Green IT
For a Greener Industry
The Next Burning Issue for Business
behaving as a society is environmentally unsustainable, causing
irreparable damage to our planet. Rising energy prices, together
with government-imposed levies on carbon production, are
increasingly impacting on the cost of doing business, making
many current business practices economically unsustainable.
It is becoming progressively more important for all businesses
to act (and to be seen to act) in an environmentally responsible
manner, both to fulfil their legal and moral obligations, but
also to enhance the brand and to improve corporate image.
Companies are competing in an increasingly ‘green’ market,
and must avoid the real and growing financial penalties that
are increasingly being levied against carbon production.
IT has a large part to play in all this. With the increasing drive
towards centralised mega data centres alongside the huge growth
in power hungry blade technologies in some companies, and with
a shift to an equally power-hungry distributed architecture in
others, the IT function of business is driving an exponential
increase in demand for energy, and, along with it, is having to
bear the associated cost increases.
The problem
Rising energy costs will have an impact on all businesses, and
all businesses will increasingly be judged according to their
environmental credentials, by legislators, customers and
shareholders. This won’t just affect the obvious, traditionally
power-hungry ‘smoke-belching’ manufacturing and heavy
engineering industries, and the power generators. The IT
industry is more vulnerable than most – it has sometimes
been a reckless and profligate consumer of energy.
Development and improvements in technology have largely
been achieved without regard to energy consumption.
The impact
Rising energy costs and increasing environmental damage can only
become more important issues, politically and economically. They
will continue to drive significant increases in the cost of living, and
will continue to drive up the cost of doing business. This will make
it imperative for businesses to operate as green entities, risking
massive and expensive change.
Cost and environmental concern will continue to force us away
from the ‘dirtiest’ forms of energy (coal/oil), though all of the
alternatives are problematic. We may find ourselves facing a
greater reliance on gas, which is economically unstable and
whose supply is potentially insecure, or at least unreliable.
It may force greater investment in nuclear power, which is
unpopular and expensive, and it may lead to a massive growth
of intrusive alternative energy infrastructure – including huge
wind farms, or the equipment needed to exploit tidal energy.
Solving the related problems of rising energy costs and
environmental damage will be extremely painful and costly,
and those perceived as being responsible will be increasingly
expected to shoulder the biggest burden of the cost and blame.
It may even prove impossible to reduce the growth in carbon
emissions sufficiently to avoid environmental catastrophe.
Some believe that the spotlight may increasingly point towards
IT as an area to make major energy savings, and some even
predict that IT may even become tomorrow’s 4x4/SUV, or
aviation – the next big target for the environmental lobby,
and the next thing to lose public support/consent.
A fresh approach is needed.
The solution
A fresh approach to IT and power is now needed, putting power
consumption at the fore in all aspects of IT – from basic hardware
design to architectural standards, from bolt-on point solutions to
bottom-up infrastructure build.
IBM has a real appreciation of the issues, thanks to its size, experience
and expertise, and can help its customers to avoid the dozens of
‘wrong ways’ of doing things, by helping to identify the most
appropriate solutions.
There is a real, economic imperative to change arising now, and it
is not just a matter of making gestures simply to improve a company’s
environmental credentials.
The cost of power
The whole topic of energy consumption is gaining increased
prominence in Western Europe as a consequence of rising energy
prices, and as a result of a growing focus on global warming and
the environment.
The company bottom line
Energy prices rose during 2005 for a third consecutive year, driven by
war in the Middle East, ‘tight’ capacity, extreme weather and a focus on
energy among investors. The price of a barrel of Brent Crude reached
US$50 for the first time (after a 40% increase since 2004), and UK and
US natural gas prices also hit record highs. Global energy supplies were
maintained even in the face of continuing conflict in the Middle East
and despite the disruptive effects of the hurricanes that hit the US Gulf
Coast, but concerns as to the security of energy supplies have increased,
not least after Russia interrupted natural gas supplies to the Ukraine.
Penalties associated with environmental
impact (such as carbon taxes) will
continue to increase.
