Data centers, the nerve centers for the computing world, use an estimated 2% of all energy used in the United States, and are also heavy users of water. At an AeA presentation I attended in May of this year, Microsoft’s Lewis Curtis shared the following:

• In 2006, U.S. data centers consumed 61 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, enough to power 5.8 million U.S. households, costing companies $4.5 billion
• If this trend is unchecked, in 2011 data centers will use 100 billion kWh of energy at a cost of $7.4 billion, necessitating the building of 10 additional power plants

Attention has turned recently to how these centers can be made much more resource-efficient. Taking a leadership position in this effort is Advanced Data Centers (ADC) , who has just earned a LEED platinum certification for its data center in McClellan Park in Sacramento, California. ZDNet interviewed ADC’s Bob Seese on how the center achieved its LEED rating, summarized here:

• The center’s site has some of the lowest power costs in California
• ADC invested in its own electricity substation
• Rain water will be recaptured from roof runoff and used for landscaping, tower cooling, and some bathroom fixtures
• Outside air will be used for cooling 75 percent of the time — free
• 95 percent of construction debris will be recycled
• Non-toxic chemicals were used for finishes and adhesives
• Daylighting will be used for ambient lighting throughout the building.

Related Post: Cooling Data Centers Could Prevent Massive Electrical Waste

It is estimated that the data storage sector consumed about 61 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2006 (1.5% of total U.S. consumption, or roughly equivalent to the amount consumed by 5.8 million average U.S. households). These numbers are only expected to grow.

The energy used by the nation’s servers and data centers is growing at an unsustainable rate. Not only that, but web servers are notoriously inefficient. For example, computer servers are used at only 6 percent of their capacity on average, while data center facilities operate at roughly 65% to 75% efficiency, meaning that 25% to 35% of all the energy consumed by servers is wasted (converted to heat).

If we are to even consider reducing our energy consumption and carbon footprint, the growing demands generated by our web servers must be near the top of the list of possible improvements. And the Department of Energy agrees.

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Based on data from the Uptime Institute, a technology consulting company based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the McKinsey report finds that, between 2000 and 2006, the amount of energy needed to power data centers doubled, and that consumption is likely to double again by 2012. In the U.S. alone, we would need to build 10 new power plants by 2010 just to meet the growing energy needs of this country’s data centers.

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Changes occur so rapidly in the world of technology that new problems — and new solutions — crop up every day. One of the most glaring problems for data centers right now is that their hundreds of servers stay on at full power all of the time. The simple, low-tech solution to this problem (namely, turning the servers OFF) turns out to really not be so simple after all.

In an article for SearchDataCenter.com, writer Bridget Botelho calls server shut downs (during holidays or off-hours) “the road not taken”. Facility operators interviewed for that article cite several reasons for keeping servers going at full capacity, among them fear of lost data and simple convenience. Some facilities also claim that it is hard to establish exactly when off-hours might be — after all, who can really predict demand for internet services?

Central to this issue seems to be the fact that people are just not confident of their ability to manually manage server operations. In response, entrepreneurs are developing — you guessed it — technological solutions, which reduce the human factor in this equation.

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Whether I am blogging or working for a more traditional media outlet, I can get almost any information I need simply by using the internet. So with a paperless home office, and no travel to speak of, just about the only ecological cost of doing business is the electricity that my computer uses… my computer, and, well, all of the servers that transport the e-mail, photos, and other data that I need.

How much electricity might that require, exactly? It turns out that our worldwide increase of internet-based data transmission relies upon a growing number of data centers, or Web server farms, as they are sometimes called. A single server farm consists of an enormous warehouse holding data storage systems and tens of thousands of smaller, state-of-the-art servers which process the information for all of our online activities. In recent years the construction of new data centers has increased dramatically, driven by the fact that most software applications will soon be delivered as online service products rather than via physical means (such as CD-ROMs). An article in Fortune magazine last year described the building boom of these server farms; a good single case study is the spate of data centers that have recently located along the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest.

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It wasn’t so long ago that the biggest concern for webmasters was simply keeping their sites online and running properly. But with the double-whammy of rapidly-accelerating web hosting demands and climate change, a growing number of site operators are looking for ways to not only stay online but to stay online sustainably.

If you’ve never given much thought to the amount of energy it takes to power the Internet and all its sites and services, consider this: so many new Web servers went into operation between 2000 and 2005 that global data center energy consumption doubled during that time period. (While the growing popularity of lower-end servers increased per-unit energy consumption, most of the increased power demand came from a sheer growth in numbers of servers
— a study put the two growth rates at 5 to 8 percent and 90 percent, respectively.)

Fortunately, eco-minded webmasters are finding more hosting companies that are trying to do something to reduce their energy appetites, or at least offset the emissions their operations produce. VirtualHosting.com, an online resource for comparison-shopping virtual (shared-server) Web hosting providers, recently published a guide to hosts working to shrink their environmental footprints. "Green Hosting: 11 Carbon-Neutral Hosting Alternatives" provides a good overview to some green Web hosts in the U.S., U.K and Australia.

While some of the hosting companies (Rackspace or WebHostingBuzz, for example) plant trees or take other conservation measures to reduce their overall environmental impact, others are partially (Sustainable Hosting) or fully (Iron Mountain) powered by renewable sources. It’s interesting to see the different approaches taken by different companies, and encouraging to see that a growing number are at least trying to do something.

Another good starting point for those shopping for Earth-friendly Web services is Co-op America’s National Green Pages. A click on the Internet > Consulting/Services option takes you to information about 31 different green Internet service providers. You’ll find some of the same names described in the VirtualHosting.com article, but many others as well, including ThinkHost, which is fully powered by a mix of solar and wind energy.

It’s reassuring to know that, while the Internet and all its virtual bells and whistles require real-world energy, some Web companies are trying to lighten the load.