Communications enabled applications business opportunities for SMEs in low carbon economy

[I recently gave a talk at the Carleton University Lead to Win program – a very exciting initiative to help boot start small businesses, mostly in the IT sector. One of the biggest challenges for any small business is signing up the first few customers. It is very difficult for customers to convince others within their organization to purchase unproven products from small unknown companies who may not be around in a year’s time. A more successful selling strategy might be doing an end run around the direct sales approach and instead offering a product or service for free in exchange for a share of the reduced cost in energy or CO2 emissions. This is not a new concept. Companies called ESCOs (Energy Service Companies) have been doing this for years where they make deals with organizations to reduce their energy consumption and they take a percentage of the resultant savings. The ESCOs invest in new lighting systems, new insulation, roof top solar systems, campus windmills, etc. Most Communications Enabled Applications (CEA) products or services have the same or greater potential to reduce energy consumption or reduce CO2 emissions (although surprisingly many ICT companies have not thought of their products in that regard). Everything from Smart boards to cloud applications can be structured in this way. Even if the product or service cannot demonstrably be proven to reduce energy or CO2 in emissions in its own right it can still might be deployed as part of a “cap and reward” strategy where the product is offered as a reward for an organization reducing its energy consumption in other ways.

One of the big challenges with such a strategy is most energy savings and CO2 reductions from computer enabled applications are small and a umbrella organization is needed to aggregate such savings from many companies and institutions. Research and education networks and/or organizations like the recently announced Coral CEA may be ideally positioned to represent SMEs in negotiating the necessary protocols in order to aggregate and claim the energy offsets of carbon credits. Again this is not a new idea – farm collectives are doing this in order to collect carbon offsets from individual farms who undertake no-till crop systems. –BSA

My presentation on “SME business opportunities in low carbon economy through Communications Enabled Applications”
http://www.slideshare.net/bstarn/lead-to-win-may-18

Coral CEA announcement
http://www.mri.gov.on.ca/english/news/SOP100209.asp

Bill

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MUST READ: Why network and computing R&D should be funded from carbon offsets

[The Conference Board of Canada has recently come out with an excellent report looking at how various provincial governments in Canada fund research into technologies that reduce Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. Most governments around the world fund such research through various university and business innovation programs which are funded from general revenues. The challenge of course is that these programs are subject to cutbacks given the extent of government finances around the world today. Alberta is unique in that their Alberta Energy Innovation strategy allows large CO2 emitters to invest in the fund rather than purchasing carbon offsets. This has 2 major advantages: Purchasing high quality offsets is difficult, and more importantly rather than spending money on questionable offsets it can be better invested in creating new technologies and jobs. Although Alberta has the right funding model, right now most of their investments are focused on traditional solutions like carbon sequestration. Information Communication Technologies (ICT) as noted by the SMART 2020 has significantly greater potential in reducing GHG and therefore should be also eligible under such a program. As well a lot of research in Green IT may not only create economic opportunities but also be eligible for carbon offsets in their own right – a double win. The Conference Board of Canada concludes that “The Alberta model appears to be working, based on the revenues generated to date and the fact that emitters are making use of all compliance options. They are reducing emissions, purchasing offsets, and trading in credits, as well as contributing to the technology fund.” They expect such programs will result in $11.8 billion in economic benefits in Canada. For a country like the US this could be over $118 billion in economic benefits. Some excerpts from the report – BSA]


The Economic and Employment Impacts of Climate-Related Technology Investments
http://www.conferenceboard.ca/documents.aspx?did=3586


This report examines the economic and employment impacts of climate-related technology investments in Canada.

All provinces have developed climate action plans that make use of a range of tax measures, regulatory approaches, performance standards, and technology investments. The fund structure and governance models vary widely. Alberta is the only province with regulatory limits on GHG emissions intensity, with payment into a technology fund as one compliance option. The fund is reinvested in climate technologies. The revenues are therefore not dependent on general taxation or subject to the budgeting process. A board of directors with the requisite expertise makes the investment decisions.

The Alberta model appears to be working, based on the revenues generated to date and the fact that emitters are making use of all compliance options. They are reducing emissions, purchasing offsets, and trading in credits, as well as contributing to the technology fund. The flexibility inherent in this system allows emitters to select the mix of options that best suits their circumstances.

Alberta Innovates, Energy and Environment Solutions is tasked with developing and implementing its innovation strategy, becoming an inter-mediator, serving the energy innovation community as the energy and environmental technological arm of the government, and investing in research and technology.

Under an emissions cap system, emitters that cannot meet the regulated target must either purchase emissions rights from others or pay a penalty. This additional cost impairs their competitiveness, but the cap on emissions protects the environment. If the cap regulation includes the opportunity to purchase an offset, the cost can potentially be reduced. Including a technology payment in the emissions cap approach, as is the case in Alberta, potentially addresses the competitiveness issue more directly through technology development. If the funds are set aside for technology investments rather than being returned to energy consumers or taxpayers, those investments can contribute to cost reductions for existing technologies, or support the development, commercialization, and implementation
of new, lower emissions technologies. This path has the potential to restore competitiveness more rapidly and may even make companies more competitive. It can also produce innovations that are marketable worldwide, thereby creating new business opportunities for Canadian companies.

Linking the base revenues for technology funds to emissions provides a direct and useful link between the sources of emissions and potential solutions. This link can be used to supplement the other measures described above and to reduce the economic dislocations that might otherwise accompany long-term emissions reductions.

The economic impacts are expected to be significant. Identified spending over the five-year period will total $11.8 billion, the bulk of which will be in Alberta ($6.1billion) and Ontario($1.97billion), the two provinces with the largest GHG emissions.

Industry and universities must prepare for next Y2K - "CO2K"

[Mike Manos findings are consistent with a report that Larry Smarr and I wrote for Educause
(http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0960.pdf) where we estimated a university that uses 100% coal fired electricity could pay up to an additional $7m per year (at $24/ton CO2) due to the energy consumption of its data center. Real world data from British Columbia where universities have been mandated to be carbon neutral as of January this year indicate that they will have to pay $2.7m this year in carbon fees and increasing substantially over the next several years and this is in a jurisdiction that is 80-90% hydro --BSA]

See also http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/

http://www.greenm3.com/2010/05/mike-manos-presents-data-centers-are-co2-yahoo-and-koomey-supporting-the-issue.html

Mike Manos presents Data Centers are CO2, Yahoo and Koomey supporting the issue

Mike Manos of Nokia speaks Tuesday at the Uptime Institute Symposium 2010 in New York.

In calling the data center industry to prepare for carbon regulation, Mike Manos invoked the Y2K crisis of the late 1990s, warning that CO2K threatens to be similarly disruptive.

It's great to see Mike Manos use his speaking spot to discuss carbon impact.

Jonathan Koomey supports the same issues.

The impact of a carbon tax was also highlighted by data center energy expert Jonathan Koomey, who said the issue is not on the radar screen of corporations.

A Price for Carbon

There will be a price for carbon, Koomey said in his Monday keynote at Uptime. We have to start thinking about how that price affects the economics of data centers. Carbon taxes will have an impact on where you locate your data centers.

Koomey used the framework of the UKs recently enacted Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) to illustrate the potential impact. At the CRC rate of $19 per ton of carbon emissions, a 130,000 square foot data center with coal-sourced utility power might pay an additional $5 million a year.

Thats real money, said Koomey. If you have a data center in a place thats all coal, thats the business risk youre taking on.

And Yahoo's Christina Paige chime in too.

Manos assessment of the role of data centers was echoed by other speakers at the Uptime event. Yahoo initially bought offsets to address its carbon output, according to Christina Page, the companys director of Climate and Energy Strategy. But the company soon shifted its focus to improving the energy efficiency of its data centers.

75 Percent of Carbon Footprint

We quickly realized that 75 percent of our carbon footprint was from data centers, said Page. The best opportunities for leadership were in that area as well.

Facebook is currently catching flack for its coal powered data center in Prineville, OR. Currently the count is up to 442,000 members on English, Spanish, and French facebook pages asking for 100% renewable energy for Facebook.

Start measuring your carbon impact and think about how you can lower your carbon impact.

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Google's Energy Foray: What's Up?

[There has been a lot of speculation on Google’s energy plans. While I believe Google’s plans at this point in time are quite modest, they may be laying the groundwork for a much larger push into the renewable energy market. Like other companies Google is always seeking new revenue opportunities. The energy market is orders of magnitude larger than the advertising market – capturing a small percentage of this market would represent billions of dollars in revenue. Although Google is now registered to buy and sell electricity in the wholesale market, it has not yet ventured into the retail electricity market. Unfortunately in the US the retail electricity market is extremely fragmented as the retail market is regulated by state PUCs. The market is also characterized with many small companies with shady business practices, so it is ripe for domination by a large company with global recognized brand name recognition. Google has all the tools to market and easily capture customers in this market including its home energy management system. Many energy resellers offer various incentives for customers to purchase energy from their company such as free furnace cleaning, free long distance, etc. Google has the opportunity to offer a host of possible products and services including the possibility of free broadband or free fiber to the home. Given their FTTH pilot program it might be a nice fits with their energy plans. For more thoughts on this subject please see http://free-fiber-to-the-home.blogspot.com/--BSA]

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/googles-energy-foray-whats-up/

Google’s Energy Foray: What’s Up?
Google is explicit about its mission “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
Now it is laying out plans to become a leader in capturing, owning, tracking and trading energy. Recently the company announced a $38.8 million investment in two wind farm projects in North Dakota, …
Google also won federal approval in February to buy and sell electricity on American electricity markets. And the company offers tools for measuring the electricity consumption of home appliances through partnerships with companies like General Electric.
Connect the dots, and Google is up to something, said Tim Stephure, an analyst at IHS Emerging Energy Research, a market research firm in Cambridge, Mass. “They are increasingly trying to be a bigger player in this space,” he said.
But how these energy investments will fit into the company’s broader mission to use data is hard to say. “It is difficult to see what their intentions are,” Mr. Stephure said.
It’s possible that greater access to data on consumer energy usage could prove as valuable as the keywords in Gmail or in Google search are in matching advertisers.


