Google Going Greener? Heat, Electricity, and Your Business

We often think of the online world as a greener option than print media since there isn’t anything to recycle or throw away, but at the end of the day, keep in mind that all of those websites you visit run on servers. You aren’t just using electricity to run your own computer – websites us electricity just to be online.

One of the biggest (perhaps THE biggest) companies online is Google, and while a single website like this one actually shares a server with may other websites, it takes Google over 450,000 servers in 20 data centers around the world to run their site! Servers aren’t just electricity vampires – they also general a ton of heat (more than the average laptop and even more than the average PC). In 2005, Google spent over $7 billion on electricity.

Recently, Google announced that they’re looking at a unique greener option – floating data centers. These servers would be located on barges seven miles off shore, powered by renewable wave energy. Here’s how it works (straight from Google):

We’re still a bit away, technologically-speaking, for this to be a possibility, but Google seems to be extremely interested – to the point where they’ve registered a patent for their floating data center design.

There could be some problems though. I have a few questions:

• What happens if there’s a storm? A floating data center seems highly unprotected.
• How will server problems be fixed? Things break all the time, but if your data center is in the middle of the ocean, that poses some problems for Google to fix these issues quickly.
• What if there’s a leak or break somewhere? It seems to me that a leak or break could cause the entire center to short, which could not only cause outages, but also a dangerous electrical situation.
• What about pollution and environmental impacts? As we’ve discussed, these servers give off a TON of heat. Won’t that have implications on the ocean life in that area?

Of course, I’m sure that Google’s technological and environmental teams are addressing these questions and others that I haven’t even thought to ask. This is not something they’re going to just do without thinking about first!

I posted this story, however, to not only tell you about Google’s plan, but also to hopefully inspire you to think about your heat and electricity too. Sometimes, there are out-of-the-box solutions to your energy usage problems. A floating data center might now work for you, but don’t be afraid to brainstorm non-traditional solutions with your employees.

[hat tip]