Solar Powered Colocation 160
ferlatte writes: "There's a colocation facility available that uses nothing but solar power for their machines and local net. An article about them is available at ENN, and their own site is at Solarhost.com. Enviro-geeks might be interested." This would be fantastic for all the brick-and-mortar businesses breaking on to the Web that put 'environmentally friendly' stickers on their products in the eighties.
Worth the cost? (Score:2)
Will people be willing to pay a premium to have their websites hosted in a solar-powered facility? It seems to me that if an individual or business wanted to be more environmentally-friendly, there would be many more effective steps to take than using solar power for their websites. It may sound impressive to switch to this hosting company, but I'd think that, for example, a program to reduce power consumption in a home or office would probably end up helping the environment more.
Chevy Nova story is a myth (Score:2)
Re:Even more offtopic. (Score:1)
Oh well. Solar panels got nothing to do with all this shit. You can tell it from the subject line -- it says offtopic right there, see?
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Re:Well, it's about time (Score:1)
This is particularly cool news for me because I'm the IT guy at an ecological products/alt energy company. ;-) I'd love to have energy-saving hubs, switches and servers; if nothing else, reduced air conditioning bills could save us a substantial amount of money every year, and that kind of talk makes even skeptical folks smile.
We've got part of the office lighting and some of the computers on solar power now. We've found that the key to making it work involves more than just better/more efficient technology; it requires discipline as well--weaning ourselves away from the lure of instant-on products which are always consuming power, for instance.
http://www.jademountain.com [jademountain.com]Re:corporate apologism (Score:1)
I agree on the basis that large-scale deployment of photo-voltaics is expensive and land-consuming. Photovoltaics are best used in smaller devices, IMHO. Scroll up to my previous post in this article about using them in laptops/PDAs.
However, that doesn't completely rule out solar power as a means of large-scale (the buzzword in this post) energy production. Use the old parabolic-mirror-setup to reflect/focus sunlight onto a water pipe and use the traditional steam turbine method. It's been done before (with major problems, of course, with the mirrors.)
There are probably other methods of collecting solar energy that nobody has thought of as yet. But that doesn't mean the focus should remain solely on a star ~93 million miles off. (e.g. Iceland can't be the only place around with potential for Geothermic power, right?)
Better yet, maybe I can power a Palm with 4 hamster wheels. THE FUTURE IS IN SMALL RODENT POWER!
Excuse me, I have to go beat off several PETA stormtroopers.
Lead Batteries (Score:1)
Re:Reality check. (Score:2)
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solar power won't help here (Score:1)
How about co-location on pig farms.... (Score:1)
Pig farmers have a problem with gas given off by feces. This gas I believe can be used to power something can't it?
So with farmers facing ever increasing costs to operate, why can't a seconday market be created to use this "natural gas" (pun intended) to power (or supplement) current energy requirements.
So whenever you tell a farmer that energy costs are rising along with demand and he/she repies "No Shit", it's not a statement of the obvious. It's the farmers way of telling you what the problems is.
;)
Re:Well, it's about time (Score:2)
I think it is rather narrow minded of so called "enlightened" people from other countries laughing at Americans for being concerned over our Gas prices. The fact is, our entire economy is linked to energy prices at one point or another. If the price of fuel raises by 50%, then so too must the price of bread raise, after all, part of the cost is the distribution.
It's linked into everything. It's not about spending $2 more to go to grannies on the weekends, its about keeping the prices of goods and services consistant with our current pay scale. If the price of everything goes up.. well thats inflation, and that's bad.
Also, it's unfair to compare prices on purely a monitary basis. You should also take into consideration the overal economy of an area. If it costs me $600 a month to rent a small 2 bedroom apartment, and elsewhere it costs $300 to rent the same apartment, elsewhere a person making less than I would still have more buying power.
Laugh all you want... our economy is still stronger than yours.
Re:Reality check. (Score:1)
beer can cars (Score:1)
I love the simpsons.
Re:Other pollutants (Score:1)
No one can fix every problem, so you shouldn't blame this company for failing to fix every problem, when the rest haven't even attempted to fix a single one.
I wonder if they have a Big-Ass Diesel generator for backup? It's been rainy around here this summer.
Re:Even more offtopic. (Score:2)
You have this *exactly* back to front. Patent law (which is a subset of intellectual property law, btw, the two are not synonyms) covers designs for physical objects, not ideas. The only way in which software or algorithm patents manage to get through is by patenting "A system composed of a computer and software, where the software ...." -- a clear abuse of the system, IMO. Patent law works well for physical objects, as a compromise between intellectual freedom and the "promotion of the useful arts".
Note also that patent law on physical objects does not prevent innovators from studying and improving their design -- the whole point of patents is to bring intellectual property into the public domain and avoid the alternative, which is trade secrets. You can study a patented mousetrap, improve the design, and patent your improvement, so long as you declare the original mousetrap as prior art and pay appropriate licensing fees if you market your invention.
You probably ought to do a bit more research before publishing articles in the press.