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Obama's National Science Advisor on National Challenges for Engineering

Science and Technology Advisor to President Obama
and Director,
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Lecture
Remarks at the
NAE Grand Challenges Summit
Chicago • 21 April 2010

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/jph-chicago-04212010.pdf


Another excellent and related presentation is from Larry Smarr
The Growing Interdependence of the Internet and Climate Change
http://lsmarr.calit2.net/presentations?slideshow=3906123

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Speed Bumps Ahead for Electric-Vehicle Charging

http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/advanced-cars/speed-bumps-ahead-for-electricvehicle-charging

The myth that thousands of EVs will seamlessly fold into the power grid by charging at night, using otherwise idle generating plants and power grids, is breaking down. Utilities worry that EV charging could black out the neighborhoods of some early EV adopters and give the emerging technology a black eye. Policy experts worry that the change in the grid's use could unintentionally muck up their green energy plans.
The urgency was palpable in comments by Saul Zambrano, director for clean air and transportation at San Francisco–based Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E), at a California Energy Commission conclave in October: "You've got to manage the runway. And from our perspective, we think the runway is getting short relative to the launch of these vehicles."

few thousand EVs won't crash the California grid, but they could cause local trouble, explains Doug Kim, director of EV readiness efforts at Rosemead, Calif.–based Southern California Edison (SCE), PG&E's neighbor to the south. Kim expects EV buyers to be concentrated in certain communities. Star-studded Santa Monica is already on his watch list. "We need to make sure that our local neighborhood circuits, including the transformers, are robust enough to support those additional loads," says Kim.
EVs need lots of power, especially when charged quickly. Utilities bet that most buyers will want a 240-volt charger that can "fill the tank" of a modest-size EV in 2 to 3 hours, four times as fast as a standard 120-V charger can. Such "AC Level 2" chargers, as defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers' emerging J1772 standard, draw up to 6.6 kilowatts. Turning one on is like adding up to three homes to a neighborhood, and that's with the air conditioning, lights, and laundry running.
Turning on two or three Level 2 chargers could burn out the street-level transformers that are the distribution grid's weakest link. Most utilities employ undersized transformers, which are designed to cool overnight. Without time to cool, sustained excess current will eventually cook a transformer's copper windings, causing a short and blacking out the local loads it serves.

OECD recommends that basic research in ICT should be supported through carbon offset mechanisms

[The OECD Council has a agreed to a simple 10-point Recommendation on ICTs and the Environment to provide a framework for government policy to improve ICT-related environmental performance.

http://www.oecd.org/document/26/0,3343,en_2649_33757_45073498_1_1_1_1,00.html


One of the key recommendations:

“Members should support long-term basic research, and where possible stimulate research and development in resource-efficient ICTs and “smart” applications for example through technology-neutral tax incentives or carbon offset mechanisms, and encourage user-driven innovation.”


Boosting sustainable economic growth is high on government agendas. The Recommendation of the OECD Council on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the Environment supports governments to increase the environmental benefits of ICT applications and improve environmental impacts of ICTs. As governments embark on green growth paths, this recommendation addresses areas where public sector action can help overcome shortcomings identified in OECD reports on ICT and the environment. OECD analysis shows that most “Green ICT” initiatives concentrate on the direct effects of ICTs themselves rather than tackling climate change and environmental degradation through the use of ICTs as an enabling or “smart” technology.

The OECD Recommendation lays out a 10-point check list on how governments can employ ICTs to enhance national environmental performance. It encourages cross-sector co-operation and knowledge exchange on resource-efficient ICTs and “smart” applications, and highlights the importance of governments supporting R&D and innovation. By doing so, governments send positive signals for private sector investments. “Smart” electricity grid technologies for example have been receiving government attention and have attracted venture capital investments during the crisis, despite overall clean technologies seeing a dip.

This Recommendation applies to OECD countries and non-members. It is part of the wider OECD work developing a Green Growth Strategy to guide government policies. Governments and stakeholders will discuss related strategies at this year’s OECD Forum 2010 – “Road to Recovery: Innovation, Jobs & Clean Growth”.



Contact

For comments on the OECD recommendation on ICTs and the environment, please contact
Graham Vickery, Head of the Information Economy Group
Graham.Vickery [at] oecd.org
+33 1 45 24 93 87.



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US government agencies to receive carbon offsets for new ICT equipment purchases

[Wow. This is very exciting news and shows how ICT companies have an opportunity for a whole new revenue stream in providing low carbon equipment and services in exchange for offsets – BSA]

Federal Green IT Program Offsets 100% of CO2 Emissions
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2010/04/28/federal-green-it-program-offsets-100-of-co2-emissions/

More than a dozen federal agencies, including the Energy, Justice, and Commerce departments, as well as the Navy, are participating in a “green” IT program that enables them to buy new data servers and receive carbon emissions credits to offset their carbon footprint, reports Government Computer News.

In January, President Obama ordered the government, the largest consumer of energy in the U.S., to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 28 percent by 2020, which includes increasing energy efficiency.

Last year, federal agencies spent more than $1.7 billion last year on energy-efficiency projects, increasing their environmental spend by more than 80 percent from 2008.
The savings from the new program will be significant: cutting costs by $4.2 million over the next five years and nearly 24,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). 3PAR, the program’s sponsor, estimates that this is equivalent to keeping 4,500 vehicles off the road for a year or nearly 55,000 barrels of oil, according to the article.

The calculations include energy savings and carbon offsets purchased by 3PAR. As part of the program, 3PAR purchases one metric ton of CO2 offsets equivalent from TerraPass for every terabyte of storage purchased, which translates into 100 percent carbon neutral storage.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, data center energy consumption doubled from 2000 to 2006, reaching more than 60 billion kilowatt hours per year, and that number could double again by 2011.


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Green Investment Opportunity for small business - on the move electric car charging

[I have long argued that we will not address the challenge of climate change as long as the utilities are in the loop. The utilities are very conservative organizations who generally think in terms of big mega-power projects and believe that all customers need five nines reliable power. Fundamentally, reducing power consumption is not in their self interest. They also struggle, for good technical reasons, with the issues of how to introduce large portion of renewable power into their electrical transmission grid. Also the cost of electrical power is going to increase because of cap and trade, even if the power comes from totally renewable sources. It is estimated that cap and trade will raise the price of electricity that is generated by coal plants anywhere from 60% to 300%. This will put competitive pressure on electricity that comes from renewable source as there will be increased demand for such electricity. As a result clean electricity will cost close to, or perhaps even cost more than dirty electricity if it is delivered over the same electrical grid.

If we are going to effect real change and create a new green economy we need to bypass the utilities. This was how the Internet revolution happened. God forbid, if the young Internet entrepreneurs of the day had to depend on the telephone company for the roll out of their Internet applications – we would still be using tin cans and string for our data communications.

A problem with most clean, renewable energy is that it is intermittent and unpredictable. One of the fundamental misconceptions many people have is that all applications need 100% reliable power. So a lot of research and development is going into building large storage facilities or massive continent spanning grids to distribute and load balance renewable power facilities in order to ensure reliable power. But a much cheaper and effective solution is to adapt the application to the availability of power. ICT applications are a good example. Computing services, clouds and networking applications can be quickly moved from site to site around the world where there is power available using high speed optical networks. This is the essence of the Greenstar project and several other research initiatives around the world. Next generation 5G wireless networks are also built around this same concept.

The same thinking can be applied to charging of electric vehicles. Right now there is a lot of hype about electric vehicles. But their Achilles heel is their limited range, expensive batteries and long charging cycles. There is also talk of using electric vehicles as back up storage devices for the grid – but this creates huge problems as most residential transformers are not designed to handle large power flows from the home to the grid. For this vision to become a reality the entire electrical grid will have to be rebuilt. It aint going to happen in our lifetime.

An alternate and much cheaper solution that does not involve any utilities is “on the move” electric vehicle charging. On the move systems work by placing a short power strip (remember the old slot car racing sets we had as kids?) in the road bed connected to a roadside windmill, solar panel array, or run of the river turbine under bridges. An inductive coil or direct contact probe is attached to the electric vehicle. A large discharge capacitor may also have to be installed. When the electric vehicle drives over the embedded power strip, it signals its request to purchase a short burst of power to recharge its batteries. The “On the move” system verifies the purchase request and energizes the embedded power strip to provide direct high current/voltage power to the vehicle – most likely through a capacitor to capacitor discharge coupling. The embedded strip is made up of many segments, each about the length of the electric vehicle, so that only the segment under the vehicle that requested the power is energized. The onboard capacitor in the electric vehicle slowly trickle charges the onboard batteries after driving over the strip. When there is no vehicle over the power strip it is completely de-energized for safety reasons.

None of the “on the move” systems need to be connected to the electrical grid and can be deployed and operated independently of each other. The only common requirement is a standard for the inductive charging and billing system. They can be deployed at all stop signs and traffic lights to allow for greater charging time when the vehicle is stopped at an intersections. Within urban settings the renewable power system can be located on a roof top and the power distributed using 400 HZ system over the existing copper to the street level “on the move” system.

