Data Centers Push Back On US Efficiency Rules

alphadogg writes "Data center executives from Google and other large companies are pushing back against new efficiency requirements proposed by a prominent standards group, saying they are too 'prescriptive' and don't leave them room to innovate. 'This standard defines the energy efficiency for most types of buildings in America and is often incorporated into building codes across the country,' Urs Hoelzle, Google senior vice president for operations, wrote in a post on the Google blog. Data centers are among the fastest-growing users of energy, and setting efficiency standards for them is a welcome step, he said. But he called the requirements 'too prescriptive.' Instead of setting efficiency targets and letting engineers decide how they can best meet them, the amendments specify types of cooling systems that companies should use."

Comments

What does he mean by "prescriptive"?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

For example, the standard requires data centers to use economizers -- systems that use ambient air for cooling. In many cases, economizers are a great way to cool a data center (in fact, many of our companies' data centers use them extensively), but simply requiring their use doesn't guarantee an efficient system, and they may not be the best choice. Future cooling methods may achieve the same or better results without the use of economizers altogether. An efficiency standard should not prohibit such innovation.

I made the argument a couple days ago that video codecs should not be directly supported in browsers. The market must be able to innovate, and by forcing specific technologies, the playing field is narrowed and users are ultimately hurt by such prescriptive actions.

I'm in full agreement with Mr. Hoelzle, and I think that anyone who truly believes in limited government would as well.

Re:What does he mean by "prescriptive"?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're completely wrong because the analogy doesn't work. Browsers need to support specific codecs for so that video encoders know how to encode video. Videos take up lots of space and require lots of CPU cycles to encode. If I know all of my clients support H.264 then I can encode video once and have it only take up space once on my server's hard drive. I shouldn't have to create and store H.264, Ogg Theora, MPEG2, and MJPEG versions just because every different browser chose their own format to support.

This is the same reason that browsers need to support specific image file formats. I remember when not all browsers supported JPEG (GIF and XBM were the only image formats most browsers supported), so web sites needed to have GIF fallback images. Some browsers partially supported JPEGs and opened them with a separate graphic viewer in another window. Of course there's nothing that says your browser can't support TIFF and BMP, but it damn well better support GIF, PNG, and JPEG.

But saying that you must use economizers isn't like saying you must use H.264; it's like saying that you must use SSE2 CPU instructions to decode H.264 streams. What if newer SSE4 instructions make it go faster? What if you don't even have an x86 chip in your device? Who cares how you decode the stream as long as you can make it show up without skipping frames?

So Urs was right, you were wrong.

dom

Re:What does he mean by "prescriptive"?

[Anonymous Coward]

It clearly is about limited government. The antithesis of overbearing, prescriptive government is limited government that respects the rule of law and inalienable rights, not "efficient regulation." If you happen to read the New York Times and take it seriously, please stop.

Re:What does he mean by "prescriptive"?

[sonicmerlin]

Indeed, I am in favor of even higher levels of efficiency requirements, but Google makes very good points. As long as company isn't harming the environment, let them find the proper way to innovate. Utilize their greed to your advantage.

Re:What does he mean by "prescriptive"?

[icebraining]

This was NOT mandated by the "government", it's a proposed standard from The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, a PRIVATE society.

What Google and others fear is that eventually regulators can use those standards. The government has done *nothing* yet, so you can save the bogeyman for another story.

Re:What does he mean by "prescriptive"?

[Fjandr]

I don't see any ambiguity in the word prescriptive; it simply means that they don't like the government to tell them to save energy.

If you had read the last sentence of the summary, let alone the article, you would know your conclusion is false. Also, the definition of what "prescriptive" means depends on the context. Were it not for the context that states the government is reasonable in demanding energy efficiency but unreasonable in prescribing exactly what measures are required to achieve that efficiency, the term would be very ambiguous in what exactly it meant.

Re:What does he mean by "prescriptive"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I made the argument a couple days ago that video codecs should not be directly supported in browsers.

Entirely different. Given the strong network effects in video codecs, a de facto standard will emerge: at the moment its flv, and widespread usage will be more important that its actual merits. The market does not work well.

The large number and difficulty obtaining the various has set digital video back by years - pick one and everyone standardise to it...even if it is bad at least everyone will be able to view it.

probably pushing external agenda

[crazybit]

So they can pull out a law forcing data centers to use the latest iCooling device from brand XYZ.

I'm not sure

[JoshuaZ]

On the one hand, this makes a lot of sense. It shouldn't matter much how they manage to accomplish this as long as they manage to do so. On the other hand, there are problems with that approach: 1) One might want to specifically not encourage certain approaches if they had other negative results (we'd certainly feel that way about a process that improves building insulation using the flesh of newborn babies). 2) It may be difficult to measure efficiency and other metrics directly. So having specific requirements helps remove that uncertainty. This is one reason why a lot of building codes are so specific. The way the electric wiring needs to go in residential homes is standardized. Sure, you might come up with a better way of doing it. But the probability is high that something will go drastically wrong.

Re:I'm not sure

[Leafheart]

1) One might want to specifically not encourage certain approaches if they had other negative results (we'd certainly feel that way about a process that improves building insulation using the flesh of newborn babies).

That is very simple to do with a blacklist. And that's how the legislation should have been done. Set the target, blacklist what should not be used. In fact, no need to blacklist, there is already regulation that will deal with most of the problematic solutions, just put some working that reminds people that the other guidelines and regulations are still effective. If there is a need, blacklist some other small stuff. But never whitelist.

Re:I'm not sure

[purpledinoz]

Efficiency rules might encourage behaviour that's inefficient overall. On top of that, they are hard to enforce and are susceptible to loopholes and cheating. The best policy for improving energy efficiency is to increase the cost of energy. Maybe through a tax. This will automatically encourage energy efficiency and there is no enforcement needed. Of course a standards body has no power to do this, which is why I'm wondering why this is an issue that a standards organization should care about.

Is there some other agenda here?

[el_flynn]

I don't know about you, but I've become somewhat jaded when it comes to standards like these. Usually, there's one or more parties who stand to gain financially if the standards are implemented (naturally). But when those who benefit are those that impose the standards themselves, doesn't it become somewhat of a slippery slope?

Where I work, there was this company XXX who was touting some kind of solution to protect mobile phone users; if your phone is stolen, and you report it to the operator, there was some mechanism in place that would lock the phone when it was powered up. This could be done because each phone has a unique identifier, kind of like a MAC address. Problem was, the technical platform was supposedly half-baked and too pricey, so many of the operators rejected it. But then, they got the idea to approach the government - and lo and behold, the powers-that-be came up with some regulation and standards that all operators had to comply to. Best of all -- we had to use Company XXX's technology!

So the question is -- do the members (or more likely, ASHRAE's Technical Committee members) stand to gain financially by implementing this? I would think so, since ASHRAE's made up of persons in the HVAC and other related fields. Members will gain access to "many opportunities to participate in the development of that technology"

Re:It's not the government's business...

[BadAnalogyGuy]

First, name something that isn't a limited resource.

Human stupidity.

Re:It's not the government's business...

[Jenming]

sunlight is certainly a limited resource. measuring over the life of the sun is meaningless if the people doing the measurement won't exist that long. Rather measure the amount of sunlight captured per square meter by say a solar panel or a tree and you will certainly find a limit. even measure all of the sunlight falling on earth during a day, huge for sure, but certainly finite in a reasonable sense.