Our inaugural EnergyCamp on Monday in Las Vegas worked out really well. By the end of the day we had a built a vibrant little community, buzzing with ideas and thinking about how to implement them. This was a tribute to the calibre of the people that took the time to participate. We had vendors, business people, and IT folks and they all brought something to the party. We kicked off the day with a chat between me and Rob Bernard, Microsoft’s new chief sustainability strategist. Rob is whip smart and will make a real impact at Microsoft. The fact the company gave the job to someone that had been working as general manager of a business unit indicates how seriously it takes the new role. What I most admire about the approach he plans to take is that it goes far beyond “the green data center” and really asks broader questions about how we live now, and how we’ll live tomorrow. Transport, Housing and heating, Energy Management – those are the areas where software can make a differerence. Rob gave the example of a new Korean water turbine energy project, which would have been inconceivable without powerful HPC modelling of tidal currents. Then the community took over. And I have to say Jason Hiner writes it up better than I ever could…
“The event started with a more traditional presentation to kick things off, but then attendees were invited to take markers and paper and write down their idea for a discussion topic. Each person who had written something went up to the front of the room, took the mic, and explained their idea to the audience. Then the attendee taped the idea into a slot on the grid. After all the ideas were up on the board, the attendees gathered around and consulted about which ideas were similar enough to group together, with the permission of the people who originally submitted the idea. Some of the topics that made the cut included:
- Alternatives to business travel
- Building a hyper-energy efficient data center (case study)
- Best layouts for data centers while staying green
- Operationlizing green practices
- It’s the people, stupid
- HVAC distribition in the data center
- Best practices for recycling and refurbishing electronics
Our wiki from the unconference is here. David Berlind and Angela Bole did an oustanding job of logistics for the event. Tom Raftery was a superstar. Thanks guys! I have a bunch more follow up posts to write. Here is David and his energy: 