On the move systems can be deployed by small entrepreneurs just about anywhere. Early applications include golf cart charging and campus vehicle fleets at universities and large industrial campuses. Charging golf carts is a big cost for many golf courses in both energy cost and frequent battery replacement because of frequent deep cycling. Shopping malls, drive through restaurants and banks are other excellent locations for “on the move” power strips. In the future you wont need to feel guilty using the drive-in as you will be doing it for good green reasons! Perhaps drive-in restaurants may offer inducements such as free hamburger while they recharge your car! Deploying “on the move” in public roads will require more extensive approvals and negotiations with various government and municipal departments.

“On the move” electrical vehicle charging systems address a number of short comings with today’s electric vehicles:
(a) It reduces the need for a large and expensive battery bank in the car as a smaller battery pack can be recharged frequently as the vehicle drives along the road, which also reduces the weight of the vehicles
(b) It reduces the need for a long recharge cycle after every trip
(c) Larger and heavier electric vehicles like buses and trucks can use the system perhaps with longer and more frequent power strips
(d) It enables much longer trips without stopping for refueling – whether it is gas or electricity
(e) It uses solely renewable energy and is not dependent on the construction of new nuclear reactors or power plants

Since on the move systems will use renewable energy there will be times where some roadways may not have sufficient power. Before drivers proceed on a trip they can check on the web to see which route is likely to have plenty of power for the on the move systems enroute.

If we are going to successfully address the biggest challenge facing the planet we need creative, out of the box solutions like this. It will be young innovative entrepreneurs who will come up with creative solutions – not your boring staid utility. – BSA]



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Alberta innovation: cap and trade and next generation broadband

[Many are surprised to discover that Canada is the biggest oil exporter to the US almost shipping double the oil that the US imports from Saudi Arabia. Most of this oil unfortunately comes from the Alberta tar sands – which are one of the largest emitters of CO2 in North America.

Alberta is as large as Texas and not unlike Texas is generally perceived as a right wing, conservative oil rich province. But despite this reputation and its production of dirty oil, Alberta has been a world leader in deploying cap and trade and building a province wide broadband network. Alberta implemented one of the first cap and trade programs in the world (albeit an intensity based system as opposed to a true cap and trade system) years before most people even heard of the expression “cap and trade”. As well Alberta deployed SuperNet – one of the first government sponsored open access networks to provide Internet service throughout Alberta.

One of the biggest issues facing Alberta is the potential for US Congress to pass a national cap and trade program. If this happens the Canadian government has publicly committed to implementing a matching program in Canada to insure there is no trade distortions between Canada and the US with respect to the cost of carbon. The TD Bank and Pembina institute estimates that that this will cost Alberta anywhere between $40 to $70 billion in carbon offsets. They will need to purchase these offset from the rest of Canada and/or internationally in order to comply with these programs. This will be a huge transfer of wealth out of Alberta in order to comply with a North American cap and trade program. This underlines the problem of many proposed cap and trade systems in that they can cause huge regional variances and disparities in terms of money flows.

While I believe anthropogenic warming is real and present danger to this planet I am not a big fan of cap and trade or carbon taxes. Cap and trade systems have worked extremely well in eliminating sulfur dioxide pollution. But these have been narrowly defined relatively small scale markets. CO2 cap and trade is a much larger beast as it touches so many industry sectors. Many CO2 abatement strategies are also very suspect. Already many CO2 cap and trade systems have been tainted with scandal and dubious claims of CO2 reduction. Combined with such huge regional financial disparity in terms of its cost, I think cap and trade will be a difficult sell in Canada as anywhere else in the world. They same issue lies with carbon taxes – although more likely to equitably distributed in terms of the pain – nobody wants more taxes disappearing into the maws of government (even though most governments claim such taxes will be revenue neutral – we have all heard that line before).

There are now several proposals for alternatives to cap and trade such as “cap and dividend” and “cap and reward”. Jim Hansen has also come out in favour of a scheme similar to cap and dividend called “People’s Climate Stewardship Act” which is very similar the Cap and Dividend bill now before Congress. In both situations there is an effective carbon tax and cap but the revenues are turned over directly to consumers who are then free to spend the money in reducing their energy bill. A variant of “cap and dividend” is “cap and reward” where the money raised from a carbon tax and cap is also handed over to consumers, but they can only spend the money on activities that further reduce their carbon footprint. Such activities may include next generation broadband, tele-working, distance education, downloading virtual goods over the Internet etc. Cap and Reward will hopefully create a virtuous circle of carbon reduction in all walks of life.

Alberta’s cap and trade intensity program is also running into many of the same problems as other cap and trade programs in that they are having a difficult time finding well qualified projects that will reduce carbon in a measurable and verifiable way. I think Alberta has the opportunity to once again show world leadership in adopting a province wide cap and reward program as an alternate solution. Much in the same way that Alberta deployed North America’s first cap and trade system and the first government funded province wide open access network, they could once again set the mark of deploying the worlds first cap and reward system. Rather than waiting for the inevitable cap and trade bill to come out of congress whether it is this year or 10 years from now, Alberta could do a pre-emptive strike by implementing a cap and reward program where the proceeds going to consumers could be used for the purchase of low carbon goods and services produced in Alberta. This would provide Alberta’s industry and education sectors with new revenue opportunities and demonstrate an alternate approach to addressing the global challenge of CO2 emissions.

For example Alberta operates Canada’s only open university – University of Athabasca. Its course programs and degrees could be offered for free in exchange for the offset dollars earned by families under a cap and reward systems. Clearly distance education over the Internet will have a very small carbon footprint. Alberta has also been a leader, through its provincial R&E network Cybera in deploying advanced cyber-infrastructure, clouds and grids. They also operate one of the nodes on the Greenstar network – the world’s first zero carbon Internet. Again these low carbon activities, as well as related industry projects could be funded under a cap and reward program.

But most importantly Alberta needs to address the challenge of deploying a next generation broadband network. Supernet was a wonderful achievement for getting broadband deployed to rural areas. But it not address the challenge of building high speed open access competitive broadband in the urban centers. A “cap and reward” system could easily pay for such a network deployment. Many of the energy companies in Alberta who would need to collect the carbon fees already have extensive fiber networks. This could be a loss leader opportunity for them to expend the money on their customer’s behalf in building a next generation open access fiber to the home network.

Of course all these low carbon activities need to be properly quantified to prove that they genuinely reduce CO2 emissions. Organizations like Canada Standards Association, ClimateCheck amongst others are now developing the necessary standards for the ICT sector to enable a successful cap and reward program.

Despite its reputation as a right wing conservative province, Alberta has the unique opportunity to use its oil wealth in solutions that do not penalize the province in terms of CO2 emisssions, but instead create new opportunities for its businesses and education sectors by promoting a low carbon society through a cap and reward program – BSA]

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How UK universities and JISC are leading the world in developing solutions to address climate change

[Next week I will have the honour to speak at the JISC annual conference in London. (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/jisc10) JISC is funded by several university funding bodies in the UK to provide world-class leadership in the innovative use of ICT to support education and research. They manage and funds 189 Projects within 30 Programmes as well as provide 47 ongoing services to the higher-ed community in the UK. One of their major program initiatives is a Green ICT program directed by Rob Bristow. This is a world class initiative and definitely is putting UK universities at the front lines of developing innovative solutions to address the biggest challenge facing this planet namely climate change. This program undoubtedly will give UK industry and society a huge advantage compared to the rest of the world in adapting to a new low carbon economy. In my opinion universities should be the vanguard for developing innovative solutions. I am pleased to see the UK has stepped up to the plate in this regard. I am especially intrigued that one key issue that they have identified is the disconnect between the users of energy for ICT and the people who pay the bill, and JISC is funding a project investigate how that might best be addressed. Some excerpts from their web site – BSA]

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/greeningict.aspx

Greening ICT programme
The Getting Greener programme will allow JISC to deliver on its key strategic priority of enabling the greening of ICT in the Higher and Further Education sectors through organisational change and harnessing the research strengths of the sector to help deliver solutions for education and the wider constituency.

ICT in UK higher and further education has a large carbon footprint. It is estimated that in the sector there are one and a half million computers, 250,000 printers and 240,000 servers which collectively produce 500,000 tonnes of CO2 a year and in 2009 cost the sector around £116m in ICT related electricity bills. The environmental impacts of ICT are not just in their energy use while in service. The whole lifecycle of ICT procurement and use consumes energy and resources both in manufacture and transportation to end users, and more in disposal – which itself can leave a legacy of waste, some of it toxic.

Environmental sustainability and climate change are considered urgent problems by governments worldwide and there are legislative and regulatory drivers for change. In his annual grant letter to HEFCE in 2008 the Secretary of State indicated that capital funding for institutions should be linked to performance in reducing carbon emissions . The Climate Change Act directs that emissions are to be reduced 80 per cent against 1990 levels by 2050 and at least 26 per cent by 2020.

JISC’s Greening ICT programme will be delivered via a number of strands of activity that will be embedded in a structure of support, synthesis and benefit realisation activities. The programme will seek to work closely with other teams and committees in JISC to ensure that duplication is avoided and opportunities for synergistic working are grasped.

