What happens downstream?: Scott Mattoon's blog

The Demand Response Research Center (DRRC) at LBNL provides a system that enables electric utility customers to automate energy load shedding during peak demand periods.  It's called Demand Response Automation Server (DRAS).  Basically, it takes a feed from the utility whose payload includes data for: Event Pending, Price levels, and Price Schedule.  The system can interface with environmental management systems to turn off lights and raise set points when curtailment events and price jumps occur.  It could also be used in combination with systems management software to automate data center load shedding, but has yet to be adopted for this purpose.   With advanced virtualization and automation technologies, there is ultimately no reason that workloads could not be migrated according to a demand / cost equation.

The barrier to DRAS adoption in the data center has been a mix of scant awareness, legacy perceptions, and a shortage of creative thinking.  But all that is changing.  DRRC is on a campaign now to build awareness among all eligible facilities and IT managers about the potential for DRAS.   And the old saw that says power cycling a computer reduces it's MTBF is just that: old.  Today's systems, for the most part, are engineered to withstand daily power cycles well beyond the typical useful life of a computer.  With the benefit of this knowledge and the findings of a Harris Interactive Poll commissioned by Sun, IT and facilities managers are inducing employees to turn off their computers when not in use.  But we still need more creative thinking.

While the traditional facilities folks appear to be abundantly creative with power saving measures (in a DRAS webinar last month, Aimee McKane from LBNL, cited one example where a bakery participating in DRAS bought more bread pans to avoid running the dishwasher during peak demand periods,) creative applications of DRAS in the data center are in short supply.  

Still, the conversations are happening, as Walter Bays demonstrated on his blog today.  If a courageous (and creative) company were to combine Dynamic Infrastructure technology from Sun and DRAS from DRRC they could begin to realize the savings possible in Walter's energy utopia.  Services from Sun and others specializing in Demand Response systems like EnerNoc, can help these first mover companies develop strategies for capitalizing on these huge energy saving opportunities.

Dave Douglas kicked off the EnergyCamp "Unconference" and incited a heated debate by asking the opening session panel, "Do we need five big innovations or billions of little ones?"

Hunter Lovins responded first, saying we have the technology to get to sustainability: efficiency first, to buy time, then follow the model of nature, strive to produce products locally, at ambient temp, using waste from one production as inputs to the next.  The economics are beginning to make sense, as evidenced by the emergence, in China, of the world's first green billionaire.

Adam Werbach answered facetiously, "Kill the experts."  What he means is that the "experts'" legacy thinking is getting in the way.  Grass roots non-experts, in the shape of WalMart employees, have turned off the lights in coke machines in WalMart's employee break rooms (and Pepsi machines too).  Once Coke saw sales dip, they responded by putting up a  "My light is out but it's cold inside"sign, then saw their sales rise while Pepsi's fell.

Ted Nordhaus said our priority is to grapple with inexpensive energy, which is a root cause of climate change.  This will be a process of unleashing human power to change the political reality, he predicts.

Michael Shellenberger claimed that international policy alone is not a solution.  He cites that, since Kyoto, GHG emissions have risen in Canada and the EU faster than in U.S.

The panelists' positions having been posed, debate ensued over many topics, especially the potential role of nuclear power in solving climate change.  Nice to see some substantive disagreement - Sun did a great job picking a panel that would not mimic the too oft aligned community of experts.

More from the Unconference coverage here.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition will be doing community outreach at tomorrow's OpenEco EnergyCamp.  SFBC is one of San Francisco's most influential grass roots organizations.  They've been a model for many other urban bicycle coalitions, and have helped change the character of San Francisco's streets by advocating for bike lanes, and helping promote bicyling to events like EnergyCamp.

Biking to the event and using the web to promote biking to the event are two great examples of how Technology can be applied to mitigate the adverse effects of Population and Affluence.

Check out the EnergyCamp wiki to see what sessions are being planned for this "unconference" sponsored by Sun.  It looks like it's shaping up to be a great event.

EnergyCamp will take place tomorrow Thursday, January 10 at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco.  Register here.

The New York Times ran an Ope-Ed piece by Jared Diamond last week entitled "What's Your Consumption Factor?" In it, Diamond posits that living standards are not tightly coupled with consumption rates.  To support his thesis he cites the relative living standards of Western Europeans, who consume only about half as much oil per capita as Americans, yet by many reasonable measures live better than Americans - they have longer life expectancy, fewer diseases, lower infant mortality, more vacation time, better financial security after retirement, better public schools, and greater support for the arts.

