Tag Archive for 'co2'

How to make a hosting company carbon neutral - René Wienholtz of Strato

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on September 18, 2008
in Podcast and carbon neutral
. 1 Comment

CO2
Photo Credit \<

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Episode 4 of the GreenMonk Podcasts - 36 mins 28 secs

My guest on this podcast is Strato’s Executive Director for Information Technology and Innovation Rene Wienholtz.

Strato are Europe’s second largest hosting company and Strato are also carbon neutral! Amazingly they achieved this without buying any offsets. How did they do it?

Listen to René explain it.

Here are the questions I asked René and the approx. times I asked them:

Can you tell us something about your own background first and who are Strato? - 00:34

If I heard you correctly you are now the largest hosting company in Europe? - 02:28

You guys are a bit like RackSpace in the sense that you don’t do co-location, you rent space on your servers, id that right? - 02:38

You mentioned that you decided to re-architect the setup in Strato and reduce your carbon footprint, was this for environmental reasons or business reasons? - 03:34

Questions from readers:

Jiri Ludvik
what percentage in carbon reduction they achieved by each of the step you mention? - 05:48

Do you use underfloor plenums as well to direct the air to the cold aisles? - 21:47

Can you talk to us too about the energy savings you are getting from buying CO2 free energy? - 25:44

Have you negotiated a set price from your clean energy supplier for a set period? - 29:36

Can you tell me how long this price is guaranteed for? - 30:15

Have you had any independent 3rd party certify that you are carbon neutral? - 30:27

More questions from readers:

Jim Hughes
Has the carbon saving had a real cost benefit? Or have the lower power costs been exceeded by the premium for carbon neutral electricity? - 31:42

Would you recommend other hosting providers take the same route? - 32:53

Do you think environmental awareness is an area where European hosting companies have a head start over the US? - 34:47

Download the entire interview here
(33.4mb mp3)

by-nc-sa

Skysails uses wind to power ships!

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on August 22, 2008
in transportation
. 1 Comment

I love this - a German company comes up with an idea to make ships far more fuel efficient using… sails! Yes, wind-powered ships. Why didn’t anyone think of it before? Oh, hang on… ;-)

Seriously, watching the video above, Skysails, the company re-inventing the technology, seems to be onto a really good thing. Fuel burnt by ships accounts for 4% of global CO2 emissions - twice as much as the aviation industry produces.

The kite-like sail is computer controlled, extendible up to 300m above the ship and can save up to 20% on a ships fuel (and therefore its CO2 emissions). Also these ‘kite sails’ are up to five times more efficient than traditional sails.

The company expects to kit out 1,500 ships with these Skysails by 2015. If they are that good, they should licence the manufacturing of these and have them installed in 15,000,000 ships by 2015!

by-nc-sa

American Leadership: What Could Have Been

Published
by
monkchips
on June 2, 2008
in co2
. 1 Comment

I was just reading Industries Allied to Cap Carbon Differ on the Details from the NYTimes when something struck me. The US did the right thing in not signing up to Kyoto, but for the wrong reasons. You know why it should have refused? Because. Kyoto. Didn’t. Go. Far. Enough.

We should all be paying a lot more attention to the Climate Action Partnership, which includes both major polluters and environmental groups.

In January 2007, the eclectic group endorsed a bold national policy that called for reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 60 percent to 80 percent by 2050, an aggressive target that is in line with recommendations from an international panel of scientists. But the group, which now has 33 members, has failed to reach consensus on a variety of issues, including how to allocate carbon permits and whether to include a price cap for carbon credits.

by-sa

San Francisco rolls out carbon tax

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on May 28, 2008
in co2
. 0 Comments

I see the LA Times is reporting that the San Francisco Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s board of directors voted overwhelmingly (15-1) in favour of levying a carbon tax on businesses.

The tax will be 4.4 cents per tonne of CO2 emitted which, in reality is paltry:

More than 2,500 businesses will be required to pay the proposed fees. About seven power plants and oil refineries would have to pay more than $50,000 a year, but the majority of businesses would pay less than $1, according to district estimates.

But this rate will increase with time and this news is massively significant in other ways.