Key objectives for the programme
• Greening the sector - attitudinal and behaviour change embedded across the sector
• New sustainable procurement paradigms
• Sustainability seen as key driver and yardstick for sector activities
• Harnessing of sector research activities
Intended outputs from this programme
• Substantive body of knowledge illuminating areas of uncertainty in respect to Green ICT
• Exemplar projects providing leadership and best practice example
Outcomes
• Reduction of sector carbon footprint and associated energy costs
• Increased capacity and expertise across the sector in sustainable ICT
• Improved reputation of sector and UK as leaders in this area
• Reduction in waste generated by ICT use
Projects
• Deliberative User Approach in a Living Lab (DUALL)4
• Does “Thin Client” mean “Energy Efficiency”?5
• Environmental Reporting for Green Outcomes (ERGO)6
• e-Reader Demonstrator Project7
• Green in Silico8
• Greening Events9
• How ‘green’ was my videoconference?10
• ICT Energy & Carbon Management11
• Planet Filestore12
• Powering Down Super Computers13
• Printing Efficiently and Greener14
• Review of the Environmental and Organisational Implications of Cloud Computing in Higher and Further Education15
SusteIT Software Tools: Data Collection and Enhancement

Greening ICT - Case study Queen Margaret University Video
Video available on YouTube1 Film created by Jon Mowat and Michelle Pauli. © 2009 HEFCE. This film is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales license.
Contact
• Rob Bristow2, Programme Manager, e-Administration
Mobile: +44 (0) 7825 823 282
Email: r.bristow@jisc.ac.uk3
Fax: +44 (0) 117 331 0667

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Must Read: Paul Krugman on Building a Green Economy

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/magazine/11Economy-t.html?pagewanted=1

Building a Green Economy
[...]

. We’re uncertain about the magnitude of climate change, which is inevitable, because we’re talking about reaching levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere not seen in millions of years. The recent doubling of many modelers’ predictions for 2100 is itself an illustration of the scope of that uncertainty; who knows what revisions may occur in the years ahead. Beyond that, nobody really knows how much damage would result from temperature rises of the kind now considered likely.

You might think that this uncertainty weakens the case for action, but it actually strengthens it. As Harvard’s Martin Weitzman has argued in several influential papers, if there is a significant chance of utter catastrophe, that chance — rather than what is most likely to happen — should dominate cost-benefit calculations. And utter catastrophe does look like a realistic possibility, even if it is not the most likely outcome.

Weitzman argues — and I agree — that this risk of catastrophe, rather than the details of cost-benefit calculations, makes the most powerful case for strong climate policy. Current projections of global warming in the absence of action are just too close to the kinds of numbers associated with doomsday scenarios. It would be irresponsible — it’s tempting to say criminally irresponsible — not to step back from what could all too easily turn out to be the edge of a cliff.
…
it’s the nonnegligible probability of utter disaster that should dominate our policy analysis. And that argues for aggressive moves to curb emissions, soon.

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Cloud Computing results in up to 50% savings for government (not counting energy savings)

[Here is a great post by Harry Wingo from Google at the forum hosted by the Brookings Institution this morning. Not only do clouds make significant savings in labour and equipment, they can also make a substantial dents in an organization’s energy costs. In a typical office building computers and peripherals consume 30% of the energy according to a Gartner report. So a powerful incentive for government IT departments to adopt cloud computing is to reward them with a portion of the energy savings, which they can then spend on new and enhanced cloud services. Cloud computing could go a long way in allowing government departments to achieve their new CO2 reduction target of 28% as mandated by President Obama’s Executive Order 13154. For more details on this strategy please see http://www.slideshare.net/bstarn/crc-contract. Some excerpts from Google Policy Blog and Brookings report-- BSA]

Google Policy Blog by Harry Wingo
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/04/brookings-cloud-computing-can-save-govt.html

If someone told you that they had an idea that could help government agencies function more productively while also cutting IT costs up to 50%, wouldn’t you take them up on the offer? That’s the kind of promise cloud computing holds, and that was the topic of a forum I just attended at Brookings Institution this morning.

I had two take-aways:

First, Darrell West of Brookings released a new paper concluding that the government agencies who have adopted cloud computing solutions have generally seen “between 25 and 50 percent savings in moving to the cloud.” For the federal government, West concludes that “this translates into billions in cost savings, depending on the scope of the transition.”

Second, federal CIO Vivek Kundra (pictured right) spoke about his new plan to streamline federal government agencies’ certification of cloud computing services, by creating a “centralized certification” board designed to speed up federal cloud adoption.

Conrad Cross from the City of Orlando was on the panel this morning as well, talking about how his city reduced IT costs by 60% by using Google Apps. And the City of Los Angeles -- which adopted Google Apps a few months ago and expects to save millions of dollars a year -- makes a cameo in Brookings’ report.

We’re big believers that governments ought to make sure cloud computing is treated on a level playing field in procurement decisions, along with desktop and server-based computing. Brookings made several recommendations in their new paper on how policymakers can do that, and we hope Congress will take up their challenge.


http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2010/0407_cloud_computing_west.aspx

The U.S. federal government spends nearly $76 billion each year on information technology, and $20 billion of that is devoted to hardware, software, and file servers (Alford and Morton, 2009). Traditionally, computing services have been delivered through desktops or laptops operated by proprietary software. But new advances in cloud computing have made it possible for public and private sector agencies alike to access software, services, and data storage through remote file servers. With the number of federal data centers having skyrocketed from 493 to 1,200 over the past decade (Federal Communications Commission, 2010), it is time to more seriously consider whether money can be saved through greater reliance on cloud computing.

Cloud computing refers to services, applications, and data storage delivered online through powerful file servers. As pointed out by Jeffrey Rayport and Andrew Heyward (2009), cloud computing has the potential to produce “an explosion in creativity, diversity, and democratization predicated on creating ubiquitous access to high-powered computing resources.” By freeing users from being tied to desktop computers and specific geographic locations, clouds revolutionize the manner in which people, businesses, and governments may undertake basic computational and communication tasks (Benioff, 2009). In addition, clouds enable organizations to scale up or down to the level of needed service so that people can optimize their needed capacity. Fifty-eight percent of private sector information technology executives anticipate that “cloud computing will cause a radical shift in IT and 47 percent say they’re already using it or actively researching it” (Forrest, 2009, p. 5).

To evaluate the possible cost savings a federal agency might expect from migrating to the cloud, in this study I review past studies, undertake case studies of government agencies that have made the move, and discuss the future of cloud computing. I found that the agencies generally saw between 25 and 50 percent savings in moving to the cloud. For the federal government as a whole, this translates into billions in cost savings, depending on the scope of the transition. Many factors go into such assessments, such as the nature of the migration, a reliance on public versus private clouds, the need for privacy and security, the number of file servers before and after migration, the extent of labor savings, and file server storage utilization rates. Based on this analysis, I recommend five steps be undertaken in order to improve efficiency and operations in the public sector:

[…]


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Investment Strategies for Smart Grids and Meters

[I often meet with VCs and entrepreneurs who want to learn more about the revenue opportunities of Smart Grids. It is seen as the hot new technology that will create vast fortunes for next generation of entrepreneurs. For a long time I have been extremely skeptical of many of the wild exaggerated claims made about the current generation of smart grids and the opportunity to make a return on investment. However I now believe there some significant opportunities with some upcoming technology, especially in the 400Hz power space. But before we look at these technologies we must take into consideration several points of reality with regards to this smart meter/grid market:

1. The real price of electricity in most of the world, but especially in North America has been declining over the last 30 years. If price of electricity is dropping why do we suddenly need smart meters and/or grids? Why has this become so hot an issue?
2. Most utilities, perhaps excluding those in the UK, have surplus generating capacity. This surplus capacity has largely arisen from the de-industrialization of our society in the past decade. Much of this heavy industry has decamped to Asia and the third world and is unlikely to ever return. Why would utilities want to reduce demand for energy when they have huge surplus capacity?
3. New shale gas discoveries are significantly lowering the capital and operating cost of new power plants, especially those used for peak power demands. At one time the argument was made that demand side metering would eliminate the need to build power plants for peak demand
4. The power plant utility culture is extremely conservative. Their whole ethos is built around selling more power. Although they will pay lip service to various green strategies such as smart meters and grids, fundamentally they need to respond to the demands of their owners – whether they be government or shareholders and make as much money as possible selling power.
5. There have only a handful studies on the potential energy savings of smart meters. Savings of 10-15% are claimed, but this is usually with highly motivated individuals and communities. Real world deployment may result in significantly less savings. We all remember the early 500 channel broadband deployments that were done in Florida which failed after the initial enthusiasm in the beginning waned in the face of real world economics. I suspect today’s smart grids are going through the same peak of enthusiasm before the inevitable trough of disillusionment
6. According to the IEA, consumer electronics is now the biggest consumption of power in most home as opposed to traditional appliances. A lot of this power draw is from stand-by power consumption which has little effect on peak load demand. Demand type metering will have little effect on this type of load.
7. The largest portion of most consumer’s electric bill is not consumption, but fixed charges such as debt retirement, infrastructure upgrades, transmission line charges etc. Smart meters or grids will have little effect on these non-consumption charges.

It is important to note that there are at least 3 primary markets for Smart grids/meters:

1. Smart grid backbone infrastructure. This technology allows the utility to monitor phase, power factor, transformer efficiency etc. This market is dominated by companies like Eaton, Cutler-Hammer, Johnson Controls etc.
2. Demand Management systems and meters. This technology allows utilities to manage HVAC and other systems in order to reduce peak demand. Most smart meters being installed by utilities today are to implement demand management.
3. Load Management systems. This technology allows customers to more effectively manage their own load and hopefully reduce overall energy consumption. This is where most entrepreneurs and VCs hope to make vast fortunes.

