This blog is about using ICTs to develop climate change preparedness solutions built around Energy Internet and autonomous eVehicles
Energy Internet and eVehicles Overview
Governments around the world are wrestling with the challenge of how to prepare society for inevitable climate change. To date most people have been focused on how to reduce Green House Gas emissions, but now there is growing recognition that regardless of what we do to mitigate against climate change the planet is going to be significantly warmer in the coming years with all the attendant problems of more frequent droughts, flooding, sever storms, etc. As such we need to invest in solutions that provide a more robust and resilient infrastructure to withstand this environmental onslaught especially for our electrical and telecommunications systems and at the same time reduce our carbon footprint.
Using autonomous eVehicles for Renewable Energy Transportation and Distribution: http://goo.gl/bXO6x and http://goo.gl/UDz37
Free High Speed Internet to the Home or School Integrated with solar roof top: http://goo.gl/wGjVG
High level architecture of Internet Networks to survive Climate Change: https://goo.gl/24SiUP
Architecture and routing protocols for Energy Internet: http://goo.gl/niWy1g
How to use Green Bond Funds to underwrite costs of new network and energy infrastructure: https://goo.gl/74Bptd
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
If you have no power, energy efficiency is irrelevant
[There are dozens, if not hundreds of research initiatives around the world looking at improving energy efficiency in computers and networks.
Greentouch, Greenlight, GreenICT, etc are some typical examples. It is important to note that with energy efficiency we will only hope to reduce energy consumption and thereby lessen our dependence on coal and other dirty fuel sources. In the case of IT however, given its dramatic growth rate, the best we can hope for, in the short term, is to slow down the rate of growth of energy consumption.
But all these initiatives suffer from a single fundamental flaw in thinking – and that is the assumption that power from the grid will always be available, on demand and effectively unlimited.
In a rapidly warming world, with a growing dependence on renewable energy, means the reliability and availability of power from the grid is going to be less certain. Many jurisdictions such as California for example are committed to have 30% of their power from renewable resources. This means that on cloudy, windless days, the utilities will be scrambling to purchase power from out of state or shed low priority customers. Countries like Switzerland and Germany are also facing an impending power shortage because of their commitment to abandon nuclear power and to rely increasingly on renewable energy. While energy storage and integrated grids will help mitigate some of the challenges of dealing with a greater percentage of renewable power in the energy mix, new energy architectures are needed on the demand side of the energy equation. So our future challenge will be more than simply reducing energy consumption but living in a world with frequent power outages as more of our energy comes from renewable sources.
A good example of this forward thinking of energy outages versus energy efficient is a recent project be undertaken by AMD, Hewlett Packard and Clarkson University funded by NYSERDA in New York State to carry out research in follow the wind/follow the sun cloud networks. One of the challenges facing New York state is the number of stranded wind power assets that exist in the state, because “Nimbyism” has prevented the deployment of high voltage power lines to connect these facilities to the grid. As a result the state is funding this project to explore the idea of deploying small computing pods at each windmill linked together by fiber to build a follow the wind/follow the sun cloud/network.
Similar initiatives are the “Free Lunch” program at Cambridge University. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/dtg/www/files/publications/public/sa497/akoush-hotos11.pdf
And, of course, the Greenstar network – the world’s first zero carbon cloud and network is built around the same principle of solely using intermittent renewable energy to power the cloud/network.—BSA]
Some pointers:
Greenstar Network
www.greenstarnetwork.com
A great demo of how a follow the wind/follow the sun network would operate can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFPvBjURlHA
GreenEnergies
http://greenergies.blogspot.com/
Green ICT emissions
http://green-global-economy.blogspot.com/
Computing for the Future of the Planet
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/dtg/research/wiki/CFTFP
AMD Teams With NYSERDA, HP, and Clarkson University for Sustainable Data Center Energy Research
Investment Will Fund Study on Clouds Fueled by Wind and Solar Power
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/amd-teams-with-nyserda-hp-and-clarkson-university-for-sustainable-data-center-energy-research-2011-08-01
SUNNYVALE, CA, Aug 01, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- AMD AMD -0.29% today announced its participation with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), HP and Clarkson University in a significant research project that looks at the industry-wide challenge of channeling renewable energy directly to data centers.
"The distributed computing model of the cloud parallels the distributed power-generation model of solar and wind energy. Directing power to data centers from these emerging renewable energy resources without relying on a large-scale, traditional electrical grid is a key challenge," said Alan Lee, corporate vice president of Research and Advanced Development, AMD. "One ultimate goal is the co-location of dynamic energy sources with dynamic computing resources to improve the economics, performance, and environmental benefits of both infrastructures."
Because wind and solar-derived energy can be intermittent, this study will also examine critical questions of how to automatically shift a compute load between data centers and maintain reliability.
Backing from NYSERDA and additional private funding sources are enabling this proposal, developed by AMD engineers in conjunction with Clarkson University, to enter the research phase. Students will begin experimentation on effectively managing data through a distributed network based on renewable energy. The second phase of the project plans to incorporate hardware elements, including HP's Performance Optimized Datacenter (POD) based on the AMD Opteron(TM) processor, purpose-built for energy efficiency and cloud computing.
HP POD Technology HP's POD portfolio includes the industry's leading energy-efficient, modular data center. Built on HP Converged Infrastructure, HP POD technology provides clients currently burdened with aging infrastructure, limited space and shrinking budgets the agility needed to rapidly scale and meet increasing capacity demands. According to HP, the newest solution in the HP POD family, the EcoPOD, can offer 95 percent greater energy efficiency when compared to traditional brick-and-mortar data centers.(1) HP will offer this project its POD expertise in energy-efficient data center design that delivers maximum density with greater serviceability.
The AMD Research Office AMD Research conducts work on next-generation computing questions in the areas of systems and technologies, network infrastructure and power, among others. It also collaborates on projects with leading universities, public sector organizations and commercial labs worldwide.
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Green Internet Consultant. Practical solutions to reducing GHG emissions such as free broadband and electric highways. http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/
email: Bill.St.Arnaud@gmail.com
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