Vice President of marketing and sales at Verne Global, an Icelandic data center company, Lisa Rhodes recently said that:
“According to the Environmental Protection Agency, data centers now account for 1.5 percent of all electricity consumption in the U.S. and by 2020, carbon emissions will have quadrupled to 680 million tons per year, which will account for more than the aviation industry.”
Greenpeace says that when companies do not choose environmentally friendly energy sources to fuel their servers, a huge environmental threat is posed. So who did Greenpeace contact, in order to get the ball rolling onto greener ground? Facebook’s Mr. Zuckerberg!
Greenpeace International communications manager, Daniel Kessler did compliment the social networking juggernaut for its energy-efficient data center, however, he called the choice of power supplier “terrible.”
Kessler, in a telephone interview with the New York Times said:
“Facebook is emblematic of a sector that is increasingly thirsty for energy but is satisfying that thirst with dirty fuels…Facebook and other I.T. firms can help to make the Internet green, but first they need to move away from coal.”
Facebook recently built a data center in Prineville, Oregon – powered by PacifiCorp, a company which gets 58 percent of its energy from burning coal.
According to Greenpeace advocate, Kate Ross:
“Storing and transmitting messages, pictures and other information through Facebook uses a vast and rapidly increasing amount of energy, as the network continues to expand. Its membership passed the 500 million mark in July this year.”
Well, Greenpeace told Zuckerberg, he will lose 500,000 of his “friends” (the number of Facebookers who support the Greenpeace campaign), if he continues to power the social networking site using coal. The campaign is encouraging Zuckerberg to switch to wind energy.