My suggest investment strategies for smart grids/meters:

1. Use the Internet model of technology development. The Internet only came about because brilliant engineers realized that a new type of network could be deployed as an overlay over the existing telephone infrastructure without requiring any of the existing complex telephone control and signaling mechanisms. The same lesson needs to be adapted for next generation power systems. Avoid dealing with the utilities at all costs. The utilities are extremely conservative and fundamentally it is not in their self interest to deploy any technology that reduces demand for their basic service. We need technologies that will allow us to build a power distribution overlay network on top of the existing power infrastructure without requiring the approval of the utilities. Such a technology already exists and it is called 400 Hz power systems. They are used in aircraft and military systems. They can easily be adopted to run over existing power infrastructure at most institutions and campuses by multiplexing with existing 60 Hz systems. 400 Hz power systems are ideal for distributing power from renewable energy sources such as on campus wind mills and solar panels. 400 Hz systems are ideal for interconnection to ICT equipment which has steady but low volume power draw and can be easily adapted to variable power conditions. 400 Hz allows the disruption of power without being caught up in the complexity of interconnecting to the utility, feed in tariffs etc. They are also ideal for small community grids using renewable power

2. Focus on carbon not energy. Energy costs are getting cheaper and likely to continue in price because of surplus power and advent of shale gas power plants. The only thing that will make electricity more expensive is some sort of price on carbon. Despite the failure of Copenhagen and the latest machinations of the US Congress a price on carbon is inevitable. Regardless of whether it is a carbon tax or a more sensible cap and reward, or perhaps cap and dividend, electricity generated by fossil fuels will go up in price. Technologies and smart meters that can differentiate and negotiate between different sources of power will be important.

3. Focus on working with energy too cheap to meter. Remember that old slogan? Believe it or not it is possible to produce electricity that is too cheap to meter. But you aint going to get that kind of power from your local friendly utility. On campus windmills can produce very low cost power, although not free, in many cases it makes no sense to meter. The problem is the high degree of variability in power. Developing technology solutions ( in addition to storage) that are adaptable to highly variable will be attractive. Besides most proposed cap and trade plans call for at least 30% of utility power to come from highly variable renewable sources as well. The utilities will be desperate to find customers who can use this type of power

4. Focus on ICT. Computers and networks are the adaptable technologies to using 400 Hz and/or variable power. Reliability can be achieved through numerous such as clouds, distributing computing etc. ICT does not need a 5 nines reliable power system, just like the Internet never needed a 5 nines telephone system. If ICT composes at least 30-50% energy consumption in a typical building then removing this load from the 60Hz utility supply will have a big impact.

In summary these are the technologies I look for:

1. Consumer or intuitional grade 400/60 Hz multiplex power systems
2. Renewable power systems and electronics that can feed 400 Hz power
3. Adaptable ICT equipment that can use fluctuating power sources
4. Smart meters that can negotiate power from different sources such as renewable power, 400 Hz power and finally utility power
Bill

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Turning university campuses into "Living Labs of the Greener Future"

[Here is a great example of the type of detailed metering that campuses will need in order to convert saving in IT such as clouds and virtualization into additional funding for researchers and educators. Some excerpts from UCSD press release—BSA]

See also Educause paper on this subject:
http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/ERVolume442009/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume44/185178

A major step forward in turning university campuses into "Living Labs of the Greener Future" - UCSD's Energy Dashboardhttp://bit.ly/boeJJ2


UC San Diego Energy Dashboard to Help Campus Curb Appetite for Power

San Diego, March 29, 2010 -- After an extensive period of testing, researchers have launched an Internet portal to showcase the real-time measurement and visualization of energy use on the University of California, San Diego campus.

...

The UC San Diego Energy Dashboard (http://energy.ucsd.edu/) allows users to see up-to-the-second information on a structure-by-structure basis for 60 of the largest buildings on the La Jolla campus. The data is provided by UC San Diego Physical Plant Services from over 200 energy meters providing energy usage at the building level. The portal also features information coming from roughly 40 individual power meters that measure energy consumption in the office, e.g., a computer and monitor drawing power from a single socket. A denser deployment of meters, which would measure and display individuals’ energy use, is currently under planning and development.
…
The Energy Dashboard grew out of a simple premise. “If you cannot measure energy use, you will not be able to make much headway in reducing your energy footprint,” said Yuvraj Agarwal, a Research Scientist in the Jacobs School of Engineering’s Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) department.


“Energy models of buildings are decades old, and nobody was looking to see if those were still valid,” added Agarwal, principal architect of the dashboard. “People tend to think that by shutting off the lights in an office, they’ve done their part for the environment. In fact, our measurements indicate that personal computers can account for almost 25 percent of energy consumption of a building, and most of the time, these PCs are turned on but are not actually in use. If you also include servers and data centers, the contribution of so-called IT equipment can be a staggering 50 percent of total baseline energy use, because a lot of the energy is used during nights and weekends when utilization for these PCs and servers tends to be very low.”

The tools available on the Energy Dashboard include real-time power measurement of the entire UCSD campus; energy consumption for each building; and power usage of individual devices such as PCs and servers that are plugged into electrical sockets in some CSE offices. The campus meters are all viewable by the public, but access to the individual meters is currently restricted to the owner of that meter (for privacy reasons).


The Web portal provides statistics updated at least once every minute on total power consumption, power generation, imports from San Diego Gas & Electric, and a comparison between power usage and production. (UC San Diego produces about 82 percent of its annual energy load using 1.2 megawatts of electricity from photovoltaic panels and a 30-megawatt natural gas-fired co-generation plant.) To locate energy-use data on each building, visitors to the Energy Dashboard can select the UC San Diego School of Medicine, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, or any of the university’s six undergraduate colleges (e.g., both the CSE Building and Atkinson Hall are located on the Warren College campus).

..
“According to some estimates, buildings account for roughly 70 percent of electrical power use in the United States and approximately 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Gupta, who is also the associate director of Calit2 on the UCSD campus. “UC San Diego is rapidly becoming an important testbed for technologies to improve energy efficiency, and the Energy Dashboard is an important step toward achieving that goal.”
The researchers were able to identify where peaks in energy consumption came from and the primary components of baseline energy use – including IT’s large energy drain even when computers were not in use (e.g., at night or on weekends when the computers are often left on, just in case the user ever wants to connect in remotely or they are running a background application that requires the machine to be powered on).
“Buildings with a large IT footprint can therefore reduce consumption significantly by decreasing their base energy load,” concluded Agarwal. “Our ability to look at energy use in fine detail gave us greater insight about how to reduce power consumption significantly in these campus buildings. To do that, you have to create effectively duty-cycled buildings.”
..
To improve the value of data in the UC San Diego Energy Dashboard, they are also working with a private company on a less expensive plug-level meter. Today individual meters that can monitor energy use remotely cost approximately $200 each; Agarwal thinks that if they can get that price down to the $30-$50 range, individuals wanting to track their own carbon footprint will be happy to invest in a meter that would transmit its real-time data to the Energy Dashboard, where the user would be able to use the portal’s tools to track their own usage – and even compare it to the energy profile of a colleague in the next office. “Working with a set of very creative and intelligent students, and leveraging their talent to address some of the energy issues of today, is also immensely satisfying since it feels like you are solving a real-world problem in the end,” said Agarwal. Among the graduate students working on the Energy Dashboard project: Ph.D. student Thomas Weng, a co-author on the November 2009* paper with Agarwal and Gupta.
According to Agarwal, his group is now working on an Energy Dashboard API that will make it possible for anyone at UC San Diego to integrate their own power meter into the dashboard and take advantage of its visualization and comparison features. In the longer term, the researchers are looking into ways to release the API to the larger community outside of UC San Diego, so that anyone with the appropriate energy meter can post, visualize and compare their energy use data on an externally available Energy Dashboard.
* “The Energy Dashboard: Improving the Visibility of Energy Consumption at a Campus-Wide Scale,” Yuvraj Agarwal, Thomas Weng, Rajesh Gupta, First ACM Workshop on Embedded Sensing Systems For Energy-Efficiency In Buildings, November 2009.
“Somniloquy: Augmenting Network Interfaces to Reduce PC Energy Usage,” Yuvraj Agarwal, Steve Hodges, James Scott, Ranveer Chandra, Paramvir Bahl, and Rajesh Gupta. In Proceedings of USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI ’09), April 2009.
“SleepServer: A Software-Only Approach for Reducing the Energy Consumption of PCs within Enterprise Environments,” Yuvraj Agarwal, Stefan Savage, and R. Gupta.
To Appear at the USENIX Annual Technical Conference (USENIX '10), June 2010.
Doug Ramsey, 858-822-5825, dramsey@ucsd.edu

A UCSD/UCI PARTNERSHIP > California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology Contact Us
home : about us : people : research : partners : education : newsroom : events Calit2 is one of four California Institutes for Science and Innovation


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MUST READ: Why Cloud Computing Leaders Need to Demand Clean Power

[As many of you know I have long advocated that we need to build our cloud infrastructure and data centers at locations where we use renewable power. All the energy efficiency and low PUE in the world is meaningless if the power for the data center is generated by fossil fuels. Some excerpts from an excellent column by Katie Fehrenbacher –BSA]

