Coal versus ecology complicated by incentives

Is it fair to control low levels of renewable energy use in data centers? Or are data center operators blamed for a US energy system in which few key players are properly incentivized to make a broad-based transition to renewable energy?

Mark Thiele of Data Center Pulse answers these questions in a blog post titled Cloud computing and huge data centers are killing our planet! Of course not. Thiele raises some key points about the complexities of getting energy for data centers, though he has some enthusiasm about the panic that’s making headlines.

“What I always miss in articles criticizing large data centers and cloud computing is a comparison of alternatives and an honest assessment of the market and political factors that influence data center construction decisions,” writes Mark. “If you put a free Twinkie in front of someone with limited funds, but charge them $20 for a similar amount of broccoli, which one will that person choose to eat? In other words, why should a company pay 15 cents per kilowatt hour for clean energy when the federal and state governments is that what they do? using taxpayer funds to practically donate energy produced from fossil fuels? Our federal government continues to subsidize the coal and fossil fuel industries to the tune of billions of dollars each year.

Marek has much more to say on this matter. Read the entire entry at The heartbeat of the data center.