap and trade or carbon offset systems. However another approach to help reduce carbon emission is to “reward” those who reduce their carbon footprint. It is estimated that consumers control or influence over 60% of all CO2 emissions. As such, one possible reward system of trading “bits and bandwidth for carbon”, or sometimes called "gCommerce" is to provide homeowners with free fiber to the home or free wireless products and other electronic services such as ebooks and eMovies if they agree to pay a premium on their energy consumption which will encourage them to reduce emissions by turning down the thermostat or using public transportation. Not only does the consumer benefit, but this business model also provides new revenue opportunities for network operators, optical equipment manufacturers, and eCommerce application providers.


Universities can also play a significant leadership role as cyber-infrastructure is one of the major producers of CO2 emissions at our universities. Although cyber-infrastructure is part of the problem, it can also be part of the solution. The beauty of cyber-infrastructure and ICT in general, is that thanks to high speed optical networks, this equipment can be located virtually anywhere. Relocating cyber-infrastructure computers, databases, instrumentation and laboratory equipment to remote renewable energy sites not only helps the environment but can also save the institution significant money in their energy bills. More importantly such a strategy also allows the university or researcher to earn valuable carbon offset dollars. A good example of this strategy is the PROMPT initiative "Next Generation Internet to Reduce Global Warming (G-NGI)" where researchers and institutions can earn valuable offset dollars for Internet technologies and process that reduce CO2 emissions. Universities can also encourage students and faculty to reduce their respective carbon footprint by also implementing a "gCommerce" reward system such as free eTextbooks, free downloads of video and music in exchange for students paying a premium on parking, travel and other related activities.


For more details please see

Free Fiber and High Speed Internet to the Home Initiative
http://free-fiber-to-the-home.blogspot.com/


ICT and Global Warming - opportunities for innovation and economic growth
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgbgjrct_2767dxpbdvcf


PROMPT Next Generation Internet to Reduce Global Warming

http://www.promptinc.org/documents/NGI_release_en_v2.pdf



Sunday, January 18, 2009

Car 2.0 -Ontario to roll out car charging infrastructure using renewable energy

[Although I applaud the Ontario Government and Hydro One on this initiative, the real significance of this announcement is that this is another example demonstrating how there will be huge demand for renewable power in the coming years from various sectors of society. The advent of cap and trade will further propel this demand and significantly drive up the cost of renewable power that is delivered over the traditional energy grid, which is already straining to meet the current demand. ICT is the only industry sector that can largely divorce itself from the current system of distributing energy (renewable or otherwise) by building optical networks and datacenters at small renewable energy sites that are not connected to the electrical grid. This will protect the ICT industry from huge price increases in energy because of cap and trade, and also will provide additional redundancy and reliability if the existing electrical grid is incapable of meeting the demand for renewable energy –BSA]

http://greenmonk.net/ontario-to-roll-out-better-place-car-charging-infrastructure/

Better Place is a California-based, startup that aims to reduce global dependency on petroleum through the creation of a transportation infrastructure that supports electric vehicles. Typically the vehicles will be capable of having their batteries swapped out to facilitate rapid ‘refueling’ of the vehicle, analogous to swapping out rechargeable batteries for your kids (or your!) toys.

Better Place will build its first Electric Recharge Grids in Denmark, Israel and Australia where the electricity will be generated by renewable energy. In fact, Denmark and Israel have gone so far as to enact policies, which create a tax differential between zero-emission vehicles and traditional cars, to accelerate the transition to electric cars.

Ontario is the 2nd largest car manufacturing center in North America after Michigan, so seeing it embracing Car 2.0 is really heartening. Ontario is also rolling out a Smart Grid project under Hydro One Networks so this should make the job of rolling out the charging (and billing) infrastructure that much easier.

As part of the announcement, Better Place has announced that it will be sourcing electricity from Bullfrog Power, who will provide all of the renewable energy needed to power the Better Place network.
Posted by Bill St. Arnaud at 7:47 AM

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