Why Cloud Computing Leaders Need to Demand Clean Power http://bit.ly/9jw6Nd

Why Cloud Computing Leaders Need to Demand Clean Power
By Katie Fehrenbacher Mar. 30, 2010, 12:00am PDT No Comments
60
The launch of Apple’s (a AAPL) iPad this weekend represents a lot of firsts for the tech industry: a device with some of the most media attention of all time, and the start of an $8 billion tablet application market. But the iPad also represents one of a wave of media-consuming mobile devices that increasingly depends on “the cloud” — basically the Internet and data centers — to deliver hosted services and digital content, and will help contribute to a massive growth in energy consumption and carbon emissions associated with so-called cloud-computing over the coming years.
According to a report published Tuesday from the environmental researchers at Greenpeace , the energy consumption and carbon emissions of cloud computing are already significantly higher than previously thought. Using data from The Climate Group’s Smart 2020 report, which came out in 2008 and relied on carbon emission projections from McKinsey, Greenpeace added in the energy consumption info for data centers reported by the Environmental Protection Agency. The result is that Greenpeace says that the energy consumption of cloud computing in 2007 was 622.6 billion kWh, which is 1.3 times larger than reported by the Smart 2020 report.
This new, larger estimate of energy consumption associated with cloud computing emphasizes just how big the problem will be as the sector grows over the coming years. Cloud computing is a trend that has just started (see our Structure 2010 conference) and business-focused cloud computing initiatives like Microsoft’s Azure platform have recently launched. Using the more aggressive cloud computing energy footprint, Greenpeace says that cloud computing will consume 1,963.74 billion kWh of energy by 2020.
All of this isn’t to say that cloud computing companies need to curb their growth. Rather, they need to focus on making data centers and servers more energy efficient and increasingly look to source more clean power. Greenpeace points to Facebook’s decision to build its first-ever data center in Prineville, Ore., which will primarily be powered by coal (GigaOM Pro, subscription required), as a major missed opportunity.
Instead, Internet giants like Google, Yahoo, and Apple should use their energy buying power to demand more access to economic clean power and to support policies that will help drive the proliferation of low-cost renewables. Greenpeace says:
The potential of ICT technologies and cloud computing to drive low-carbon economic growth underscore the importance of building cloud infrastructure in places powered by clean renewable energy. Companies like Facebook, Google, and other large players in the cloud computing market must advocate for policy change at the local, national and international levels to ensure that, as their appetite for energy increases, so does the supply of renewable energy.
We’ll be looking at the issues of energy consumption and the carbon footprint of information technology, data centers and servers at our Green:Net conference. Google’s Green Energy Czar Bill Weihl will be discussing some of the search engine’s industry-leading green data center work, and Greenpeace’s Casey Harrell, one of the authors of the report, will be discussing how the Internet leads to dematerialization, or replacing atoms with bits.


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Australian govt sets out ICT carbon reduction targets

[Kudos to the Australian government on this important step. I estimate such a Green ICT strategy would save up to $100 million for the Canadian government and over $1 billion for US government (more details to follow). All governments are under serious financial pressure to cut costs – a green ICT strategy is the low hanging fruit and does not need cutting jobs or pay. Relocating data centers to low carbon/low energy sites is an important first step ]

http://bit.ly/dpS2a8

Australian govt sets out ICT carbon reduction targets

Australia’s Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner, has reportedly laid out a target to cut roughly 13% of the carbon emissions from its data centre operations over the next five years.

According to this report by ITwire,Tanner told a conference at CeBIT that the Australian government is the largest data centre operator in the country - larger than the country’s four big banks combined.

The goal is to reduce the estimated 300,000 tonnes of emissions annually today by 40,000 tonnes on an annual basis in five years, Tanner said.

Under a 15-year data centre strategy announced by Tanner, all departments and agencies will have to measure and report the energy consumption of their data centres and ICT infrastructure annually.

Tanner added that future government procurement of data centres will put a major consideration on the ‘green credentials’ of the site and infrastructure. The locations of data centres, as well as other contributing factors, such as free air cooling, and access to telecommunications and power infrastructure would also play key parts in the decision making process. The new procurement parametres will come into effect in the second half of the year.
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Microsoft Research Paper, Measuring Energy use of a Virtual Machine

This is a very exciting development in terms of directly measuring the carbon savings of virtualization or moving to a cloud.

http://bit.ly/9011MX



Joulemeter: VM, Server, Client, and Software Energy Usage

Joulemeter is a software based mechanism to measure the energy usage of virtual machines (VMs), servers, desktops, laptops, and even individual softwares running on a computer.

Joulemeter estimates the energy usage of a VM, computer, or software by measuring the hardware resources (CPU, disk, memory, screen etc) being used and converting the resource usage to actual power usage based on automatically learned realistic power models.

Joulemeter can be used for gaining visibility into energy use and for making several power management and provisioning decisions in data centers, client computing, and software design.

For more technical details on the system here is their paper.

Virtual Machine Power Metering and Provisioning
Aman Kansal, Feng
Zhao, Jie Liu
Microsoft Research
Nupur Kothari
University of Southern
California
Arka Bhattacharya
IIT Kharagpur


ABSTRACT
Virtualization is often used in cloud computing platforms for its
several advantages in efficient management of the physical resources.
However, virtualization raises certain additional challenges, and
one of them is lack of power metering for virtual machines (VMs).
Power management requirements in modern data centers have led
to most new servers providing power usage measurement in hardware
and alternate solutions exist for older servers using circuit and
outlet level measurements. However, VM power cannot be measured
purely in hardware. We present a solution for VM power metering.
We build power models to infer power consumption from resource
usage at runtime and identify the challenges that arise when
applying such models for VM power metering. We show how existing
instrumentation in server hardware and hypervisors can be
used to build the required power models on real platforms with low
error. The entire metering approach is designed to operate with
extremely low runtime overhead while providing practically useful
accuracy. We illustrate the use of the proposed metering capability
for VM power capping, leading to significant savings in power provisioning
costs that constitute a large fraction of data center power
costs. Experiments are performed on server traces from several
thousand production servers, hosting Microsoft’s real-world applications
such as Windows Live Messenger. The results show that
not only does VM power metering allows reclaiming the savings
that were earlier achieved using physical server power capping, but
also that it enables further savings in provisioning costs with virtualization.

Note there will be a desktop and laptop version available soon.

Download: A freely downloadable version of the Joulemeter software that measures laptop and desktop energy usage will be be available in a few weeks. Watch this space!

NY Times Andy Revkin on Climate Change and Tipping Points

[Great column in today's NY Times on Climate change and tipping points. Thanks to Dewayne Hendricks for this pointer--BSA]

See also my presentation on this topic:

http://www.slideshare.net/bstarn/cenic-green-it


‘Tipping Points’ and the Climate Challenge
By ANDREW C. REVKIN

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/tipping-points-and-the-climate-challenge/



A growing effort to clarify such risks has yielded what amounts to the same message climate experts have been conveying for more than two decades: More emissions of greenhouse gases raise the odds of trouble.

USGS report finds that future climate shifts have been underestimated and warns of debilitating abrupt shift in climate that would be devastating.

Tipping elements in the Earth's climate - National Academies of Science:
“Society may be lulled into a false sense of security by smooth projections of global change. Our synthesis of present knowledge suggests that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point within this century under anthropogenic climate change. “

New revenue opportunites for R&E networks in helping universities reduce their energy costs

R&E networks (NRENs) around the world are under serious financial pressure. Direct government funding has pretty well dried up and their members are also suffering financial constraints as governments world wide face huge budget deficits. At next weeks CENIC conference I will be proposing a possible new funding scenario for R&E networks that not only provides them with a new source of revenue but also has the potential to reduce overall energy costs for their member institutions. Not only do the networks get a new source revenue it will also help their member institutions reduce their costs in these challenging times of fiscal constraint.

The concept I propose is based on the idea of cap and reward similar to the new bill in the US congress called Cap and Dividend.

Computers, networks and data centers consume 30-50% of the electricity on most university campuses. Most universities and colleges are committed to reducing their energy consumption and reducing their carbon footprint. Reducing the energy consumption and
CO2 footprint of fixed infrastructure such as building and labs is difficult, if not impossible. The challenge for many universities is that in most cases they do not pass on the costs of power, cooling and space to researchers. As such there is little incentive for researchers to explore new models of cyber-infrastructure that might reduce the institutions carbon footprint. As well the purchase of offsets, even where universities are mandated to acquire them has been complicated by the fact that there are very few high quality verifiable offsets available in either the voluntary or regulated carbon markets. This is further complicated by the fact that it takes considerable time to develop new offset verifiable and auditable standards for cyber-infrastructure tools.

But ICT and cyber-infrastructure is the low hanging fruit of an effective green strategy at our universities. Virtualization, clouds and relocating computer applications and servers to low cost energy sites could have a big impact on an institutions energy costs.
Studies done by MIT and Rutgers indicate energy savings as much as 45%.

Most R&E networks already charge a membership or participation fee based on the size of the institution or the amount of research dollars they receive or some other similar metric. I propose that R&E networks should instead charge member institutions a membership or participation fee based on their annual total electricity consumption.

In exchange for this fee the R&E network commits to provide a range of ICT services that will help the university reduce its energy consumption and CO2 footprint by providing a range of low carbon ICT and cyber-infrastructure services. These would include such things as remote data storage, application hosting, video conferencing services, cloud computing, optical lightpaths, etc. The university is also encouraged to promote these services internally to its research, faculty and students to help the institution take advantage of this offering from the R&E network. If the university manages to reduce its energy consumption, it is not penalized in any way in terms of benefiting from these services and it gets the additional bonus of reduced costs for energy and network services.

I also suggest that universities establish an internal cap and reward fund to promote the adoption of low carbon ICT and cyber-infrastructure, as offered by the R&E networks and by the institution itself. Such a fund could be made up from the money already committed to make then institution carbon neutral, for those institutions who are committed to that path by government fiat or on a voluntary basis. Rather than spending money on dubious carbon offsets, researchers, faculty, staff and students would be encouraged to adopt low energy and carbon ICT practices such as using external clouds and hosting datasets off campus or using distributed optical computing infrastructure such as Optiputer. Researchers would be also encouraged to use video conferencing instead of travel. For those who adopt such a strategy with demonstrable energy savings would receive additional research funding from this special cap and reward fund and access to the low energy services offered by the R&E network.

