New Law Lets Data Centers Hide Power Usage

1sockchuck writes "Just days after Google announced that it may build a huge data center in the state, Oklahoma's governor has signed a bill into law that will effectively exempt the largest customers of municipal power companies from public disclosure of how much power they are using. Officials of the state's power industry say the measure is not a 'Google Law' but was sought 'on behalf of large-volume electric users that might be considering a move to Oklahoma.' Others acknowledge that data center operators were among those seeking the law, apparently arguing that the details of their enormous power usage are a trade secret. Google recently acquired 800 acres in Pryor, Oklahoma for possible development as a data center, and is reportedly seeking up to 15 megawatts of power for the facility."

Comments

New Corporate Motto

[MarkPNeyer]

Effective Immediately: Do some Evil. Just, you know, not too much.

Re:New Corporate Motto

[Guanix]

Reminds me of a story of a Supreme Court oral argument once, where a Justice made a reference to the First Amendment. The lawyer arguing the case replied, "Your Honor, you know, and I know, that when it says, 'Congress shall make no law,' it actually means, 'Congress may make some law.' "

And?

[BobMcD]

There's got to be a point in here somewhere. I wasn't aware that A) you could check on how much power someone else was using or that B) it was any of your business or that C) you could do diddely-squat about it.

Someone care to enlighten me?

Re:And?

[Stanistani]

Psst. The real secret here is that Al Gore is planning to open a huge data center.

Re:And?

[SydShamino]

My guess is:

Later, the power company comes back and says "Hey, public, we're running out of power, and we need to build three more coal-fired power plants near your town, and by the way, we want to avoid regulations that require us to clean our exhaust because that would hurt our bottom line."

The public says "No way, I don't want your pollution clogging my air, worsening my asthma, and causing my city to become subject to EPA regulations. I resent you trying to avoid cleaning up your own mess. By the way, who's driving this demand for power? Is it big business or folks like me, because I know I try to conserve my power use by turning off lights and even switching to CFLs? I don't want to pay (in terms of taxes or pollution) for power generated to serve some big out-of-state business, especially one that doesn't generate many local jobs."

Then, the power company says "-snicker- We can't tell you who is using the power. Just give us the plants or we'll do rolling blackouts on your homes and schools."

Re:And?

[profplump]

The public says "No way, I don't want your pollution clogging my air, worsening my asthma, and causing my city to become subject to EPA regulations. I resent you trying to avoid cleaning up your own mess. By the way, who's driving this demand for power? Is it big business or folks like me, because I know I try to conserve my power use by turning off lights and even switching to CFLs? I don't want to pay (in terms of taxes or pollution) for power generated to serve some big out-of-state business, especially one that doesn't generate many local jobs." Right. Because big business is evil and always wastes power and individuals are always good and save power. And businesses don't hire anyone locally, not even to run their new power plants. And local people wouldn't want new "out-of-state" businesses in their town even if they did. And air pollution in some other state is better than air pollution here.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. Without all those perfectly valid lines of thought I might have suspected your were just trolling.

Re:And?

[hondo77]

Without all those perfectly valid lines of thought I might have suspected your were just trolling.

Pot, meet kettle...

Re:And?

[vonhammer]

Now, now - play nice. His point (I'm sure) was that this information is being deliberatly hidden from view. Some businesses absolutely contribute to the local economy and some don't. Without knowing the truth about how much power they consume, you and I cannot make a value judgment on whether or not it is worth letting them build the infrastructure they want to support the business.

I for one would want to know the bottom line.

Perfect for pot growers

[Anonymous Coward]

All one need do is incorporate and claim to start a large server farm. Then grow grow grow your way to PROFIT!!!

Trade Secret?

[brennanw]

How exactly is power consumption a "trade secret?" That makes no sense...

Re:Trade Secret?

[geekoid]

In order for that information to be of use, you have to know a lot of internal information anyways.

Trade secret is not a logical reason, the only logical reason for this is so they can play power shell games. No other reasons at all. And since they exists soley because the government says so, we are entitled to all that information.

The governer just did a big diservice to the people who voted for him.

Re:Trade Secret?

[hrieke]

Well,

Back in the days, when the Japanese where trying to break into the American automotive market, they used to send groups over to measure the rust on the rail tracks.
Why?
Because it would then be simple to know how often the trains where running, how much wear on the tracks (thus how big and heavy the trains are), and a whole host of other tidbits which would be useful in competition.