Real issue is population (Score:2)
Re:Well, it's about time (Score:4)
Correct, but you have got a wrong example for environmental awareness.
I would call this company envrironmentally friendly if it was somewhere in Death Valley or similar. It uses prime VA land instead. A waste of prime agricultural/habitable land imho is almost as bad as burning coal and oil if not worse.
It uses solar batteries instead of helioconcentrators. They have
Re:Reality check. (Score:5)
Re:Reality check. (Score:1)
a solar cell today still takes more energy to manufacture than it will produce in its usable life.
Interesting... got any stats to back this up?
-Ciaran
corporate apologism (Score:2)
Diminishing returns also apply to oil, you know.
Re:Well, it's about time (Score:1)
So petrol is 75p here, that's [scratch, scratch] about $1.20. Hey, that's the same as back home, what are you Brits complaining about?
As thick as two short planks.
FatPhil
Re:Good? Bad? Ugly? (Score:2)
Where's the Open Source Solar Panel Initiative? I'll tell you; it's slightly less progressed than the Open Source Natalie Portman Initiative. That at least has a mailing list ...
Re:Reality check. (Score:1)
Another thing that supprised me when I read the New Scientist, was the fact that DAMs (which some people would consider good for the environment) produce 2 times more green house gases in the earily years then, as much as a coal fired powerstation in later years. The roting vegitation in stagant water produced alot of methane.
Re:Reality check. (Score:1)
and young trees accumulate carbon mass more quickly than old trees do.
Re:About solar power... (Score:1)
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Why go the whole hog? (Score:1)
There are other micropower sources of varying capacity, but still a lot greener than a central power station. For example, how about small gas-turbine units driven by natural gas? They exist now and can give power from 25Kw upwards. With only one moving part (the rotor), they are very reliable.
There is a place for solar and wind farms, but you need a *lot* of space for them.
Re:Solar seems nice,but what happens when we run o (Score:1)
Re:Well, it's about time (Score:1)
Re:Well, it's about time (Score:1)
Its stupid to say that I shouldn't be upset when asked to pay more money for something. Just because you already pay more doesn't mean that I should have to. Or would you have us price fix the entire globe, hmm?
Mod this up! (Score:1)
Inductive load? (Score:2)
Um, don't most computer power supplies contain a large capacitor to even out the power factor? Your power company would be Unhappy if you decided to plug a substantial inductive load into your wall socket.
Even if the computers themselves overlook this, a co-lo facility wouldn't. IIRC you're billed substantially above the standard rate for your power if you have an inductive load. This is why most industrial machinery takes care to add enough capacitance to get a power factor near unity. A co-lo facility would add this to its server racks if the power supplies themselves didn't handle it, to minimize hassle from the power company.
Well, it's about time (Score:3)
Let's face it -- government regulations aren't working. Every time big industry gets close to having to adopt a cleaner power source, they moan and groan about how it will ravage "the economy" (read: Lee Iacoca's bottom line) and the government backs down again. We need to make it economically unsound to pollute. Why don't we environmentally-minded consumers just stop buying polluting products like cars and aerosol sprays? If enough people refuse to put up with pollution, everyone will be forced to follow the way of these kind of pioneers.
S.O.S! (Score:1)
I am here to talk to you as the Vice-President of S.O.S., an important environmentalist movement.
Our enviornment is now facing the worst challenge to its continuing well-being to come since the creation of the Atom Bomb. This new threat is masquerading as a harmless device in most people's homes, schools, offices -- you just can't escape!
That's right, I'm talking about the Solar Panel. Sure, they may seem like handy things to have. They can power your calculator, your car, even your webpage hosting company.
But we of SOS (Save Our Sun!) know better. Studies show conclusively that the billions of hand-held calculators, wristwatches, and more using solar power are DESTROYING OUR PLANET!
Thousands of acres of previously vibrant rainforest are dying because they cannot get the sun they so deseprately need to flourish. Many third-world countries are suffering from a complete lack of sunlight now, and actually have to have it piped in from neighboring countries.
How will you feel in twenty years when you have to tell your child he'll never see the Sun because your generation used it all up on useless handheld calculators!?
We MUST put a stop to the wanton abuse of solar power immediately! Write your congressman. Write the president. Write the president of Texas Instruments! SMASH YOUR CALCULATOR! We must SAVE OUR SUN!
TAKE ACTION TODAY!
Other pollutants? BS! (Score:1)
2.ozone - any time you run an electric motor (fan, power supply, dustbuster, whatever) some atmospheric oxygen gets zapped into ozone, an element of smog
3.VOC's - Volatile Organic Compounds, which will be emitted from their new furniture and carpet over the next few years, unless they chose to go with solid wood furniture and simply stain or oil it (which I highly doubt)
While you're at it, why don't you add a fourth reason:
I mean, how can any firm be "100% environmentally- friendly" if they actually hire homo sapiens who go around inefficiently converting carbon-based food sources into smelly air polution?