Another green revenue strategy is to provide a low cost national mobile cell phone Internet service for students and faculty with data offload at the nearest campus or school. But I will save details on that strategy for another blog.

Comments or suggestions for improvement on this concept are most appreciated.

Bill

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email: Bill.St.Arnaud@gmail.com

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Cap and Dividend versus Cap and Reward

[As many of you may know I have long argued for a program similar to cap and dividend where the money from a cap and trade system or carbon taxes is returned directly to consumers. However I have advocated that we use carbon rewards where instead of simply returning money to consumers we create a virtuous circle where the consumer is rewarded with virtual products and services delivered over the Internet. For more details please see http://green-broadband.blogspot.com-- BSA]

Cap and Dividend versus Cap and reward

Cap-and-dividend: the jolt Harper needs?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/cap-and-dividend-the-jolt-harper-needs/article1461994/


http://www.good.is/post/the-third-way-carbon-cap-and-dividend

Can we settle the carbon pricing debate by giving the money back to the people?

The loudest debate in climate policy at the moment is no longer about whether or not there should be a price on carbon emissions (there will be), but rather how to go about pricing the most dangerous greenhouse gas.

As long as this debate has been going on, two camps have emerged as the favorites of conventional wisdom—the widely lauded cap-and-trade system and the underdog, a straight-up carbon tax. Plenty of ink has been spilled criticizing and defending the two. Cap-and-trade, say the tax camp, would be too complicated, too riddled with loopholes, and too easy for Washington to screw up. A tax, counter C&Ters, is a political nonstarter, enough said. Both proposals, though, share a problem that more or less renders all other points moot: if you make energy more expensive to produce, you make energy more expensive to buy. Meaning that until clean energy gets cheaper (which it will), anyone with a home to heat, a Civic to fill, or a refrigerator to keep cool is going to take a hit in the wallet. Meaning the voting public isn’t going to be happy about putting a price on carbon. Meaning elected officials aren’t going to support it. (See: the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, a pretty weak carbon pricing plan that was still, more or less, dead on arrival.)

True, scientific—and economic—evidence now creates an even stronger case for urgent greenhouse gas reductions than it did even a year ago when Lieberman-Warner was introduced. And, true, leadership on Capitol Hill and in the White House are much more amenable to firm action on climate change than they were even on January 19th. (And that’s a whopper of an understatement.) But it’s still pretty much impossible to see a filibuster-busting 60 senators standing behind any proposal that—in the eyes of their respective constituencies—simply makes energy cost more.

Enter the Great Third Way, more formally known as cap-and-dividend. The cap part is familiar—a set number of pollution permits would be auctioned off, placing a firm, predetermined, and annually-dropping ceiling on carbon emissions. Cap-and-dividend’s first twist away from the typical cap-and-trade orthodoxy comes in where, exactly, the carbon is capped. Historically, cap-and-trade systems—like the acid rain program that so effectively reduced sulfur dioxide in the early 1990s—place a cap at the end of the industrial cycle, where the pollution left the smokestack. That’s easy enough to do when there are relatively few factories and plants emitting SO2.

This still leads to pricier power—the mine will charge more for the coal, and your utility will send along a higher bill for electricity. Which brings us to the meat of this “third way”—the dividend.

All (or most) of the revenue raised from carbon permit auctions would go back, in equal shares, to the American people. Barnes calls it an “Atmospheric Trust” that would work like the Alaskan Permanent Fund, which sends everyone in the state a check each year for their share of oil revenue.


We’ll soon find out. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) is introducing a bill this week that would cap carbon emissions by 2012 and distribute 90 percent of revenue from an “upstream” auction directly to Americans in the form of monthly dividend checks. Van Hollen already has one supporter in Barnes, who called the bill “beautiful.” Time to see if the American public and their elected reps agree.

http://www.capanddividend.org/

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email: Bill.St.Arnaud@gmail.com
twitter: BillStArnaud
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Obama orders 28% reduction of government-wide GHGs - Government CIOs are under the gun

[As I have blogged previously Government and other not-for-profit sector CIOs such as universities are soon going to be under the gun as the primary agents for reducing GHG emissions in their respective organizations. Information Technology (IT) is responsible up to 50% of the electrical consumption in most of these organizations. But IT has the most tools at hand and greatest flexibility in order to reduce its carbon footprint. Compared to reducing our carbon footprint in other aspects of our lives, IT should be relatively easy. As mentioned in this press release the Government is the single largest energy consumer and it government has a responsibility to its citizens to reduce its own footprint. This is a fantastic annoucement by Obama but is undermined by his own administrations activities where the GSA , NSA and NCRA are build mamoth data centers powered solely by coal fired electrcity in Utah, Wyoming etc . See http://green-broadband.blogspot.com for more details- BSA]



http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/30/obama-federal-government-wide-energy-emissions-cut/

WASHINGTON, DC - President Barack Obama today announced that the Federal Government will reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution by 28 percent by 2020. Reducing and reporting GHG pollution, as called for in Executive Order 13514 on Federal Sustainability, will ensure that the Federal Government leads by example in building the clean energy economy. Actions taken under this Executive Order will spur clean energy investments that create new private-sector jobs, drive long-term savings, build local market capacity, and foster innovation and entrepreneurship in clean energy industries.

As the single largest energy consumer in the U.S. economy, the Federal Government spent more than $24.5 billion on electricity and fuel in 2008 alone. Achieving the Federal GHG pollution reduction target will reduce Federal energy use by the equivalent of 646 trillion BTUs, equal to 205 million barrels of oil, and taking 17 million cars off the road for one year. This is also equivalent to a cumulative total of $8 to $11 billion in avoided energy costs through 2020. "

As the largest energy consumer in the United States, we have a responsibility to American citizens to reduce our energy use and become more efficient," said President Obama. "Our goal is to lower costs, reduce pollution, and shift Federal energy expenses away from oil and towards local, clean energy."

Federal Departments and Agencies will achieve greenhouse gas pollution reductions by measuring their current energy and fuel use, becoming more energy efficient and shifting to clean energy sources like solar, wind and geothermal. Examples of agency actions that are underway are available on the White House Council on Environmental Quality website and can be found at www.whitehouse.gov/ceq .

Cybera to deploy solar powered data center node for Earth Observation Science

Cybera to Host Solar-Powered Node in Canada's First "Green" Internet

http://cybera.ca/cybera-host-solar-powered-node-canadas-first-green-internet

(January 25, 2010 – Calgary, AB) – Cybera, a non-profit organization accelerating Alberta's competitive advantage research and development, will host the Calgary node for Canada’s first “green” powered internet network. The GreenStar Network Project, an alliance of Canada's leading IT companies, universities and international partners, has been funded by CANARIE, Canada’s research and innovation network, to develop an internet network where the nodes will be powered entirely by wind and solar energy.

GreenStar nodes are small datacentres-in-a-box which are solar-powered and connected to the research network infrastructure with optical fibre. Cybera will install, configure and maintain a solar-powered node in Calgary as part of the GreenStar Network. Cybera is investigating host locations in the University of Calgary’s Research Park.

"This ties in perfectly with Cybera's mandate to support and drive the development of innovative cyberinfrastructure," said Robin Winsor, Cybera President and CEO. "At the same time, it lets us contribute to the goal of building sustainable, energy-smart infrastructure."

GeoChronos, a Cybera project enabling Earth Observation Science researchers to share scientific data and applications via a web portal, will be one of the GreenStar Network’s first users. In 2008, GeoChronos received approximately $900,000 from CANARIE in the first round of its Network-Enabled Platforms program. CANARIE continues to be a supporter of GeoChronos. The Grid Research Centre at the University of Calgary, a Cybera partner, will contribute to the GreenStar Network’s research into carbon-based management of virtual machine mobility. The network’s rollout, led by the Université du Quebec's École de technologie supérieure (ETS) in Montreal, began this month.

"We are incredibly proud to launch the GreenStar Network under the leadership of CANARIE’s Green IT Pilot program,” said Dr. Mohamed Cheriet, Director of Synchromedia at ÉTS and spokesperson for the GreenStar Network. “The GreenStar Network has come together to develop low-carbon technologies, including renewable energy like wind and solar-powered networks, virtualization, carbon quantification procedures, and tools to ensure ICT’s carbon footprint remains under control and doesn’t increase as the world becomes more and more reliant on information and communications technologies."

CANARIE’s Green IT Pilot program has allocated $2.4 million in funding for four ground-breaking Green IT projects aimed at reducing ICT’s carbon footprint and measuring the impact of ICT and cyberinfrastructure on university electrical consumption. The Greenstar Network was the program’s largest funding recipient, receiving $2 million to develop its data network.

"CANARIE has always been a global leader in high-speed networks that enable research and innovation. Now, these Green IT initiatives demonstrate how CANARIE is once again trailblazing the next evolution of networks that are committed to both high performance and the environment," said CANARIE President Guy Bujold.

Participants in the GreenStar Network Project include the Canadian Standards Association, Climate Change Services; the Grid Research Centre, University of Calgary; RackForce Networks Inc.; Prompt Inc.; BastionHost Inc.; Cybera Inc.; Université du Québec a Montréal; ideal Consulting Inc.; Communications Research Centre; and Inocybe Technologies Inc.

email: Bill.St.Arnaud@gmail.com
twitter: BillStArnaud
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IEEE to develop standards for CO2 offsets from Hydro and Wind Power Projects

[This is important news for organizations who are looking to relocate their computers and servers to data centers powered by renewable energy sources. Having a standard set of criteria for offsets from hydro and wind power facilities will go a long way in being able to earn CO2 offsets to pay to move the computer equipment to these facilities. Thanks to Tom Bauman of ClimateCheck for this pointer -- BSA]

IEEE Begins Work on Standard for Quantifying Greenhouse Gas Emission Credits from Hydro and Wind Power Projects

http://standards.ieee.org/announcements/ieeeP1595_greenhouse.html


Contact:
Karen McCabe, IEEE-SA Marketing Director
+1 732-562-3824, k.mccabe@ieee.org

PISCATAWAY, N.J., USA, 2 September 2009 -- The IEEE has begun work on a standard which will help hydro- and wind-power projects calculate greenhouse gas (GHG) emission credits.