Energy costs for UK businesses have increased by 57% during
the last 12 months, and now form a really significant element of
operational expenses, often greater than IT equipment depreciation,
and sometimes greater than real-estate costs. Energy costs form
a growing proportion of IT costs, which are increasing (despite
the headline reductions in some hardware prices). “For every
dollar spent on IT equipment, $3 to $4 is spent on operating it
through life,” according to Andrew Fanara, team leader for the US
Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star programme.1
With shrinking reserves and growing demand, there can be little
doubt that energy prices will continue to grow, and inflation is
likely to accelerate. The continued lack of sources of alternative,
clean, green and renewable energy (which remains expensive and
statistically insignificant) means that the penalties associated with
environmental impact (such as carbon taxes) will continue to increase.
The environmental bottom line
According to BP’s 2005 ‘Statistical Review of World Energy’, the
world still has some 40 years of oil reserves if demand remains
static, though proven reserves are still growing, albeit slowly. The
bulk of reserves are located in the Middle East (61.9%), with 22%
in Saudi Arabia, but with significant reserves in Iran (11.5%) and
Iraq (9.6%). Russia and Kazakhstan are together responsible for
another 9.5%, leading to real concerns about the long-term security
of supply. Oil consumption increased by just 1.3% in 2005.
The same source predicts 65 years of natural gas reserves, with 26.6%
in Russia, 14.9% in Iran and 14.3% in Qatar. No other country has
more than 4% of global reserves, making security of supply even more
of a concern. Gas consumption increased by 2.3% during 2005.
Reducing energy consumption will
become an environmental imperative,
as well as an economic necessity.
The effect on the environment is potentially disastrous, with rising
oil and gas prices now triggering a real switch to coal – the dirtiest
and most polluting energy source. Though European and Eurasian
coal consumption rose by just 0.4%, coal was again the world’s
fastest growing fuel, with the growth in consumption reaching
5% or double the 10-year average. Perhaps most worryingly, coal
consumption rose fastest in Asia, especially in China (10.9%), and
India (4.8%). The latter two economies now consume more than
twice as much coal as the US (where the consumption of coal rose
by 1.9%), accounting for almost half (47%) of the global total.
Growth in Thailand (12%), Turkey (14%), Pakistan (14.8%) and the
Philippines (17.7%) was even more rapid. Even in the UK, coal has
enjoyed a minor renaissance, with the re-opening of the Hatfield
Colliery in South Yorkshire, which had closed in 2004. Coal can
thus be seen to be fuelling the growth of the world’s most dynamic
economies. Moreover, with some 155 years of reserves, at current
rates of use, coal will continue to be important for decades to come.
The growing importance of coal will only focus attention on energy
consumption among the public, customers and shareholders, all of
whom are becoming increasingly environmentally aware. Reducing
energy consumption will become an environmental imperative,
as well as an economic necessity.
Energy consumption increasingly has a real effect on an organisation’s
reputation and corporate image. Though there are sources of clean,
green and renewable energy, these remain expensive and statistically
insignificant, and it is still impractical (if not actually impossible) for
a major energy consumer to limit itself to using renewable energy.
The IT industry has seen a concentration
on processing power and storage
capacity, while power consumption
has been ignored.
It is widely assumed that a typical computer uses about . kilowatts per
hour (kWh) in use, or .3 kWh (stand-by) and .03kWh in hibernate mode.
Assuming that the computer spends 220 working days with 12 hours in
operational mode (171 kW) and 12 hours in standby mode (92 kW), and
spends 2 hours in hibernate mode for the remaining 1 days (10 kW),
it will consume 21 kW of electricity.
According to UK government figures, 1kWh produces 0. 1kg of carbon
dioxide (CO2), and 1,9 0kWh produces 1 tonne of CO2. This makes
allowance for the fact that with current nuclear capacity (which is reducing)
some 1 % of electricity is generated without producing any CO2.