Sarcasm aside, I think your points are pretty specious. Your point about ozone production, although technically accurate, is also misleading because the amount produced is so neglible. One car running for one day produces more NOx's and SO2 (the main constituents of smog) than a computer produces ozone in a lifetime. As for lead in computers, it's not so bad as you suggest. The lead is certainly not volatile (in the sense where it can vaporize into the atmosphere) and there are quite a few firms now that specialize in recyling computer parts, so that the lead doesn't necessarily have to go into a landfill at the end of its lifetime. And, as for your third point, I mean, come on: they can't be environmentally friendly because they use furniture? VOCs from carpets are NOT one of the pressing environmental dangers this world faces.
All in all, I think you are unnessarily pessimistic about solarhost, to the point where you seem to be saying, "Don't bother with any environmentally friendly firms, they can't be 100% correct, so let's stick with those coal burning power plants we use now!" The fact that you apply misleading scientific nomenclature to your argument makes you at worst a troll, and at best a misguided mouthpiece for the energy industry status quo.
Re:Cogeneration is a more efficient solution (Score:2)
Secondly, where did you get the 90% efficiency rating for small generators? I assume your comment about 'thermal included' means using the exhaust to heat the building in the winter.
The last time I checked, an automobile engine was quite a bit more efficient than a lawn mower engine. The heat losses of large engines are proportionally lower than the heat losses of small engines. (Squared - cubed law; losses go as the surface area - heat production as the volume. That's why elephants have a lower metabolic rate than mice; elephants are more efficient because they have lower heat loss per unit of mass.) Simply because of size, the large engines in central generating stations are more efficient than the small ones industry could use.
Re:Agreed. (solar cells versus solar power). (Score:2)
Re:Well, it's about time (Score:1)
Value is increasing use of PV (Score:1)
We need to increase the critical mass of PV users. PV technology benefits greatly from economies of scale (in R& D, production, marketing, etc.) helping to bring about the day when PV is cheaper than more polluting technologies even for companies that don't give a @#$% about the environment. (BTW, this is a solid economic justification for the government to subsidize PV.) PV has other advantages like portability and reliability.
Go Solarhost!
Makes perfect sense. (Score:1)
FatPhil
Re:Well, it's about time (Score:4)
At 6 foot 2 inches (177 cm) and 300 pounds, I cannot physically get behind the wheel of most small cars. Specifcally, this includes your Ford Fiesta. And I'm not the tallest person I know by any means (although I am one of the largest).
Also, in the US we have many people who live in rural areas the likes of which you have never seen in Europe. I used to live in a town where, to get to the nearest clothing store, you had to drive thirty miles. Groceries were ten miles, and at that overpriced. If you wanted to buy a computer, 50 miles (this was in rural Virginia -- we won't even talk about the western states.) A job good enough to afford a car was 50 miles as well.
At $6/gallon, a trip to work in the smallest car I can drive comfortably (which probably gets 23 miles/gallon highway) costs me $24.
Incidentally, in Europe your much higher population density also allows much better mass transit. In the US, mass transit is almost totally unavailable except in major metropolitan areas, and spotty even there. To get from Wakefield (where I used to live) to the nearest train station, you had to drive 30-40 miles. There was no other way.
Bear in mind that the UK is the size of one US state, and if memory serves has about 50% of the US population. Different circumstances require different approaches.
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Re:Way to go :P (Score:1)
Good? Bad? Ugly? (Score:2)
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Re:Reality check. (Score:1)
Not only that but they have a bank of batteries for backup. Needless to say the batteries are expensive to manufacrture, contain a lot of nasty chemicals and have to be replaced periodically. Considering that they have enough to run the whole operations for 5 days, one wonders just how enviromentally friendly they are.
Great, but... (Score:4)
"HTTP/1.1 Error 1000 - Sun is not shining"
It's so offtopic I want to cry. (Score:1)
Imagine a machine that, given a chemical formula and some supply of atoms, can synthesize a substance to that formula. Now the formula starts to look a lot like a computer program, doesn't it? Imagine further that such a machine is affordable to a regular household. Wow, no more expensive patented drugs!
Or imagine a machine that, given a drawing of a part and some metal, can produce such part... wait, such machines already exist! The drawing is a computer program, and your CNC-whatever is just another peripheral device!
All in all, I don't see a lot difference between programs and physical object designs. And whatever difference exists now will only diminish in the future.
Patent laws worked well for physical objects. Now they work not-so-well. In the future they may stop working at all.
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Re:Way to go :P (Score:2)
Re:Worth the cost? (Score:1)
One of the conundrums with solar power is that it would be a lot less expensive if the market was large enough to enable economies of scale and encourage investments in R&D. But of course the market is not large enough for that because the technology is expensive.
It sounds like this guy is well aware of the expense issue and is doing this largely as a proof-of-concept so that others can duplicate the model and thus increase the market for the technology.