The standard, IEEE P1595(TM), "Standard for Quantifying Greenhouse Gas Emission Credits from Small Hydro and Wind Power Projects, and for Grid Baseline Conditions," will establish an internationally acceptable basis for measuring, evaluating and quantifying the eligible, real, measurable, verifiable, and unique reduction in CO2 emissions attributable to the specific generation technologies of wind power and small hydro, for use in emissions trading systems.
In addition, the standard will help provide an answer to the generic question, how can one country or jurisdiction to a greenhouse gas emissions trade be assured and satisfied that it is getting real and true value for a purchased GHG emissions credit from another country or jurisdiction.

The standard will use Project Protocols for Wind Power; Small Hydro and Grid Baseline established by Natural Resources Canada as its seed documents.

IEEE P1595 is sponsored by the Energy Development & Power Generation committee of the IEEE Power & Energy Society.


About the IEEE Standards Association
The IEEE Standards Association, a globally recognized standards-setting body, develops consensus standards through an open process that engages industry and brings together a broad stakeholder community. IEEE standards set specifications and best practices based on current scientific and technological knowledge. The IEEE-SA has a portfolio of over 900 active standards and more than 400 standards under development. For information on the IEEE-SA, see: http://standards.ieee.org.




email: Bill.St.Arnaud@gmail.com
twitter: BillStArnaud
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More on how Government CIOs can play leadership role addressing climate change

Increasingly many government agencies around the world are building data centers in distant locations in order to get access to large feeds of affordable power. Vivek Kundra, the Federal CIO points out the federal data centers have doubled their energy use. In a recent talk he stated he is actually anti-data center growth for the traditional model. There are 8 GSA data centers, and 23 homeland security data centers. All built on old models with 100s of millions dollars spent to build data centers the size of city block. There needs to be a new way where there are lower costs and a a greener impact.

The NSA new data centers in Utah and Texas are good examples of this trend as well as NCAR's new data center in Wyoming. Most governments around the world are building new data centers to consolidate servers and address the insatiable demand for more data and storage. Each one of these data centers will consume the power equivalent to the entire municipality of Salt Lake City (about 180,000 souls). In many ways, the data centers are becoming the new industrial heavy users of power, especially as the old manufacturing sector slowly declines and is hollowed out from competition and globalization. Unfortunately most of these new data are using coal based power and now are some of the single biggest new sources of CO2 on the planet.

As the world leaders look to address the challenge of climate change one simple gesture would be a commitment that all new public sector data centers should be built where they can use 100% renewable energy.
Forget about all this silliness with respect to energy efficiency, LEED buildings and low PUE ratios. Locating data centers in jurisdictions with renewable power is the most important step governments can take to reduce their respective carbon footprint. As a minimum government CIOs should not be increasing their nation's carbon footprint by building these facilities in jurisdictions that are entirely dependent on coal fired electricity. For those who are interested I am undertaking a study looking at how government and business CIOs can deploy an internal carbon and energy trading scheme to promote adoption of IT tools to reduce the carbon footprint within their organizations
http://www.slideshare.net/bstarn/government-cio-and-climate-change


Data Center energy use growing while overall industrial use declines

http://www.greenm3.com/2009/11/data-center-energy-use-growing-while-overall-industrial-use-declines.html

NSA's new data center will consume same amount of power as entire Salt Lake City

http://www.greenm3.com/2009/11/vendor-information-for-nsa-utah-data-center.html

Vivek Kundar the Federal CIO speech on government data centers

http://www.greenm3.com/2010/01/cloud-computing-open-source-containers-federal-govt-new-appsgov-model.html

The UK Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) also indicates a future direction of how the cost of energy will also government computer operations. The CRC is a groundbreaking piece of legislation designed to help the UK meet its carbon reduction targets by 2020. Basically, the CRC scheme will apply to organisations that had a half-hourly metered electricity consumption greater than 6,000 MWh per year in 2008. Organisations qualifying for CRC would have all their energy use covered by the scheme, this includes emissions from direct energy use as well as electricity purchased. Initially, it is estimated, around 5,000 organisations will qualify, including supermarkets, water companies, banks, local authorities and all central Government Departments.

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/what_we_do/lc_uk/crc/crc.aspx

My talk on the important leadership role government CIOs can play in addressing climate change

http://www.slideshare.net/bstarn/government-cio-and-climate-change

e-mail: Bill.st.arnaud@gmail.com

twitter: BillStArnaud

Blog: http://green-broadband.blogspot.com

Physicist Models Humanity as "Heat Engine" Argues Difficult to Decrease CO2

[While I agree with some of Garrett's conclusions I am remain optimistic that we can decouple energy consumption from CO2 emissions - hence this is I argue energy efficiency is attempting to solve the wrong problem. I agree with him that energy consumption seems to be constant associated with a growing economy and there is little that we can do to change that. But what we need to do is use energy that produces little or no CO2. Thanks to Jerry Sheehan for this pointer-- BSA]

Physicist Models Humanity as "Heat Engine" Argues Difficult to Decrease CO2


ScienceDaily (Nov. 24, 2009) — In a provocative new study, a University of Utah scientist argues that rising carbon dioxide emissions -- the major cause of global warming -- cannot be stabilized unless the world's economy collapses or society builds the equivalent of one new nuclear power plant each day.


"It looks unlikely that there will be any substantial near-term departure from recently observed acceleration in carbon dioxide emission rates," says the new paper by Tim Garrett, an associate professor of atmospheric sciences.

[..]

The study -- which is based on the concept that physics can be used to characterize the evolution of civilization -- indicates:

* Energy conservation or efficiency doesn't really save energy, but instead spurs economic growth and accelerated energy consumption.
* Throughout history, a simple physical "constant" -- an unchanging mathematical value -- links global energy use to the world's accumulated economic productivity, adjusted for inflation. So it isn't necessary to consider population growth and standard of living in predicting society's future energy consumption and resulting carbon dioxide emissions.
* "Stabilization of carbon dioxide emissions at current rates will require approximately 300 gigawatts of new non-carbon-dioxide-emitting power production capacity annually -- approximately one new nuclear power plant (or equivalent) per day," Garrett says. "Physically, there are no other options without killing the economy."

Getting Heat for Viewing Civilization as a "Heat Engine"

Garrett says colleagues generally support his theory, while some economists are critical. One economist, who reviewed the study, wrote: "I am afraid the author will need to study harder before he can contribute."

Garrett treats civilization like a "heat engine" that "consumes energy and does 'work' in the form of economic production, which then spurs it to consume more energy," he says.

[..]

Garrett says his study's key finding "is that accumulated economic production over the course of history has been tied to the rate of energy consumption at a global level through a constant factor."

That "constant" is 9.7 (plus or minus 0.3) milliwatts per inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar. So if you look at economic and energy production at any specific time in history, "each inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar would be supported by 9.7 milliwatts of primary energy consumption," Garrett says.

Garrett tested his theory and found this constant relationship between energy use and economic production at any given time by using United Nations statistics for global GDP (gross domestic product), U.S. Department of Energy data on global energy consumption during1970-2005, and previous studies that estimated global economic production as long as 2,000 years ago. Then he investigated the implications for carbon dioxide emissions.

"Economists think you need population and standard of living to estimate productivity," he says. "In my model, all you need to know is how fast energy consumption is rising. The reason why is because there is this link between the economy and rates of energy consumption, and it's just a constant factor."

Garrett adds: "By finding this constant factor, the problem of [forecasting] global economic growth is dramatically simpler. There is no need to consider population growth and changes in standard of living because they are marching to the tune of the availability of energy supplies."

To Garrett, that means the acceleration of carbon dioxide emissions is unlikely to change soon because our energy use today is tied to society's past economic productivity.

"Viewed from this perspective, civilization evolves in a spontaneous feedback loop maintained only by energy consumption and incorporation of environmental matter," Garrett says. It is like a child that "grows by consuming food, and when the child grows, it is able to consume more food, which enables it to grow more."


[..]
Perhaps the most provocative implication of Garrett's theory is that conserving energy doesn't reduce energy use, but spurs economic growth and more energy use.

"Making civilization more energy efficient simply allows it to grow faster and consume more energy," says Garrett.

He says the idea that resource conservation accelerates resource consumption -- known as Jevons paradox -- was proposed in the 1865 book "The Coal Question" by William Stanley Jevons, who noted that coal prices fell and coal consumption soared after improvements in steam engine efficiency.


Garrett says often-discussed strategies for slowing carbon dioxide emissions and global warming include mention increased energy efficiency, reduced population growth and a switch to power sources that don't emit carbon dioxide, including nuclear, wind and solar energy and underground storage of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning. Another strategy is rarely mentioned: a decreased standard of living, which would occur if energy supplies ran short and the economy collapsed, he adds.

"The problem is that, in order to stabilize emissions, not even reduce them, we have to switch to non-carbonized energy sources at a rate about 2.1 percent per year. That comes out to almost one new nuclear power plant per day."

"If society invests sufficient resources into alternative and new, non-carbon energy supplies, then perhaps it can continue growing without increasing global warming," Garrett says.


--