So now, you know that Google's newest complex needs X amount of power, and using some IP tools, you can see what traffic is going on in and out of the data center- thus a measurement can be made of the power usage per user, and from that you can determine if the data center is being efficient, and how well it scales.

I'm sure smarter people than me can go on even more...

Re:Trade Secret?

[bigwave111]

Yeah, but given the amount of resources Google provides for its employees, it's safe to say that 50% of all power will go to catered meals, jacuzzis, and vibrating beds for nap breaks on those difficult 6 and a half hour work days.

Re:Trade Secret?

[fishbowl]

>(anything over 3.2% alcohal have to get from the liqour store).

And if you bring it with you from Texas you go to jail. Strict prohibition. BTDT. Never again.

Don't Tread on Oklahoma

[Anonymous Coward]

Anon here! I live in Oklahoma, and we will do anything we can to get businesses to migrate here. I don't really see this as an issue with Oklahoma itself, but the fact that we have a crumbling economy with more jails than schools. Can you really blame us?

Of course, no one ever talks about the good things coming out of Oklahoma law making bodies...

http://www.normantranscript.com/localnews/local_st ory_098012317/

Re:Don't Tread on Oklahoma

[geekoid]

"Can you really blame us?"

Yes.
When the power company starts saying they need to build more plants or rolling blank out will start. and you can not find out how much companies are getting discounted you will only have youself to blame.

Also, when companies staart paying directly to the shareholders, and you energy bill goes up, and your taxes go up, you will only have yourself to blame.

This will not help OK for any reasonable amount of time.

Maybe people should figure out why so many are in jail. Maybe someone should allow non violent offenders out on parol so they can get a job and start paying taxes instead of just sucking them away?

Maybe someone should get all the eduqactional finance records opened up so people can see where the money is going?

No, don't do that, just use it as an excuse to be lazy and become someones bitch.

I am not an Economist, but...

[MarkPNeyer]

Power Companies are granted monopolies by the public. Part of the deal is that, because the power companies are granted a monopoly by the public, they have to publicize all transactions they undertake.

Why? Otherwise, you could have sweat-heart deals between the power companies and their customers. Instead of paying the power company (and thereby the people) for your power usage, you could pay the owners of the power company to give you a huge discount. The power copmany then can just raise rates on consumers who have no say in who gives them power. By forcing the company to keep the books open, you prevent the possibility of impropriety.

I would argue that such issues are a good reason to switch to more heavily privatized models. Ideally, the government would maintain the infrastructure, and anybody who wanted could add power to the grid. That'd be sweet.

Re:I am not an Economist, but...

[NickDngr]

I would argue that such issues are a good reason to switch to more heavily privatized models. Ideally, the government would maintain the infrastructure, and anybody who wanted could add power to the grid. That'd be sweet.

Yeah, because that worked so well in California.

Re:I am not an Economist, but...

[MindStalker]

Though given Data Centers in general are one of the few rate heavy power users who use as much or more power at night than the day can present a cost savings to the power company. Especially if this center installs solar/etc meaning it uses more energy at night than the day. Trust me Google is still paying millions for its energy, but this allows the Energy Companies to use those millions to expand their offerings when ultimatly Google is adding less than this cost to the peak usage figure.

Re:I am not an Economist, but...

[spottedkangaroo]

Hey, privatizing worked really well in california iirc. So it could work anywhere.

Re:I am not an Economist, but...

[Anonymous Cowpat]

electricity costs $1million. You pay the people who run the electricity company $100,000 (which is more than they would see from profit in their bonus/dividend/paypacket from you spending $1million on the electricity). You can now magically buy the electricity for $500,000. Total cost: $600,000; Total saving: $400,000. Everyone else collectively pays $500,000 between them to balance the books and keep the Christmas Bonus as fat as last year. Company board is up $100,000 in bribe money, you're up $400,000 in savings, everyone else is down $500,000 to make up for it.

You and the board are (hopefully) laughing all the way to the jail, er, bank.

Re:I am not an Economist, but...

[spurdy]

Power Companies are granted monopolies by the public. Part of the deal is that, because the power companies are granted a monopoly by the public, they have to publicize all transactions they undertake.

Um...no. I don't know where you got that idea. Power companies do NOT have to publicize all transactions they undertake. Power companies enter into special contracts with large users all the time. It's not illegal. Usually, there's some special consideration, like agreeing to interruption during periods when demand exceeds supply, in exchange for a discount. In most states, however, such tariffs have to be filed with the public utility commission which has to OK them, and they have to be applied to all customers meeting the requirements of the given tariff. What's evidently at issue here is not the contract, but rather the amount of consumption, which is probably reported to the PUC for large customers, and then becomes public information because of FOIA laws. This law evidently exempts them from making such information publicly available. Questionable? Yes. But does it have anything to do with the power company? No.

