African data centres and Climate Change

It is a little known fact that the Internet is one of the largest contributors of carbon emissions.   (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/aug/12/carbon-footprint-internet)
Today 9/21/2014[1] is a significant date in the climate change calendar,  being the largest climate march in history ( http://peoplesclimate.org)   It is a day when awareness of the impact of global warming will perhaps reach a critical mass and the decision-makers will finally wake up.  How many more Katrina’s,  Sandy’s or Haiyan’s will it take to shock the hardcore minority ( denialist’s and their patrons – i.e. the fossil fuel industry )  into realising that it can no longer be  “business as usual”.  

I work in the Internet industry – building data centres.   Our work is in Africa where the potential (negative) impact of climate change could be the highest of any region in the World.   As local weather patterns change, such as the decline in rainfall in the Sahel (particularly Sudan) over the last 50 years,  there is an every increasing chance that there will be an impact on regional stability when combined with other local factors.   Darfur is quoted by some sources as being perhaps the first climate change induced conflict, as the competition for diminishing resources between the northern pastoralists and southern agriculturalists eventually exploded into civil war (http://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2010/06/book-review-climate-conflict-how-global-warming-threatens-security-and-what-to-do-about-it-by-jeffrey-mazo/) 

There are a number of Sub-Saharan Africa states which are vulnerable to climate change.   However the net positive impact of delivering broadband services to these countries far outweighs the risks of climate change.   This is our focus.  We will employ the use of low carbon and renewable solutions in powering our data centres to deliver the ‘greenest’ Internet services possible.   So we are looking at using a combination of hydro, gas and solar generated electricity to power our data centres.  The proliferation of broadband services will impact favourably upon critical services like education and healthcare which in turn will lead to a healthier more educated public,  who then can make informed decisions e.g. elections.   

 By ensuring that data centres are eco-friendly we hope to stimulate a general trend toward renewable power supplies.    The local (versus centralised monolithic) generation and consumption of renewable energy, we believe, will have the greatest economic impact on peoples lives;   by improving their quality of life through increased reliable domestic as well as industrial power with the manifold benefits in education, enterprise development, health care and social upliftment.    There has already been a marked reduction in deaths caused by kerosene fires in rural areas with the introduction of solar lamps.  ( http://www.solar-aid.org/how-it-works/).   It is initiatives like these that,  when multiplied many times over,  will start to make a real difference to people’s live across the Continent.

Apple and Google have already shown their commitment to a green Internet by building solar powered data centres. (http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/07/08/apple-to-build-another-100-acre-solar-farm-for-north-carolina-data-center)  They have the wherewithal to do it – but at least they are leading by example. 

We aim to do the same in Africa. 




[1] to use the American convention

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The End of Passwords

Finally it seems … the penny has dropped.   Passwords are a poor substitute for real online security.   There is more and more ‘chatter’ about it.    Robin Henry writing in the Sunday Times on New Years Day talks of the end of ‘password hell’ invoking solutions in the pipeline from the Web Gods – Apple and Google.  The talk is of new biometric solutions such as facial and hand movement recognition.  Even IBM is talking this way.  ( http://www.forbes.com/sites/thestreet/2011/12/20/ibms-tech-predictions-for-the-next-5-years/ )  I agree with the notion that passwords are a dying breed but not that biometrics will become vogue.   They are fraught with problems of their own such as reliability, accuracy and the need for referencing of data-bases ( fail !) .    Why are passwords defunct?   Basically they are difficult to remember and they are easy to steal.    The solutions needed are those that require no cognitive load for the user ( the most unreliable participant in this enterprise
Read more

WIKILEAKS - the fuss?

Why all the fuss ? Why the ‘outrage’ at this ‘threat to national security’ ?   Are we really worried that nuclear war is going to break out because of these ‘dirty’ secrets getting out.  As if the North Koreans are going to up the ante any more than their mock charge of last week because of the abuse and scorn heaped upon them by US Diplomats.  ? !    Come on. To me the irony of this bluster is that it is (largely) from the right wing establishment in the US - calling it treason!     Any party that parades a half wit like Palin as a presidential hopeful hardly holds any moral high ground when it comes to protecting the USA.   Her appointment as the ‘leader of the free World’ will be enough to send any level headed American ( let alone any one of their Allies ) into a panicky tailspin at the thought of what she may stumble into ( by accident or design) . So how did these documents get out there?   Poor security.  Plain and simple.   If the US is so worried about this incident su
Read more

SPOOKS - CYBER ATTACK

Well I’ll be damned – if the subject of my last blog wasn’t the central theme to last nights episode of Spooks – CYBERWAR.    (To those who live outside the UK – Spooks is a very popular TV series about the goings on of a key team inside MI5 who spend their time thwarting terrorist attacks on the UK – while engaging in risqué amorous trysts on the side ).   And so last night we had the Russians and the Chinese –(working together !!) – ganging up on MI5 by infiltrating ( hacking ) their ‘secure’ internal network.     Whether the events portrayed were within the bounds of possibility or credibility who knows?     But if teenagers can break into the Pentagon – then I am sure that Russian/Chinese expert hackers can probably do something along the lines of infiltrating a UK Govt ‘Spooks’ departments network.      Either way it constituted an attack on British soil by foreign ‘combatants’ – which ( if it were true ) would have been a first since the Normans in 1066.   So we saw how vulner
Read more