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Way, way offtopic. (Score:1)
I can't tell you exactly what's wrong, but I feel that something is wrong. Maybe it's the 20 year span which should be more like 3 years nowadays. I don't know. Please forgive me this vagueness; I'm a programmer, not IP expert. For your amusement, here's an excerpt from my future article (currently in a very draft form) that I'm preparing for a local e-zine (local as in located in a small country very far from any civilization center). Share and enjoy. No copyright on this piece of shit :)
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Re:Power/Area (Score:1)
It also means they need ~20 square feet of sun-space for a 200W server (40 if they want to store enough solar energy to run overnight)
Re:Way, way offtopic. (Score:1)
Thinking from computer programs to physical objects doesn't really work.
Another Link (Score:1)
Re:Way to go :P (Score:1)
Actually, looking at the chart on top of the page, they seem to be confusing Watt-hours with Watts. So they mean to say Watt-hours/hr. Or just Watts. Oh well.
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Re:Way to go :P (Score:1)
Seems if they were truly interested in protecting the environment they would not have located their facility out in the fringes of the city. There are a large number of managed/co-lo facilities located much closer to the population that is maintaining them.
I would venture to say that if this facility is as large as the other facilities in the area that it is using just as much fossil fuel if not more than the others. This is because all of the employees have to get in their cars and drive from their homes in the city and suburbs out to the facility. They burn a lot more hydrocarbons and a lot more inefficiently than a power plant.
Definately another case of trying to make a profit off of environmental fads....
Re:Reality check. (Score:1)
More Trees.
Not a revolutionary concept there.
Re:Way to go :P (Score:1)
This is a perfect idea!!! Then, once you have these satellites and the proper base facilities to harness this power, you are able to produce so much energy that you can buy your way out of almost any problem and you will finally be free to crush Yang and his infernal Hive!!!!
Next step, Hydroponic satellites!!
Re:It's so offtopic I want to cry. (Score:2)
Machines are different precisely because they are specific physical objects which are not generalisable to allow the patent holder to lay claims to vast swathes of human knowledge. The patent holder can make enough of a return on his machine to compensate him for development and to encourage him (or her) not to keep it secret, and that's all. Patent law works for machines. It doesn't work for things which aren't machines, which is why we have copyright law for artistic works and trademark law for distinctive commercial marks.
In the context of computer programs, which are neither machines, artistic works nor commercial marks, we clearly need a different IP regime. I don't believe that "anything goes" is the best regime, and will only be convinced otherwise when I see a significant "open source" effort which isn't a clone of something produced elsewhere. But whatever that regime, it is unlikely to be then the best model for machines.
There are a lot of good books on this subject; some of which are only slightly longer than this series of books. I really recommend you read one.
Even more offtopic. (Score:1)
- Andrew Wiles may need very little, but think about particle accelerators and radiotelescopes. Should "intellectual property" derived from use of these little devices be protected?
- How many tons of rare metals Metallica needs to practice its arts? Should the fruits of their labour be free for all to use?
(Burn karma burn--
Potato powered? (Score:1)
Slashdot proved definitively that it could be done not that long ago.
About solar power... (Score:2)
Ego and Stupidity (Score:1)
Just remember that only 10% of the population goes to college. And the vast majority of the rest are more interested in knowing "The Rock" sang at the republican convention and that he's voting Republican, rather then knowing about some obscure bill, in wich they don't understand the terms anyway, that congress might pass about ecology.
wiZd0m
Re:corporate apologism (Score:2)
While driving around my home of Salt Lake City, I'm always disgusted at the waste of land due to urban sprawl, houses, parking lots, etc. I'm sure it's like that in every major US city.
After reading a /. article on electric cars a while back, I got to thinking. Why the hell can't PV cells be deployed on roof-tops (residential as well as business) and on covered parking areas? I mean, how much land does a typical Wal Mart parking lot waste? Why not cover it and put PV cells on the coverings? The cars are covered from sun, rain, snow -- and we get "free" electricity to boot!
Hell, if I had the money, I'd put PV cells on my roof and make a carport (i have no garage) to place more PV cells on it. If it weren't so damned expensive (and it wouldn't be if everyone did it), I'd run "off grid" as much as I could.
1 part gimmick, 1 part good sence (Score:1)
truth be told this is a selling gimick, but truth be told we really need more like this. Solor Arrays are still costint quite a bit of money. I studied environmentally concious housing this including houses with solar arrays and the cost was incredible. it did pay for it self but only in about 15 years. plus the house looked like a solar car with windows and a patio. not to mention the incredible cost for batteries. I still applaud this as a move in teh right direction. environmentally concious companies seeking web hosting should take the next step and support them.
Other pollutants (Score:2)
Now, let's get down to all the other pollutants that they didn't get rid of:
- lead - and lots of it, in each computer, in every monitor's glass, they'll still have lots of lead in their equipment, and I'm guessing they won't be extracting it before getting rid of their old hardware when it comes time
- ozone - any time you run an electric motor (fan, power supply, dustbuster, whatever) some atmospheric oxygen gets zapped into ozone, an element of smog
- VOC's - Volatile Organic Compounds, which will be emitted from their new furniture and carpet over the next few years, unless they chose to go with solid wood furniture and simply stain or oil it (which I highly doubt)
Simply put, it would be extremely expensive to start up a business (ANY business) that is 100% environmentally-friendly. While I would applaud this, what they have done is simply started yet another hosting service, and are serving up this solar powered schtick for publicity.Their hearts are in the right place, but unfortunately it's just not enough.