This is the first instance of a carbon tax in the US, according to the piece in the LA Times, although the New York Times reports that Boulder Colorado was first when it imposed a carbon tax in Nov 2006 on both businesses and homes.

Either way, this is an indication of things to come. The best way to reduce carbon emissions is to charge for them (and the damage they wreak).

More and more we will see the implementation of carbon taxes and this more than anything else will force us to reduce our CO2 output.

We in GreenMonk are firm believers that we need to get off the carbon economy as soon as possible and so we strongly welcome this new carbon tax.

by-sa

Reduce your carbon footprint using virtual worlds

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on May 12, 2008
in travel
. 2 Comments

One of Credit Agricole\'s training rooms in Second Life (photo courtesy of Stonefield Inworld)

Virtual Worlds such as Second Life are largely dismissed as trivial and a waste of time by many people (myself included until recently!).

However a recent conversation with Pierre-Olivier Carles changed all that for me. Pierre is the co-founder and CEO of Stonefield Inworld - a company which builds things for people in virtual worlds.

For example, the photo above is a training room for the French banking group Crédit Agricole. According to their Wikipedia entry, Crédit Agricole are the 8th largest bank in the world! Stonefield have purpose built training rooms for Crédit Agricole on the bank’s private island in Second Life.

In a pilot program rolled out for a small part of the group, Crédit Agricole expect to save between €200,000 and €300,000 this year on travel expenses alone by holding training sessions in-world. If this is rolled out to the group, annual savings would be in the order of €5-€6m. I’m not sure what that is in terms of reduced CO2 emissions but you can take it that it is a pretty big number!

And that is just in travel expenses. When companies start to be taxed for their carbon emissions, the savings from holding in-world training will be even greater.

Of course, the success of something like this is all in the execution and from talking to Pierre-Olivier, Stonefield seem to have nailed it. They have audio (for the presenter), video, slideware, and whiteboards in the training room. They take ‘coffee’ breaks to allow for the networking which happens in ‘real’ training as well as the opportunities for one-on-one with the trainer (”what you said in there is all very well in theory but in the case of our org…”).

The trainees can even give feedback on their understanding of the topic by migrating to the green side of the room to indicate all is going well or moving to the red side to signal that they are falling behind. As someone who gives talks and has done training, this kind of trainee feedback is invaluable to the successful running of a class.

Then there is the added benefits to the trainee of not having to worry about getting through security, catching that plane, lost luggage, traffic jams, breakdowns or worse. Does anyone have any statistics on the number of employees lost to work-related travel accidents annually?

With travel making up such a large part of our global CO2 emissions and companies increasing requirements to upskill their employees on an ongoing basis, initiatives like this are going to be vital for cost efficiencies and reduced carbon footprints.

Cross-posted from LowerFootprint.com

by-sa

The sooner oil hits $200 per barrel, the better!

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on May 9, 2008
in climate change and oil
. 12 Comments

Four bucks a gallon
Creative Commons License photo credit: johnmarkos

Back in 2004 the government’s worst case scenarios had oil reaching $26 per barrel by 2025. This afternoon oil reached $125.98, the fifth day this week we had a record high price for oil. And we are not even halfway through 2008 yet.

Goldman Sachs recently pronounced that oil may soon reach $200 per barrel. I hope they are right. In fact the sooner the better, to my mind!

Why do I say that?
We need to get off our dependence on carbon as an energy source. The CO2 given off by burning oil for energy is poisoning the planet and wiping out animal and plant species at a hitherto unprecedented rate.

We have known this for quite some time now. Scientists were discussing Global Warming and climate change up to 40 years ago. The reason we have done very little to move off oil is that the alternatives were always too expensive. This also meant that raising money for research into renewable power sources was difficult and so alternative energy sources remained high cost.

However, now with oil at $126 per barrel and rising, renewables are starting to look very attractive. Suddenly money is pouring into companies who are trying to research and commercialize Green energy. This is a good thing! This will only continue as long as it is perceived to be profitable. In other words, as long as oil is expensive.

The worst thing that could happen right now for the future of the planet is if oil prices dropped. Roll on $200 per barrel, I say.

by-sa