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EPA Sends Data Center Power Study to Congress

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the turns-out-we-use-a-lot-of-juice dept.

BDPrime writes "We've all been hearing ad nauseum about power and cooling issues in the data center. Now the EPA has issued a final report to Congress detailing the problem and what might be done to fix it. Most likely what will happen is the EPA will add servers and data centers into its Energy Star program. If you don't feel like reading the entire 133-page report, the 14-page executive summary is a little easier to get through."

3 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. Great scott! by Bacon+Bits · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Snipped from page 5:

    These forecasts indicate that unless energy efficiency is improved beyond current trends, the federal government's electricity cost for servers and data centers could be nearly $740 million annually by 2011, with a peak load of approximately 1.2 GW.
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    The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
  2. Re:wow by jandrese · · Score: 4, Interesting

    1.5% of the total electricity used in the US per year is a huge number. It's like when politicians talk about something really expensive and they say "oh, it's only 1% of our GDP" to make it sound not so bad, except to people who know just how enormous the GDP of this country is.

    More importantly, this could probably be reduced considerably without major disruptions or reduction in quality of service by just embracing higher efficiency components in our datacenter equipment (especially servers).

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    I read the internet for the articles.
  3. Guessing by iknownuttin · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Like it'll be 20 degrees F outside and they're STILL running A/C for the computers.

    Climate controlled. There's this element among building planners that think any outside air is bad(TM). That's why, even in small buildings where you don't have to worry about pressure differentials blowing windows out like you do in skyscrapers, you can't open a frick'n window in the Fall or Spring when the air smells wonderful and there's this perfect chill in the air the just stimulates the brain.

    I'm drenched in sweat here in Hotlanta (it's 82F and 66% humidity and climbing to 94) and I really miss New England's Spring and Fall.

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    I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.