Re:Well, it's about time (Score:2)
Low-density power sources like solar, biomass, wind etc. have serious scaling problems. When you get less energy yield per pound of generator or square foot of plant space, you have to compensate by building more power infrastructure.
For someone who has supposedly worked with computers for many years you see to have totally missed the idea of a technological advance. The efficiency of solar panels has increased over the years, along with other advances such as transparent solar cells [bottomquark.com] which will allow them to become more ubiquitous. The efficiency demonstrated today is close to the efficiency required for solar power to become viable as a means for providing the power we need.
The construction costs (in money, environmental impact, and human lives lost) blow up a helluva lot faster than most alternate-energy fans realize.
Hello? Solar panels can be installed anywhere with minimal effort on a small scale, providing a reasonable amount of power. Given the right governmental initiatives people could be encouraged to use solar power, thus reducing the amount of traditional power sources required. It doesn't always have to be the strip mine approach you seem to suggest.
They're extrapolating from demonstration projects without thinking about second-order effects.
Which are...?
Re:Reality check. (Score:3)
Or better yet, build houses out of the trees. There are billions of tons of carbon locked up in homes aroudn the country.
Re:Worth the cost? (Score:2)
Photovoltaics are really best suited for remote applications, and places where it is really sunny. I think the solar power here is more of a publicity stunt than a "green" application.
Re:Other pollutants (Score:3)
If they are really trying to be efficient, they would also avoid the lead bearing CRTs for the (electrically) efficient LCD display. There really isn't an economical way to get rid of the lead used in the solder, though there are non lead bearing solders available, they are still expensive, more difficult to use, and largely unproven.
Re:Well, it's about time (Score:2)
The last I checked scotland still had quite a low population density and given that the bulk of journies in the US are shorter than in the UK (sorry no figures - cant remember where i read it) it seems pretty inexcusable having big fuel-hungry cars.
My point was that if US fuel prices did hit $5 or $6 a gallon then i'm quite sure that would destroy the american "But my car is just an exetension of my
Or maybe i'm wrong.
Ack! They got me! (Score:2)
2000-07-26 19:42:44 Clean energy to power VA-based ISP (articles,science) (rejected)
Los Bastardos!
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
Re:Way to go :P (Score:2)
sig:
Re:Reality check. (Score:3)
OK. Solar cells; yes. Solar power; no.
Solar cells are not currently designed to be used in power plants or anything of that nature because usually the cost of production does not justify the profit that one can make selling the electricity. You're part correct in that "it takes more energy to make them blah blah blah" which is not entirely true; but disregarding that whole statement let me ask you this:
Have you ever seen a solar power plant?
Barring a couple exceptions they don't use solar cells. They use semi-parabolic reflector arrays (not even mirrors really) that work kind of like a huge fresnel mirror to reflect sunlight up onto a gigantic black obelisk-looking tower that has pipes running through it. The reflectors are all on gimbals so they can move through the day to continue to reflect light onto this tower correctly. The thing gets HOT. Water is pumped through the pipes to make steam which drives turbines. It's the same electricity generation process as nuclear, coal/oil, and geothermal plants all use.
Diss on solar cells all you want - they really are kind of a black thorn in the side of environmentalists; but please do not rip on solar power.
~GoRK
Re:Lets take it further (Score:2)
Build a pipe that can carry the water from the high point to the low point (4 inch PVC is usually quite sufficient); build a small pond at the top fed by the stream and drained by the pipe; then put a turbine at the bottom of the pipe and discharge the water into the stream bed. In good locations you only have to interrupt the flow of water for a couple hours while your little pond fills up and you remove a whole 75 feet of streambed.
These are feeder streams; not creeks; not rivers. There are no fish. A bear can walk another 50 feet to drink water with no problems and if you're worried about harming a bunch of algae - well I dont know what to say to you. Obviously you are extremely mixed up.
MICRO-HYDRO not the Hoover Dam
~GoRK
Re:Great, but... (Score:2)
solarhost.com [solarhost.com] is running Microsoft-IIS4.0 on NT4 or Windows 98 [netcraft.com]
It would be much cooler to be running on Sun Servers instead though... ("We run Sun off the sun!") Thats why I just had to check.
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Re:Farm (Score:2)
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Re:Power drain (Score:3)
Most computers use switched-mode power supplies. These are a mainly INDUCTIVE load on the grid.
"When the grid was made", most of the stuff on it was (well, MOSTLY still IS) RESISTIVE loads like filament bulbs and heating elements.