Re:I am not an Economist, but...

[bob frost]

I wish I could agree entirely with the previous post. I worked in and on the fringes of the power industry for a while, and I pride myself as an educated observer on these issues. Indeed, utilities have traditionally been publicly regulated as natural monopolies (the thinking here being that the cost of power industry infrastructure is high enough that it makes little sense to build duplicate systems--a logic which, when not applied to the US mobile phone industry gave us 4-5 lousy, incompatible, and overpriced systems). I worked for New York State as an energy analyst, next to a MacKenzie consultant at the time when MacKenzie led the charge for power deregulation, a move which has been pretty much a total disaster, not least of all because the public now has less transparency with the power industry, so we really cannot know what the deals are. (Ask Californians who paid billions in extortionate, manipulated tarriffs a few years back). Deregulation was intended to let the mysteries of the "free" market replace the in-the-open system of regulation. I would assume that Oklahoma, a state traditionally operated in large part by the energy industries, is not particularly transparent in these deals anyway.

But there's more... When I studied the French power company (EDF) in great depth a number of years ago, it became clear that implicit or hidden cross-subsidies (charging one group of consumers more than the cost of service in order to allow another group to pay less) were essentially a veiled sort of industrial policy. For example, the French state wanted to make French electro-metallurgical (read: aluminum) and electro-chemical industries globally advantaged, so they got cheap power as a result. Ironically, that apparently wasn't enough for the aluminum producers, as in the 1980s and 1990s they moved much of their processing to Canada, where Hydro-Quebec and Ontario Hydro were offered much lower rates, in part b/c (in Quebec, at least), they could flood huge expanses of Indian land with minimal compensation.

As a resident of Michigan, where the auto industry is in free-fall thanks to perhaps the world's most bone-headed corporate leadership, I've had the wonderful privilege of paying some of the highest residential power tarriffs in the US. Why? Because residential users are subsidizing the Big Three through the rate structure. (I should also mention that we have some of the worst roads in the US because our weight limits are twice those of our neighboring states, thereby encouraging the suppliers, etc, to stay within our boundaries; we therefore subsidize the auto industry through our gasoline and road-use taxes).

In the end, these subsidies might make sense--I don't think so personally, as it encourages a race among states to offer corporate welfare--but in a democracy we as citizens should have the right to know. EDF, the French power company, attacked me nastily when I made this argument; I've not pushed hard in Michigan, as politically, we are expected to be slobbering whores for GM, etc., political affiliations notwithstanding (yeah, my House Rep is John "Camaro" Dingell, a dim Dem).

Bottom line, governments can and probably should have it within their authority to advantage one group over another, but that should be fully out in the open. When Oklahoma explicitly creates a system for obscuring the process, citizens lose. The problem is less, really, than one of corruption and sweetheart deals (tho OK has a long and ugly history of crooked relations b/w politicians and Big Oil), but the more "virtuous" practice of industrial policy conducted in the shadows.

Cheap not so green electricity ?

[ZoOnI]

If googles energy useage is hidden, the state can give them cheaper electricity than everyone else and the taxpayers pick up another corporate bill.

With the greener thinking of the world, Oklahoma's power may be from nuclear/coal plants, making Google a not so green business.

Re:Cheap not so green electricity ?

[xlv]

With the greener thinking of the world, Oklahoma's power may be from nuclear/coal plants, making Google a not so green business.

Please do not group coal and nuclear together. Nuclear is currently the "greenest" electricity production option for a large scale output whereas coal releases heaps of nasty stuff in the air, specially as electric co. are slow to use filters to clean the exhaust of their coal burning plants.

Re:Cheap not so green electricity ?

[xlv]

I think the people of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island might disagree with you, as well as all the people suffering from Depleted Uranium and Plutonium poisonings.

There are now more than 100 cvilian nuclear plants operating in the US, 109 I think from a recent PBS segment. There was only one accident in the US in civilian nuclear plants, nobody was injured, no radiation released.

The Chernobyl accident was due to poor maintenance and not following the established rules, i.e. human error and/or incomptence.

In France there are about 60 generating 80% of their electricty and exporting to the neighboring countries. France has the lowest air pollution of all industrialized countries.

Depleted uranium is due to military use and has nothing to do with civilian nuclear use.