Mr. Diamond's essay suggests that consumers can stave off resource depletion and environmental degradation while enjoying stable or improving living standards. How?  By reducing waste and consuming less.

While I agree with his claim as it relates to today's socioeconomic conditions, I take a different position for the long view: ultimately, living standards are tightly coupled to the rate of consumption of natural resources, but they are inversely related.  A higher rate of consumption will accelerate the depletion and degradation until a global scale tragedy of the commons is experienced.  Living standards will eventually suffer if patterns of consumption continue unchecked.  Some environmentalists would say we're already seeing evidence of this inverse relationship, citing trends like rising cancer rates, increased traffic related deaths, and species loss.

I don't think Diamond's point is to deny this relationship between living standards and consumption; his is focused at the consumer level, which is where he says action should be taken to avert tragedy.

What concerns me about Diamond's call to action is two fold :

First, the path to higher living standards is not obvious in the context of shrinking rates of consumption.  We can't look to Western Europe's economy for the answer.  Modeling after them is merely a postponement strategy.  Western Europe is among the population of one billion in the developed world that consumes at 32 times the rate of the rest of the world.  By most predictions, that gap will narrow as the developing world plays catch up.  The other 5.5 billion people on Earth are racing to use more oil and metal and timber and plastics, and they'll produce more GHG's and pollutants and landfill along the way.   Add to the mix a predicted 2.5 billion additional people before global population levels off at nine billion by mid-century.  These growth trends are playing out in a closed loop system made of finite resources, so consumption as we know it will inevitably slow down.  But this slow down will not be voluntary.  Natural limits will dictate this ultimatum.  Can we rely on consumers to make choices that steer clear of these natural limits?  Maybe, but we don't have any evidence they will do so within current market structures and under current modes of commerce.

Second, consumers do not have the tools to be successful in their new mission to save us from diminishing living standards. 

Diamond's conclusions conform nicely to the IPAT equation, but only in one dimension.  IPAT is a model developed in 1970 to better understand forces affecting the environment, where (I)mpact is a function of (P)opulation, (A)ffluence, and (T)echnology (I = P x A x T).   IPAT does not purport to quantify environmental impact, only to describe relationships between wealth, population and the environment.  Technology, in IPAT's modern interpretation, is the dampening force against the negative effects of Population and Affluence.  Technology can be used to prevent pollutants from entering the environment.  McDonough's Cradle to Cradle model for sustainability uses Technology to isolate technical nutrient cycles into closed loops thereby preventing them from mixing with (contaminating) natural nutrient cycles.  The field of Industrial Ecology is based on this mitigating potential of Technology.  Government and industry can apply Technology in myriad designs for a sustainable economy.  But the consumer does not have an active role in these designs.  Consumers appear to be left with just one method: "Stop shopping".  This focus on the A in IPAT is a version of what Paul Ehrlich called "environmental roulette".  It leaves an awful lot riding on the chance that consumers will alter their self-interested behavior.  Diamond does not incorporate Technology into his prescription for consumers.  Yet, without better tools for making smart choices, consumers will have difficulty tapping their enormous potential to influence the Impact equation.

So, how can Technology be applied to this seemingly intractable consumer dilemma?   My resolution for 2008 is to write substantively about this here on downstream.  In particular, I hope to propose uses of Information Technology to better address the consumers' sustainability dilemma.

I've gone toe to toe with plenty of climate change skeptics over the last year or so.  I felt I had pretty compelling arguments for why their denial arguments lacked merit.  I've become facile with responses to statements like these:

"We live in a world of risks.  The risk of climate change is akin to the risk of Earth being hit by an asteroid."

"Many scientists disagree with the conclusions of the IPCC."

"The costs of taking action on climate change are too high."

Of all the rebuttals I gave, none are as compelling or as simple as the case made by the chap in this YouTube video.  What he gives us is a very articulate and rational application of the precautionary principle, and uses it to effectively neutralize the climate change skeptics' reasons for inaction.

The precautionary principle says that, when confronted with reasonable doubt about the environmental, health, or social outcome of a particular action, it's best to err on the side of caution. 

Several governments have adopted policy based on the precautionary principle.  The EU, for example, banned the import of growth hormone injected beef from the U.S., even though they did not have specific proof of the ill effects of eating such beef.  (The ban was later ruled to be illegal by the WTO - a very un-precautionary decision.) 