I understand that the big increase in INDUCTIVE loads, though not providing an actual POWER CONSUMPTION problem, does provide some kind of a STABILITY problem. The grid people can add in all kinds of filters and stuff to balance the effect of too much inductive load, but then when any tiny section of the grid drops out, the resulting spike upsets the inductive loads and the filters in adjoining sections of the grid, which will also pop their big oil-filled grid fuses, which will in turn produce a spike that upsets THEIR neighbours, etc etc etc... In a nutshell, the entire grid is balancing on a knife edge, which is getting sharper and sharper every day as we add more inductive loads to it.
There's no problem actually generating ENOUGH POWER... The problem is keeping the whole grid stable.
This is probably less of an issue if, instead of using a big unstable grid, you're generating your own electricity from solar arrays, and filtering and balancing it however you want.
Re:Solar or Solaris (Score:2)
'' The Sun IS the computer! ''
Re:Power drain (Score:2)
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Re:Not a colocation facility (Score:2)
Not only that, it's an NT only web hosting facility. I don't think I'll be trusting my site to them anytime soon, then. Furthermore, they've got some pretty strict rules about what you're allowed to host there:
Whether or not you like porn, claiming that's it detrimental to society makes me wonder what else they deem objectionable.
yet another example of small mindedness (Score:2)
BTW, there is no corporate conspiracy not to improve them just like there isn't a corporate conspiracy not to "break the speed of light" It's called the laws of physics.
Oh yeh? And from which fundamental cosmological principles do you deduce your estimate of "the amount of power consumed by people per square meter"? You patronising prick. Who's this "people"? Chinese peasants? Indian cattle farmers? African subsistence farmers? Or are you, perhaps, referring to the amount of power consumed by the fat, greedy asses of USians, incapable of seeing the connection between ice cream and morbid obesity, let alone between carbon dioxide and global warming.
Listen, you dickhead, you ought to think about the implications of your point. If it's true (which I doubt) that the theoretical maximum amount of energy realisable per square metre is less than that used by humans, then we're fucked. We don't have any other sources of energy that aren't finite. Now what was that I was saying about future generations?
Reality check. (Score:3)
a solar cell today still takes more energy to manufacture than it will produce in its usable life.
Solarhost is a good step forward to establishing a market value for the use of green-er power, but considering that the energy demand spurred by the 'net needs to demonstrate a much larger energy payoff, I'd be more game for hosting businesses that promise the state of the art in energy efficienct servers. (And for chip manufacturers that pay more attention to their wattage requirements and not worry so much about hertzage.)
Re:Well, it's about time (Score:2)
I have seen people in scotland who live over 100 miles from the nearest supermarket, and on some of the outlying islands of scotland the petrol prices are closing in on $10 a gallon - not that they have many places to drive however
As it stands i'm presently a student intern commuting out of edinburgh to linlithgow (about 25 miles maybe) and my round trip daily costs me about £7 or $11.
Also whilst you might consider europe to have a higher overall population density you will also find that we dont have the big central hubs of population that america tends to have. Instead we have lots of spread out small villages which are equally hard to service as regards public transport. Where my parents live, about 30 mins drive from edinburgh, they have about 20 buses a week - and none at times that would support a regular job or social life.
Re:Well, it's about time (Score:2)
I think it's very narrowminded of you to believe that other economies dont depend on the price of fuel. I mean of course in scotland I grow my own wheat in the corner of my appartment so petrol prices dont affect the cost of bread... i mean come on!!
Property prices here also vary based on the economy of the area. I reasonable-sized two bedroom flat costs about £500-650 a month to rent in this area (about $1k) whereas you can pay a lot less elsewhere in the country.
In europe like most of the first world, half of the third world (and NOT the usa) are committed to lowering our output of polluting gases. As a result the governments here continually increase tax on fuel, we were hit by the OPAC increase too but it was comparatively insignificant against the general rises.
Also whilst we are having this argument lets not forget that scotland are one of the largest oil producers in europe.
When the oil starts to dry up and extraction costs raise 10-fold we will be in the fortunate position of only having a minor increase in price... then who'll be laughing as your economy topples. Sadly i'll be nearly dead by then
Re:Well, it's about time (Score:2)
OPEC aren't dumb. As the oil starts to run out they'll extract it slower and sell it higher either way you'll feel the brunt of their prices increases quicker.
I just think it's pathetic that a country like america cares sufficiently little about the environment not to ratify the 1990 kyoto treaty which gives them 18 years (8 left) to reduce emissions by a mere 7%.
We can sell you nice expensive scottish made oil, without OPEC we'd be in there
don't shoot me... (Score:2)
A: Sun boxen!
Mwahahahaha.
---------///----------
All generalizations are false.
Solar power for your laptop... (Score:2)
I don't have a laptop, and, therefore, don't have one of these, but here's what they say about it: "Output of 13.8 watts will run some models better than others. At a minimum it will triple your run time on the internal battery, or recharge in twice the time required by an AC plug." It doesn't support every laptop, but I think it may be worth checking out.