I just can't understand why people who claim to understand science or at least the scientific process cannot go past the "nuclear bad" mantra... and by the way, I consider myself to be an environmentalist...

Re:Cheap not so green electricity ?

[geekoid]

Chernobyl can not happen with US designs. It is not possible. NOT POSSIBLE.

A)There pile was way too big, and the rods weren't gravity assisted. The structure design was shody.
B)The people running it were former Hydro managers and had no nuclear training.
C)They shut down all the safety and then intentional forced a shut down.
But remember , even if B and C happened in the US, there still would not be an 'Chernobyl event because of its design.

How much radiation escaped from 3 mile island?
why, here is a quote:
. "The average radiation dose to people living within ten miles of the plant was eight millirem, and no more than 100 millirem to any single individual. Eight millirem is about equal to a chest X-ray, and 100 millirem is about a third of the average background level of radiation received by US residents in a year."

How many people might get cancer from three mile island? 1. But as of yet thee possible '1' hasn't happened.

Military use of depleted uranium has nothing to do with this.

Now that we got that out of the way, you might want to check up an how many nuclear plants there are operating without a hitch.
Add to that the new plans that are out there and some of the cool self contained stuff.

If we want to clean the air, we must start building new nuclear plant and shutting down coal. I believe more cancer causing stuff was put in the air over the last 5 years then has every been released form nuclear power plants.

15MW =~ 40000 Plasma TVs

[shankarunni]

So, who are we to go about chucking stones at the new Evil^H^H^H^HGood Empire when we rush out to buy Plasma TVs just in time for the Super Bowl / March Madness / ...? I'll betcha that around the Super Bowl, we added a few 100 MW of draw to our already overloaded power distribution system.

What's purple and hangs

[winkydink]

12 inches below Eric Schmidt's waist?

The governor of Oklahoma's tie.

Re:What's purple and hangs

[freedomlinux]

Oklahoma's tie has a governor?
yeah, yeah, I know...

Not all hidden

[Trailwalker]

Oklahoma's governor has signed a bill into law that will effectively exempt the largest customers of municipal power companies from public disclosure of how much power they are using.

This bill hides only their electric power usage.

Their power to manipulate the legislature is out in the open.

15 Megawatts?

[tehwebguy]

That's nothing, I've seen a car that requires 1.21 Jiggawatts

Important safety tip

[HangingChad]

Locate your pot growing operation in Googles utility tunnels. No wonder all their employees are so loyal. :)

When?

[bobcat7677]

When is Google going to start getting into the power business? Seems like it's a very key part of their operation. Maybe they should start devoting some R&D twards coming up with solutions to their power consuption problem. Could save the company millions and result in technology that makes them the end all ruler of everything.

Pork

[Harmonious Botch]

I am not making this up.
From TFA: "At a pork barbecue celebrating the announcement of the data center deal, Google held a question and answer session with local dignitaries..."

Naive?!

[Anonymous Coward]

An average datacenter consumes ~15 Megawatts of power... are we really that naive to think that google only uses 15 Megawatts of power?! It's 800 acres! That's bound to be >200 Megawatts just for this piece of property. I don't even want to guess as to the total power consumption of google boxes all over the world :(

26,800 hp

[reedjjjr]

15 Megawatts is 26,800 horsepower, or about one jumbo jet. It's probably mostly for air conditioning the servers and personnel in the hot Oklahoma summer. Are you going to turn off every large business that has air conditioned facilities? Ground all the airlines? Just throw the switch on the internet, or at least ban all the porn. That ought to free up some power.

I hear...

[Nom du Keyboard]

I hear Al Gore is looking for this law in Tennessee as well.

Data centers vs Alternatives

[AusIV]

I may be wrong, and I can't cite any studies, but I've long suspected that despite seemingly high amounts of energy used by data centers, they save a lot of energy (as well as other resources) in the long run.

For example, I used to take the paper. This had to be printed, delivered, and recycled / disposed of. Now I have several news feeds on my home page that keep me up to date. Not only do I get more information, I'm pretty sure less money goes in to delivering news feeds than printing a paper.

Another example is shopping online. I do much of my christmas / birthday shopping online. Rather than driving all over town to shops that are each individually heated / cooled, I order gifts online and have them delivered. This may or may not save energy with regard to me driving to the store vs having something delivered to my house, but large warehouses delivering to customers are bound to be more efficient than large warehouses delivering to stores, and customers coming to stores to do their shopping.

