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News Go green with carbon-free webhosting

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Da Dego, 17 Aug 2007.

  1. Da Dego

    Da Dego Brett Thomas

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  2. samkiller42

    samkiller42 For i AM Cheesecake!!

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    Nice idea, would be nice to see more things like this.

    Sam
     
  3. Mother-Goose

    Mother-Goose 5 o'clock somewhere

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    If anyone want's more information on it I've got a press release from Tom :)
     
  4. Fruitloaf

    Fruitloaf Tinkerer

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    Is that 100% uptime until it gets cloudy?
     
  5. DXR_13KE

    DXR_13KE BananaModder

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    very interesting and cool..... lets see of they can survive.....
     
  6. Mother-Goose

    Mother-Goose 5 o'clock somewhere

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    Fruitloaf, I'm just guessing here, but solar energy is from daylight rather than direct sunlight ;)
     
  7. The_Pope

    The_Pope Geoff Richards Super Moderator

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    Correct - it's photon-based, so cloudy days merely equal diminished performance rather than no juice at all. Plus, that's what batteries are for!
     
  8. LeMaltor

    LeMaltor >^_^

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    What building is this housed in? How was it built and by whom? Who works there now, how do they get to work? What do they eat, and where does it come from?
     
  9. airchie

    airchie What's a Dremel?

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    Sounds like a good idea to me, with only one snag (which I hope I'm wrong about).
    I thought solar panels were so harmful to the environment during manufacture, you'd need to use them for longer than their servicable life to offset the damage caused by their production.
    Maybe newer techniques have resolved this?
     
  10. -EVRE-

    -EVRE- What's a Dremel?

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    .... I know how much solar power it takes to run a pair of wifi radios drawing about 5 watts total. At present a 25 watt panel has a little surplus power after a full sunny day. One cloudy day = about 4-8 sunny days of recovery for the batteries. This fall I am going to be investing in 75 more watts of solar at $5 a watt just to run 5 watts continuously.

    If their web servers can be as efficient as my laptop at idle (20-30 watts) and only peak at 90 watts, my guess for one server the solar demand would be 800 watts solar per server.... or $4000 USD and thats without the cost of tracking mounts, charge regulators, inverters or batteries! A 5KW bank of batteries (*fuzzy memory on this, correct me if I'm wrong!) will cost about $10,000 USD and to spare your batteries an early death you should only use the top 75% of their capacity. Sooooo to run a small server farm will probably cost in the range of $100,000 +

    kudos to that company for taking on such a financial burden to go green!

    I wonder if they use any wind power...? would depend on how much wind they get annualy.
    Lukily where I live I get a decent amount of wind. For my repeater station I'm also going to buy a 400 watt wind turbine to offset those long nights and cloudy days in the winter.
     
  11. Mother-Goose

    Mother-Goose 5 o'clock somewhere

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    I have spoken to Tom and he told me this:

    "we are equipt with 60 days worth of battery backup - yes we can run in the night time and winter! We have a backup generator that runs on propane gas. Propane gas is cleaner burning than diesel, which is found at most other hosting companies. Propane does not emit large amounts of carbon dioxide and produces no sulfur dioxide or particulates which is the primary causes of the greenhouse effect and acid rain. In fact, propane also meets the standards set by the federal Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA) for reducing acid rain and controlling air pollution in urban areas. The CAAA heralds propane as one of the solutions to a cleaner, healthier environment. And since propane vaporizes rapidly, it won't contaminate soil or groundwater. The generator is for emergency use only and is tested weekly."
     
  12. completemadness

    completemadness What's a Dremel?

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    Its a very nice idea, but i have to wonder how they get enough power from solar panels to power a data center, i mean were talking kilowatts here ....
    "£95 a year for 2Gb of web space"

    i know a host (that i usually use) that $6/mo ($60/year) for 200gb space, 2000gb bandwidth per month (inc unlimited email address and unlimited sql databases, users, etc etc)

    Still if you want to do your bit for the environment, i guess if you want to pay the premium
     
  13. hitman012

    hitman012 Minimodder

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    Environmentally conscience?
     
  14. Mother-Goose

    Mother-Goose 5 o'clock somewhere

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    I think the idea is that even though you are paying a bit more, you are doing your bit towards reducing CO2 emissions, there is always going to be a price for that. It's the same with cars, it costs more to start with, but when it's main stream and defacto it will be cheaper.
     
  15. HandMadeAndroid

    HandMadeAndroid That's handy.

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    maybe if we all turned off ou
     
  16. jezmck

    jezmck Minimodder

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  17. DougEdey

    DougEdey I pwn all your storage

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    not really the same thing Jazzle. Dreamhost are buying out of it.
     
  18. Alaskan Assassin

    Alaskan Assassin cooling?

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    and if, during the inevitable machine uprising, the skies are permanently darkened, how will we get our data?
    (I'm sorry, but I couldn't resist.)
     
  19. jezmck

    jezmck Minimodder

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    Oh I know that, but it's still a positive thing.
     
  20. DougEdey

    DougEdey I pwn all your storage

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    I don't agree with the whole carbon credits thing.

    It becomes an extra income source for some companies and lets other companies get away with not reducing pollution even one iota.
     
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