Microsoft Pollutes To Avoid Fines 295
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft's Quincy data center, physical home of Bing and Hotmail, was fined $210,000 last year because the data center used too little electricity. To avoid similar penalties for 'underconsumption of electricity' this year, the data center burned through $70,000 worth of electricity in three days."
stupid inaccurate title as usual (Score:5, Informative)
It was a perfectly sane response to the situation, and btw the generation is from hydro so really what added pollution was there?
Re:stupid inaccurate title as usual (Score:0, Informative)
Mod Up!
Re:stupid inaccurate title as usual (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft signed an agreement to use X amount of electricity, almost certainly to get a lower price per kwh. They then used/purchased less electricity than they agreed to, and no longer qualified for the discount (hence the 210k "fine").
What's the problem here?
Can I get the same agreement for my home? I "promise" I'll use 1 billion kwh/month. Same pricing if I don't though.. right?
Re:stupid inaccurate title as usual (Score:5, Informative)
And actually, according to this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/technology/data-centers-in-rural-washington-state-gobble-power.html?pagewanted=all&_moc.semityn.www [nytimes.com]
That's the same argument Microsoft made. The utility company tried to call their bluff, Microsoft wasn't bluffing so they started their heaters, and the utility company folded.
Re:stupid inaccurate title as usual (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanapum_Dam [wikipedia.org]
Check your facts.
Re:PPA's (Score:5, Informative)
There is a an economical way to store large amounts of electricity though, it's called pumped storage plant, basically it's a hydroelectric plant where the generators and turbines can be used in reverse to pump water back up to the top reservoir, then when needed it's released again to get electricity again. Turning a mountain into a very big gravity powered rechargeable battery.
Re:stupid inaccurate title as usual (Score:5, Informative)
Wanapum Dam is not the only supplier of power to Washington State:
Bonneville Dam [nawindpower.com] provides a significant amount of power to the Pacific Northwest and they are a federal agency.
Sigh.....
Wanapum Dam is the only dam owned by Grant County Public Utility District.
Grant County PUD is the ONLY power company selling power to Microsoft's Quincy Data Center.
It is the ONLY dam germane to this story.
Would you like to throw out any other unrelated facts while you are on a role here?
Re:PPA's (Score:5, Informative)
Utilities make money by selling electricity, it's typically in their best interest to encourage more energy use. California and some other states have "decoupled" the revenue to try and fix this. Utilities are given fixed pricing; if the customers use less electricity then the utilities pocket the difference, if the customers use more electricity the utility loses money. Now it's an economic incentive to encourage customers to conserve, get rid of inefficient power generators, improve the distribution and transmission infrastructure, etc.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:stupid inaccurate title as usual (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps you've heard of this company called Apple?
I think they make computers, or something.
Lieutenant Dan got us invested in this fruit company or somethin'.
Then he says we don't have to worry about money no mo'.
That's good.
One less thing.
Strat
NOT A FINE (Score:4, Informative)
This is a penalty due to a contractual obligation. It's not a fine.
It's still wasteful, though.
Re:Load contracts (Score:5, Informative)
Re:An even more economical way to store electricit (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think that there are many ultra capacitors adding storage capacity to grids. Its definitely on the table for the future however at the moment the capacitor banks that you see at your transmission yards are actually for power factor correction not power storage.
Re:An even more economical way to store electricit (Score:5, Informative)
There are not more than 8 factories that I know of, that are producing industrial-grade ultra-capacitors, that are to be deployed for the purpose of power-storage / power-stabilizing, near power generating plants and also in the power grid.
And all the factories are churning out ultra-capacitors as fast as they can.
But it is not enough.
That is why it will take some time for more ultra-capacitors to show up in places that need them.
The bottle-neck is with the manufacturers.
The main patent for the ultra-capacitors is owned by Sanyo, of Japan.
They were actually trying to find ways to develop an ultra-capacity rechargeable battery. They came up with the idea of using nano-scale materials (that was back in the late 1990's or so) and successfully produced a re-chargeable NiMH battery that can keep the charge for as long as 36 months, and at 97% capacity.
That patent was subsequently licensed to other re-chargeable battery manufacturers - including GP and Energizer.
And later, someone found that the same technique can be also used in enhancing ultra-capacitors, so they licensed it to capacitor manufacturers.
However, the industrial grade capacitor manufacturers in this planet that we live in happen to behave much like OPEC.
There are only few manufacturers and they control the market, and they restrict the manufacturing to only a handful factories - so that they can charge an arm and a leg for their products.
Re:An even more economical way to store electricit (Score:2, Informative)
On places where there is no dam, this method can not be deployed
Oh sigh.On places where there is no dam AND nobody understands how to transport electricity, this method can be deployed.
The netherlands USES this methods and the dams are in Norway. That is quite a distance, look it up on Apple Maps!