The same goes for general research, entertainment, telecommuting, etc. - I keep hearing about the energy costs associated with web based facilities, but I can't help but feel they reduce energy consumption in the end. Admittedly, they may be able to improve on their energy usage, so I'm not sure I like this new legislation (and in the state of my current residence, no less), but I would like to see some data on the energy savings that stem from data centers.

You are crazy

[tacokill]

You, sir, get the crazy post award of the day. At least on your power comments.....and the rest is a little suspect too.

First of all, we (we being Oklahoma) have PLENTY of power. To my knowledge we've NEVER had rolling blackouts or anything close to that. Do you even know where OK is? Do you know how many power plants are within 200 miles of Pryor? I do. They are my customers and there are a ton of them. Additionally, we aren't like California. Contrary to what you state, we are well prepared to provide power for the foreseeable future. You see, we have been scaling up over the last 20 years to keep up with demand. Unlike other places, we don't mind building new plants. The idea that 15MW, or hell even 1500MW, would make a dent is laughable. There is plenty of power here. (sidenote: our track record for clean air really isn't all that bad either)

Second, there are many types of power companies. Private (AEP, Duke, Reliant) and Public (Co-op, Municipals, etc) companies of all kinds provide power to "the system". You cries of monopolies ring hollow because the "monopoly" part you talk about is highly highly regulated. The rest (generation) isn't. And you may not realize this but -- we have plenty of land that is suitable for power plants. So does Texas and look how many plants they have (108 just from Dallas Northeast to Texarkana -- about 1/6 of the state).


Look, I know Okla has its share of real problems. All I am saying is that power ain't one of them (had to throw in an "aint")

Sounds a Lot Like BushCo Hiding Their Methods

[NeverVotedBush]

Secrecy is a bad thing. Secrecy is how the unscroupulous commit crimes, fraud, manipulate the system to advantage, etc.

Who give a flying flip how many computers Google uses? The secret is in how they are run. A law that hides power use is a setup for the Oklahoma government to attract a big business to the state while having ratepayers subsidize Google. It's essentially a tax.

I guarantee the other half of this story is how big of a discount Google will get for electricity.

Re:Evil

[geekoid]

Google could jut as easily asked him not to sign the bill.

But, and this is lost on /., "Do no Evil" does not automatically mean "Do Good".

you need to distinguish

[tacokill]

You need to distinguish between generation, transmission, and distribution. You can't just say power companies are granted monopolies. They are not and that is not an accurate way to describe them.

A power company is not just a power company. There are 3 distinct pieces and each one gets treated separately according to the law and society. Generation makes the power and is usually private (in Okla). Yes, there are muni's and co-ops but in general, Okla power generation is privately owned. Transmission is long haul transmission and it is regulated in Okla like it is in most (48) states. Distribution is step down and delivery to customers and it, too, is regulated (by the Public Utilities Commission). When you talk about deregulation of the power industry, you are usually talking about the distribution part. Generation, for the most part, has been unregulated for a long time.

Second, the situation you describe (subsidies from customers to large companies), is the very reason the PUC exists -- to keep everyone honest and protect consumers. And you'll just have to trust me on this one...no power company in their right mind wants to tangle with the PUC here in Okla.

Now, the article in question is talking about municipality owned generation so yes, it is still a concern. But please realize that it's not just the "power" company. There is much more to it than that and its important to understand all the pieces.

Re:Cheap not so green electricity ? (planes)

[ZorbaTHut]

Now, what happens when it crashes directly into the plant aimed precisely for where it needs to go ... ... (elevator music) ...

The plane vaporizes, and the wall remains intact.

I don't think that's the answer you expected, but that is the truth.

I can see my neighbor's power bill

[djtack]

Bullshit; I can't see my neighbor's power bill.

Have you ever tried? Where I live, the power company is required to disclose this to anyone who asks. It's a very common practice if you are buying a house (or even looking for an apartment to rent) to call the utility company and get the current occupant's bills, as a way to estimate what your own utility costs will be.

Don't believe me? Just ask Al Gore.

Re:Cheap not so green electricity ? (planes)

[GTMoogle]

Just for completeness, an unladen 747 is 180 tons, an F14 is 20 tons. However a 747's wingspan is over 5 times as large, and the overall cross section (and how many of those concrete blocks its impact would be distributed over) is probably at least 5 times as much considering the cabin size. So roughly speaking, a 747 could be expected to do twice as much damage as the F14.

Whether twice the damage done to the test block in that video matters is an exercise for the reader. :)

I love that video btw.