Does the NSA Need More Electricity? 324
An anonymous reader writes "The Baltimore sun (NSA watchers can't live without it) reports that the NSA worries about overloading the Baltimore energy grid if it were to install new computing capacity at it's Fort Meade HQ. This includes two multi million dollar supercomputers. Some systems are reportedly not getting the cooling they need. The temperature in NSA buildings is raised two degrees to conserve energy, according to the article. The NSA is Baltimore Gas and Electric`s (BGE) biggest customer the sun reports. Former NSA employees fear that a power outage at Fort Meade would have worse consequences than the 2000 "information overload" related outage. The NSA does apparently not have the backup power generation capacity to power the whole facility during power outages. Some point a finger at a new mall build in the area, but a BGE spokesman says the mall is "fairly easily accommodated". Some sources say the problem was identified in the late 90`s. But "keeping the lights on" wasn't a priority. A $4 million computer upgrade to the system that allocates power was postponed for budgetary reasons. (the NSA budged is estimated at $8 Billion) The article reports that the budget documents for listening posts around the world report similar infrastructural problems, in the budgets for 07 as well as previous years. It should be noted that the huge "groundbreaker" IT infrastructure upgrade program is reportedly over budget and late, but not yet fully operational."
Back it up (Score:5, Interesting)
I've worked on several jobs for credit card companies, as an example, an office with 4,000 workstations. The power was connected to the electric company's grid in two different places from two different substations; in case one of the substations went out, the whole building could be handled from the one still going. All of the servers and almost all of the workstations were connected to a UPS with 15 minutes of batteries AND an emergency generator with 24-hours of fuel. About half of the non-computer loads, including elevators, emergency lights, sump pumps, 1/3 of the occupants air-conditioning, all of the A/C for the server rooms, etc. were connected to the emergency generators. Even the refrigerators and freezers in the cafeteria were on emergency power. And this was for a call center. But a facility upon which our national security supposedly depends can't handle power surges?
Re:waste (Score:3, Interesting)
It had the computing power of a pocket calculator, but used 10kW 3phase power. (not kidding. It was from the late 60s.)
But nobody threw it out because it was directly communicating with some other equipment via propritary interfaces...
Thank the environmentalists (Score:4, Interesting)
I live in BGE's service area. Never had a problem, but they've been stressing for years they wanted to build a new power plant and the environmentalists won't let 'em.
Re:The NSA is a spy organization, but do we need i (Score:3, Interesting)
If the only thing men wanted was to live their short lives peacefully and raise a family, then nobody would care if he was being watched. It is the need to hide something that calls for privacy.
An organization like the NSA is not waste - it is, IMHO, the future. The next thing is to make all their collected information publically accessible. Imagine a world where you could surf the net from work, and see what your wife was doing at home and what your children were learning at school - knowing all that time that your children and your wife can see what you are doing at work.
Of course the only reason this world would appear unattractive to someone is if he had something to hide. Imagine no lying and no cheating. You do something and you stand by it. Proudly.
Re:Free cooling (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.toronto.ca/environment/initiatives/coo
Just to quote a snippet from the page:
"Enwave Energy Corporation, through partial financial backing from the City of Toronto as one of the two shareholders of Enwave, developed the Deep Lake Water Cooling system that uses the cool energy in cold water to air-condition high-rise buildings in downtown Toronto. The system benefits the City by:
* reducing energy consumption by up to 90 per cent (compared to conventional chillers)
* reducing carbon dioxide emissions
* improving the water supply by using new intake pipes that are deeper
* investing in a corporation in which the City is a shareholder
Enwave's three intake pipes draw water (4 degrees Celsius) from 5 kilometres off the shore of Lake Ontario at a depth of 83 metres below the surface. Naturally cold water makes its way to the City's John Street Pumping Station. There, heat exchangers facilitate the energy transfer between the icy cold lake water and the Enwave closed chilled water supply loop.
The water drawn from the lake continues on its regular route through the John Street Pumping Station for normal distribution into the City water supply. Enwave uses only the coldness from the lake water, not the actual water, to provide the alternative to conventional air-conditioning.
Additional data found on the page (such as savings in energy (precise figures for Metro Hall in toronto) and other stuff. Enjoy.
Erik
Re:Seems silly they don't have their own generator (Score:4, Interesting)
They also "jack up" their prices for the Government because of the ridiculous amount of red tape required to do anything for the Federal government. If you're working for a small company, you just go to the owner and ask for approval for new hardware. For the Government, you have to do through several levels and maybe wait a year or five. Also, there are ridiculous and invasive regulations that Federal contractors have to follow, like the Drug-Free Workplace Act that requires them to set up piss-testing programs for their employees, and (less true today) have affirmative action programs to ensure hiring of minorities and women (thus possibly causing more competent workers to get passed up in the name of equality).
If I were doing work for a dementedly demanding entity like that, I, too, would charge 300% of my usual rate as compensation for the headache I'd wake up with every morning.
-b.