Re:Even more offtopic. (Score:2)
1. What's that got to do with solar panels? and
2. What's that got to do with solar panels?
All I'm saying is that any objection to protection on intellectual property in non-physical data doesn't necessarily translate to physical items.
Solar power for a laptop (Score:3)
here for solar charger [igo.com]
Green Power (Score:2)
The 'Captain Planet' view of polluters - that they are mutant villains who enjoy destroying the environment because they somehow thrive on polluted air and water is not very accurate.
In fact, automobiles are what cleaned up major cities in civilized countries. I know that is an outrageous sounding claim, but stop and think about it. If you really want to see pollution - replace all of the autos with horses.
The disease spread by the flies which thrive on horse droppings would make an impact not only on quality of life but on the length of it.
Every breath you take increases the CO2 load in the atmosphere with each exhale. Shall we all be required to wear some sort of catalytic converter to get rid of that CO2?
Sorry, I'm not going to apologize for that CO2. Life produces waste products - it can't exist without them. The 'My feces smell like roses' attitude of many people in the environmental movement is more than a little annoying.
Even plants pollute. The 'Blue Ridge' and 'Smokey' mountains in the US get their names from the layer of natural smog produced by the vegetation on them. (Ever smell a pine tree? That is a VOC you are smelling. Hit that VOC with sun light and you get smog.)
This is a Yin and Yang world; you can only do so well before you reach the limits of what you can do. Any solution creates an element of a problem.
Does this mean we ought to go back to the era of pre-pollution controlled cars? No - we can do better; for example adjust the ratio of NO to NO2 produced by the catalyst on a car and the automobile becomes a net DESTROYER of ozone; the amount of ozone created by exhaust products becomes less than the amount destroyed by combustion.
By the way, for all of you in Europe complaining about us here in the States - it sounds like old fashioned jealousy to me; everybody hates the rich kid. Quit lying to yourselves, if you could live the way we do here - you would do it in a heartbeat. The Europeans who move here tend to drive big cars and otherwise behave just like the natives do. Sorry, I refuse to accept a load of guilt for living in the US.
How many of you are willing to give up your Pentium III's and Athlons for less power consuming CMOS 8088's running at one Mhz? I thought so.
Re:Reality check. (Score:3)
You are either confused or trolling. The objective is to lower carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Loose carbon in the air is called soot, that's a different problem.
Photosynthesis is the best way we have to do that. Trees that have been cut down and turned into paper (or houses, as discussed below) no longer photosynthesize (duh). Recycling paper leaves more trees around to continue photosynthesizing. It also creates less pollution and uses less energy than making paper from trees.
Trees are also useful for harboring wildlife, preventing soil erosion, providing shade, blocking wind, and being generally pleasant all around. Hug a tree today.
"Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does." -- George Bernard Shaw
Re:Great, but... (Score:2)
Not sure how long the battery life is, but according to the article they're providing an SLA of "less than one hour downtime per year". That ain't half bad.
Re:Well, it's about time (Score:2)
Heh, you've obviously never been in Scandinavia then. It's quite the opposite around here...
More seriously I agree with the sentiment that we, the consumers, should be more aware of what we buy. NOT just for the external environment, but also for our internal environment (Just WHAT are we putting into our bodies anyways?) Consumer level awareness is very powerful in every ways, but who is controlling that awareness?
Also, be aware that creating hype and focusing only of one set of arguments, we will just do new mistakes. For example in Norway, we have just about made a power station out of every water-fall we got in this country. Also, there are plans on making huge arrays of wind-mills. This may be more "cleaner" than fossile fuels, but it's butt ugly and create problems for the surrounding area.
So what problems do we want to "get rid of", and what problems do we create by doing so? THAT should be on the agenda.
This applies to everybody, but especially to Germany. Being in a transition to abolish all nuclear power (deadline around 2020 IIRC), what will this be replaced with?
- Steeltoe
Lets take it further (Score:3)
Wind power was used in Europe in the middle ages to mill (meaning grind) grain. This is where the term windmill comes from.
Micro hydro power is probably the least common of the three readily used renewable energy sources, but it has the potential to produce the most power, more reliably than solar or wind power if you have the right site. This means having access to a river or creek that has a high enough flow to produce useable power for a good part of the year. Many creeks and rivers are permanent, ie, they never dry up, and these are the most suitable for micro-hydro power production.
Power drain (Score:3)
There was recently an article on CNN.com [cnn.com] about European electricity providers being very concerned that an explosion of planned colocation facilities will strain the European grid to its limit. This is something we (or I, anyway) don't think about very much. There is a lot of talk about all the money and energy saved by the efficiencies of the "Internet economy," but all the powerful (and hot) equipment running the "Internet economy" must be using an enormous amount of power.
Does anyone know of any reliable estimates to how much power is being consumed by Internet-related hardware?
-
Re:Reality check. (Score:2)
For instance, it was recently exposed that some manifactorers of the catalitic converters, which, if I recall correctly, is mandated on all new cars, where causing more polution than the use of the cat could ever prevent. In the end the proccesses where fixed, or different suppliers chosen.
