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Facebook's Oregon Data Center Uses As Much Power As Entire County
1sockchuck writes "The first phase of the Facebook data center in Oregon uses 28 megawatts of utility power, local officials said this week. That's not extraordinary for a facility of that size in most data center hubs. But it stands out in Crook County, Oregon where all the homes and business other than Facebook use 30 megawatts of power. The economics of Facebook's presence in Oregon are outlined in a new study, which asserts that the Prineville facility has brought tens of millions of dollars into the local economy. The second phase of the Facebook project is now underway, and the local utility grid is being expanded to add capacity."
The study claiming economic benefits was commissioned by Facebook (reader beware).
I have always noticed, the bigger you get, the more power hungry...
FCKGW 09F9 42
..so that you can tell people what you had for your breakfast. And then show them.
But then i'd be purpetuating the problem somewhat :)
-- If at first you don't succeed, lie!
a source of pollution both on the Net and off.
...when it costs more energy to blog about your breakfast than it does actually cooking it.
Or you could put your data center in Quebec, almost exclusively producing electricity from water and with little problem with cooling 10 months out of 12. There's a reason while so many aluminum plants are present in that Canadian province. Bonus : link the the Chicago network hub is easier from there than from northern Sweden.
With data center like these, they can expect less than 0.03 $CAD per kWh.
I looked it up so you don't have to: Crook County is inhabited by 20k people, its economy largely consists of agriculture and tourism so it's no wonder that they do not use massive amounts of electricity.
Real life is overrated.
28,000,000 / 800,000,000 = 0.035 Watts/user
A few years ago I visited a nuclear power station, and 28 Megawatt was about the output of the ship's diesel engine that they had on standby for emergency power supply to be able to run cooling systems etc. in case the power station itself breaks down and it can't get power from other power stations. I think it is also about what a large cruise ship needs for all its electrical needs. Seems to be a very small county that they are talking about.
Does the ridiculous figure you come up with not make you question your working? 35 electric fires constantly on per user of facebook? In one datacentre? Are you high?
I pray you are not in any science or engineering disciplines ...
0.035 Watts/user you spoon
Did anyone else read that as Country? That would have been news-worthy.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
The Gore (G). The power consumption at Al Gore's house in August 2007 was around 23,000 kWh.
That gives an average draw of around 30kW.
So this baby sucks a nice round 1 kiloGore (1kG).
Set your phasers on "funky"!
They could use solar to reduce their electric bill, but currently it's likely to just cost them more, unless there are subsidies which means taxpayers would be paying for their electricity (in return for hopefully improved solar tech in the long run).
You can do both at the same time on a Pentium 4.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Does the ridiculous figure you come up with not make you question your working? 35 electric fires constantly on per user of facebook? In one datacentre? Are you high?
My calculation was sponsored by the Green Party.
Article's a bit light on any details... but that facility has to deal with all that heat somehow... and using it to provide heating for local residents would be a very good use of it.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
What do you think all those people would do if they weren't using Facebook? It's not like we'd turn off Facebook and everyone then goes out and plants trees as an alternative. As a means for keeping in touch with friends and family I'd say a site like Facebook has got to be more energy efficient than, say, driving or flying out to visit people on a regular basis.
Costs in Africa are enormous. For power, both grid and fuel supply are unreliable, so onsite generation and large storage are a must. Latency to users in the US, Asia and Europe is crippling, and corruption is massive, it will drag your deployment out for years.
Actually, that makes a lot of sense.As long as they have a fat pipe to the internet, who cares where the datacenter is. Costs will be lower in Africa, and solar panels make a lot more sense there.
Go to Iceland instead. Lots of hydro power, cooling not a problem, halfway between two of the most important regions to serve...
Ezekiel 23:20
The FB datacenter already runs on hydro power (they're like, 30 miles from the columbia river, which generates something like 50% of the hydroelectric capacity in the US), with an average year round temp in the high 50s.
moox. for a new generation.
And Slashdot is any better?
At least Facebook allows you to delete your account (keeping data around is another story). Slashdot doesn't even bother pretending.
How can I delete my account?
You can't. The system needs to keep track of the users, so accounts are permanent. Don't sweat leaving unused accounts hanging around. It doesn't hurt anything.
Actually, that makes a lot of sense.As long as they have a fat pipe to the internet, who cares where the datacenter is.
People on the other end of it. A "fat pipe" is only one half of the network speed equation - bandwidth. The other half is latency. Until/unless someone figures a way to overcome the speed of light, a datacenter in Oregon is always going to be faster for North American users than one in Africa.
That's why content distribution networks like Akamai serve you content from a DC nearest you - to reduce latency.
Advice: on VPS providers