"We" do not want an efficient, effective govt. (Score:5, Interesting)
No, seriously. As someone who has worked in government procurement before, you would be absolutely amazed to see all of the nonsense the USG must go through - according to law - to purchase anything beyond small office supplies (and heaven help you if you need to purchase those in bulk).
A few examples:
- It took one month to have a lock changed. Not a lock at a secure facility or anything of the sort, mind you, and preparing the paperwork to create the order form and see that it had all the necessary approvals cost more than changing the stupid lock. But don't worry - that lock was changed without any corruption at all.
- Time to wait for a request for most small items (purchases below $2,500) is at least a month, usually 6 weeks. If it is above $2,500 (and, no, you cannot purchase items individually if it's above that amount - they all have to be on the same PO), at least three bids must be made from different companies and if it is a piece of technical equipment, committees must be formed so that everyone can sit around and argue about what their requirements are for a few months rather than making the process quick. If you're buying a lot of new computers, expect a lag of several months - or a year.
- Let's not even get into the various acts that, on top of that, prevent the government from buying from certain entities, encourage it to purchase from others (minorities, women owned businesses, etc.), and the other groups the government creates to "streamline" ordering that do nothing more than add an additional step to the process.
(Above was with the State dept. - your mileage may vary)
The simple fact is that the government cannot act like an efficient, effective corporation and simply purchase stuff because it has been buried in red tape. Why is it buried? "We" buried it. By "we", I mean American citizens, but especially their elected officials.
Americans taxpayers, reasonably, don't want to pay taxes into a government that is corrupt and practices cronyism. This makes sense and, in spite of all the cynical things you hear on Slashdot, it must be noted that the U.S. government has very low corruption levels when compared to others, and we generally do hold those who break the law accountable for it. However, this (very) relatively corruption-free government comes at a high price - efficiency. An honest employee who needs to get his or her hands on equipment quickly simply can't do it - it must be passed through miles and miles of red tape first. Legislators always love to jump on these little matters when they com up, pound their desks, and demand something be done to stop it, which leads to yet more red tape.
It's a sad, sad day when a purchase must pass through the hands of at least 5 very busy people (and often pass through their hands more than once) to get approval. But that's what I saw.
I left asking myself - is it worth allowing a little corruption to avoid wasting billions a year in administrative fees? I'm not sure I could give that question a qualified "yes", but sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease.
**** NOT opening a can of beans here, so don't even start ****
After seeing how the government does things with purchasing as an intern, I can almost understand the no-bid contracts with Haliburton. Just the bidding process on these contracts would've taken YEARS, and not met the policymakers' desired timeline (which you can see as right or wrong).
**** NOT opening a can of beans here, so don't even start ****
Re:The NSA is a spy organization, but do we need i (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe you don't, but most humans have egos. Thus, if they'd be constantly afraid of having their failures held up for all to see, they'd seldom if ever try anything new. Also, how long would the data collected be available? Are you denying people who made mistakes in their youth the ability to start a new life of which they would be proud? Why should it be easier for some schmuck with a grudge to dig up something that happened 20 years ago and use it against you? Not to mention the potential for stalking, harrassment, etc, by various crazy people.
-b.
Smarter energy (Score:3, Interesting)
The solution is to make energy expensive, we'll then start to see more use of heat pumps, district heating, district cooling systems etc. Efficiency levels will go from thirty something percent up to eighty something percent.
Re:Back it up (Score:3, Interesting)
Duplicating the power company is expensive.
To power a house or an office building, it is very expensive. However, with the amount of power they're using, the natural economies of scale will apply. They might even SAVE some money by generating their own.
They have 350 acres to work with and a dependably large constant demand, so instead of fairly uneconomical diesel generators (such as a typical backup generator for a hospital or data center), they can build a base load plant and just use the grid to handle the non-essential peaks. That way if they lose the grid, their main operations continue and they only lose auxillary power.
Re:waste (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Free cooling (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't believe you got modded insightful. I'll be looking out for it while metamodding. You're either a damned good troll that's managed to stick it out in this place for a long time, or you really, honestly believe that load of rubbish. There are millions of government jobs for the families of our elite. There are millions more in various utility and semi-government corporations throughout the country. You really wouldn't believe all the places they manage to hide and get paid more than their lives will ever be worth.
All of that being said, the NSA is not one of those places. While you may argue about the morality of their participation in supposed spying on citizens or about the morality of current or past military, political, and diplomatic conquests they've aided, you can't argue that they aren't absolutely the top tier of their profession in the world. I don't know of a single more experienced, qualified, or intelligent collection of mathemiticians and computer pros in the world, and that's not an appeal to ignorance. They've found and fixed mistakes in common products such as linux and PGP that have gone undetected by the rest of the population for decades, and they've done it in their free time as a hobby.
Bitch and moan about the politics all you want, but have the professional courtesy and respect to acknowledge skilled professionals wherever they are. The CIA and KGB never got along well, but you'll find they both speak highly of each other. That's the mark of a professional, my friend.
Re:waste (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The NSA is a spy organization, but do we need i (Score:3, Interesting)