There is an upside to this, if manifacture of solar pannels, rises then there will be more motivation to reduce costs and increase effecency.
Thad
Way to go :P (Score:4)
And here I always thought power plants produced electricity.. Well, I guess this is a good thing and all, but computers aren't exactly very power-hungry.. According to Alternative Power Systems [podnine.com], a home computer consumes 80-150 W/hr, which isn't much compared to air conditioning, electric heating, the light bulbs in your home, etc..
To make a difference with things like this, they need to suply power to a lot more than a small set of low-consumption computers. I seriously suspect these people of being more interested in doing CGI programming at 75$/hr [solarhost.com] than protecting the environment.. Besides, they're not even running Solaris [netcraft.com] :)
What we need are huge solar panels in space and wireless transmission of power down here to juice the stuff that eats a bit more than the websites.. But I guess that's not as profitable as selling "Powered by the sun" stickers to e-businesses ;)
--
Solar or Solaris (Score:3)
This give a whole new meaning to "This website is powered by Sun."
Agreed. (solar cells versus solar power). (Score:2)
As for mirror farms, they indeed rock.
Heat-pump (Peltier) power (Score:2)
The way the system works is this: A sealed water circuit is run from the basement of the home down to several feet under the frost-line. There, there is a cistern that stays at a very constant temperature, somewherein the 50 degree range, year round. The water is circulated to a cooling, or heating unit via a heat-exchanger (sort of like an A/C and radiator). The temp difference provides a good deal of the energy for the system, so there is less need for a power hungry heater/compressor.
Now, my question is this: Since electrical power is used to drive a Peltier type cooler (used for CPU cooling), and since an inverse temperature difference accross a Peltier junction (cooling the hot side, heating the cool side) will cause the device to generate power.. Why not use a large-scale Peltier device, in conjunction with a geothermal heat-pump as described above, to run the CoLo facility?
Seriously, put one in Greenland and Scandinavia, where the temperature difference is more significant than in the temperate zones... They already make heavy use of geothermal out there anyway...
Cogeneration is a more efficient solution (Score:2)
the huge area required to get reasonable amounts
of power, I think the solution to being environmentally friendly is to do two things:
generate power locally (avoiding distribution losses) and minimize power use.
1) Onsite generation of power avoids the ~30%
distribution losses. Running, say, natural gas
turbines onsite is cleaner than grid
generation sources as a whole (assuming you're
not in a nuclear area), and 30% efficiency gains
really add up. Waste heat in cogen can be used
to run chillers to cool the machines as well,
decreasing power demands. Onsite generation is
MUCH more reliable than grid power, assuming you
invest substantially in plant, staff, and
maintenance. Power can be sold back to the grid
if you are grid-connected. Cogen can be 90%
efficient if you include thermal energy, vs.
say 20% electrical energy from fuels burned in
remote power plants.
2) Minimize power use: this is tricky for a colo.
A lot of machines today are 200-300W each, but
there are alternatives, such as the Sun Netra T1
1U server, which only draw 30W. Decreased power
use also means decreased power consumption, which
is good.
One can also be efficient in cooling, using water-cooled chillers which heat-exchange with
natural bodies of water (lake, pond, North Sea),
only providing cooling where needed, rather than
in hallways, etc., using proper insulation of
cooled areas, etc. Using onsite power storage,
even if generally powered from the grid, allows
purchasing power during off-peak periods...do
something like pump from one reservoir to another
higher up during the night, and run a generator
from the flowing water during the day.
3) One could always move to Iceland
power is really nice. A lot of energy-intensive
industries were attracted to Iceland
(bauxite -> aluminum conversion, future planned
hydrogen production) by the US$0.01/KWh power. I
used to live in a country with US$0.35/KWh
electricity (Anguilla), and I must say, Iceland
is very attractive. Other good places would be
to set up near hydroelectric dams, in countries
like France which generate a lot of power from
clean nuclear reactors, etc.
If any of my customers cared enough to pay for it,
I'd put in a wind turbine and/or solar to augment
our cogeneration plant, to offset their own use.
I've experimented with wind and solar before,
and they're not suitable as a 100% site power
solution, but to augment fossil fuels, they're
quite nice.
Re:Well, it's about time (Score:3)
I just about died laughing when i saw on some online forum an american complaining about the fact it now cost him 20 bucks to fill up his pickup truck.
What the american government dont seem to realise (probably because they are too busy trying to get india and china to cut their own output) is that in other countries we do buy more efficient cars. Last time I was in california we were given a car with a 2.6 litre engine, which by british standards is pretty unthinkable. Considering i'm used to driving cars in the 1.1->1.3l bracket that's a big difference and it still doesn't stop me driving at 85 mph down the road to work.
Last time I filled my car up it cost me 40 bucks (25 pounds) (ford fiesta 1.3) and i'd love to see the effect on the USA if they were given our $6 gallon
We just can't win. (Score:2)
#ruet