This means that a single PC in office mode costs an insignificant amount
to run (£1 .00 per annum), but generates 1.09 tonnes of CO2 per annum
equivalent to the CO2 produced by a single passenger flying from London to
Cairo – spread this across a distributed desktop environment of 2,000 PCs
and you have an annual carbon footprint of 2,188 tonnes of CO2.
A history – and the future – of increasing power consumption
Many of today’s motor cars and car engines are increasingly poorly
suited to today’s demand for economy and fuel efficiency, having
been designed when oil prices were low and when performance,
space and comfort were the most important design drivers. Each new
car model since the Model T was therefore designed to out-perform
its predecessors. Only now is fuel economy and environmental
‘friendliness’ becoming more important than speed and horsepower.
The situation is similar in the IT industry, which has seen a
concentration on processing power and storage capacity, while
power consumption has been ignored. As in the automotive industry,
energy consumption was regarded as being much less important than performance.
Modern IT systems are responsible for an
overall increase in energy consumption
and the cost of energy as a proportion of
IT costs.
As manufacturers competed to create ever-faster processors,
smaller and smaller transistors (running hotter and consuming
more electricity) were used to form the basis of each new generation
of processors. Increased operating temperatures added to the
consumption of power, requiring more and more cooling fans.
Modern IT systems provide more computing power per unit of
energy (kWh) and thus reduce energy consumption per unit of
computing power. Despite this, they are actually responsible for
an overall increase in energy consumption, and for an increase
in the cost of energy as a proportion of IT costs. This is because
users are not simply using the same amount of computing power
as before, while using the new technology to reduce their power
consumption (or operating temperatures), nor are they using
technology to leverage savings in energy costs or in CO2production.
Instead, users are taking and using the increased computing
power offered by modern systems. New software in particular
is devouring more and more power every year. Some software
requires almost constant access to the hard drive, draining power
much more rapidly than previous packages did. Tests of the initial
version of Microsoft** Windows** Vista indicated that it consumed
25% more power than today’s Windows XP, for example.
The advent of faster, smaller chips has also allowed manufacturers
to produce smaller, stackable and rackable servers allowing greater
computing power to be brought to bear (and often shoe-horned into
smaller spaces) but with no reduction in overall energy consumption,
and often with a much greater requirement for cooling.
Despite the trend towards server virtualisation and consolidation in
some companies, business demand for IT services is increasing, and
many companies are still expanding their data centres, while the
number of servers in such data centres is still increasing annually
by about 18%.
nergy consumption of distributed IT
environments is difficult to audit, but
some have already noted a progressive
increase in power consumption.
While the growth in demand for energy did slow down in 2005
(going from a 4.4% rise to just 2.7%, globally) and though the
demand for energy actually fell in the USA, the International Energy
Agency has predicted that the world will need 60% more energy
by 2030 than it does today.
“A typical 10,000-square-foot data centre consumes more electricity than
8,000 0-watt lightbulbs. That represents six to 10 times the power needed
to operate a typical office building at peak demand, according to scientists
at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Given that most data centres run
2 x7x3 , the companies that own them could end up paying millions of
dollars this year just to keep their computers turned on.”2
Forrester Research estimates3 that data centres require 0. to 1 watt of
cooling power for each watt of server power used, and that a typical x8
server consumes between 30% and 0% of its maximum power when idle.
Back to the data centre – the hot problem
In many companies, there has been a shift away from dedicated
data centres, as part of an attempt to provide all IT requirements
by using smaller boxes within the office environment. Many have
found this solution too expensive, experiencing a higher net spend
on staff as well as with higher support costs. Energy consumption
of distributed IT environments is difficult to audit, but some have
also noted a progressive increase in power consumption with
the move from centralised to decentralised, then to distributed
architecture, and finally to mobility-based computing.
Even where distributed computing remains dominant, the problems
of escalating energy prices and environmental concerns are present,
albeit at a lower order of magnitude than in the data centre
environment, and even though the problems are rather more diffuse
and more difficult to solve.
To download and view the complete white paper on this issue
visit the ibm website