The U.S. may be on the brink of adopting precautionary based emissions reduction legislation.  The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted today to send a bill to the Senate that would cap GHG emissions in this country.  This bill is exactly the kind of action that the YouTube chap is referring to when he sets the context for "column A" in his 2x2 grid.  This grid, and the accompanying argument, is something we can all bring to the skeptics that are advocating for the status quo.  Do we really need proof of catastrophic impacts before we take action?

Noah Kagan described the Blended iPod video as the best example of viral marketing on the web right now.  It had been viewed 4,499,819 times by the time I watched it while listening to Noah at the Opportunity Green conference at UCLA today.

He was making a point to this audience of green entrepreneurs that you've got to "keep it real" by making your eco message accessible and entertaining.  Viral marketing on the Internet is the essential tool and is the key enabler of the green business movement.

Noah shared the stage with Günther Lie, Director of Interactive Marketing at Method Products, in a panel interview called Green 2.0 - Connecting Our Community.  Günther observed that the marketing messages directed at prospective green customers are infused with shame and guilt.   I'd say that's right, and, to an extent, is why businesses' participation in communities online is so crucial to the green sea change washing over the economy.  Social pressure on a scale only possible through online communities is driving conformity to new social standards.  The green ethos is coalescing first online.  What was briefly a meme in early online communities is now a code of conduct among those communities with intention.  The price of admission to an effective, thriving community is having a working knowledge of eco and social responsibility.  Businesses lacking the vocabulary of CSR, carbon offsets, and radical resource efficiency need not apply.  You won't get noticed taken seriously on worldchanging.com, treehugger.com, openthefuture.com, openarchitecturenetwork.org, care2.com, witness.org, or the myriad other huge, vibrant online communities shaping our socially and environmentally just future unless you accept an informed role in the cause.

This question was the underlying theme of many sessions at the 2007 Uptime Institute's Design Charette, which I attended this week.  But it's the wrong question.  As I wrote in a follow up to the EPA Energy Star report on data center efficiency the bigger question is:  How can IT create value, in the broader economy, that replaces other less efficient modes of commerce and interaction?  In that context, any goal to reduce data center energy use is probably unattainable.

Data center energy consumption is projected to be 2.5% of total U.S. electricity demand by 2011, and it's tracking to double every 5 years.   Should IT managers be focused on driving that ratio and rate down?   That's another wrong question.

My design charette team was focused on Data Center Management & Metrics.  Green Grid contributor Ken Uhlman from Eaton was on the team.  He  posits:  "Managers get things done right.  Leaders get the right things done."  Accepting that axiom, it becomes clear that efficiency potential can only be maximized if we have both managers and leaders focus on the challenge.  Data Center managers need to reduce the marginal energy use per unit of work executed in the data center.  Leaders need to find ways to deliver economic value over the network that are more efficient than current business and social practices.

For instance, how much energy can be saved by services like those offered by MillionsOfUs.com?  Every "test drive" of an automobile in these virtual worlds uses some amount of electricity and causes a puff of CO2 to be emitted from a power plant, but the watts/joules/calories and GHG emissions involved are infinitesimal compared to that of a trip in the combustion powered vehicle down to dealer row to try out cars.

Clearly, IT driven efficiency has been at work for a long time.  Over the last 40 years, global economic productivity gains have been driven largely by IT, and much of this gain has arguably resulted in a net reduction in energy use (modulo the indirect demand for energy driven by IT).  But how much?  And what is the size of the opportunity ahead to do even more?   Studying these effects was a clear call to action in the EPA Energy Star report, but no such action appears to be underway.

While it is critical for managers to get a handle on efficiency within the data center envelope - and the potential here is huge - real leadership in energy efficiency will come in the form of value creation over the network that displaces less efficient value creation.

I started tracking news about green datacenter a little more than year ago using Google Alerts.  To the extent this statistically flawed analysis represents real media attention on the subject, news of datacenters' role in the green revolution is spreading.  Online news matching green+datacenter has been on the rise over the last thirteen months and has jumped up following the initial six month period.

 

Sun's share of the news has increased in the latter half of the period too.  Of the 172 individual news items since March 2007, Sun (represented by the blue line in the chart) was mentioned more frequently and in some periods dominated the news wire.  This is probably a reflection of PR dollars spent as much as it represents newsworthiness of Sun's efforts in this area.  Still, it's nice to see word getting out that Sun is at the center of this conversation.