Facebook’s decision to move to Oregon was incredibly wise in terms of creating an energy-efficient data center; however, representatives for Greenpeace have called their choice of power supplier “terrible” and have referred to Facebook as “The So Coal Network” on their website. Greenpeace has even gone so far as to start a movement, as part of their IT sector climate campaign, that urges Facebook to “Unfriend Coal” and stop using “the dirtiest source of energy and largest source of global warming pollution in the world” (Greenpeace.org). Furthermore, Greenpeace outlines the steps Facebook needs to take to be greener, which focus on moving the company away from coal and advises them to turn towards renewable energy sources such as wind, sun, and geothermal.
Greenpeace International presents a valid argument in their attempt to get companies to “choose environmentally friendly energy sources to fuel their servers” (Ross). According to Tom Brokaw of the Discovery Channel, “Burning coal emits almost twice as much carbon per unit of energy as natural gas and 1.25 times as much oil. As a result, coal is behind 93 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions from electrical generation in the U.S.” (discovery.com). Greenpeace International’s executive director, Kumi Naidoo, has even challenged Mark Zuckerberg himself. He pushed him “to drive the deployment of renewable energy sources needed to avert the most devastating possible effects of our changing climate” (Ross). Naidoo also stressed to Zuckerberg how important it is for global business leaders to be aware of their “company’s environmental impacts” and noted that “it is both a threat to a company’s reputation and financial health risk to ignore [these impacts]” (Ross).
According to AllFacebook, the unofficial Facebook blog, the site is gaining about 450,000 people per day. Moreover, “Facebook may have become the Internet’s second most popular destination after Google [and] is essentially acquiring a small state every day” (betanews.com). For this reason, it is essential that Facebook is aware of our global environment and begins to move towards a more energy efficient strategy. Although “coal-burning power plants are the largest U.S. source of carbon dioxide pollution, produc[ing] 2.5 billion tons every year,” there are some states that are moving in the right direction (nrdc.org). California and New York are examples of this positive progress: “California has required its largest utilities to get 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2017, and New York has pledged to compel power companies to provide 25 percent of the state's electricity from renewable sources by 2013” (nrdc.org).
Greenpeace has been campaigning to make the IT industry more environmentally friendly for about five years now, and they are adamant about this cause for many reasons. One particular concern that Greenpeace has is the current growth rates of data centers and telecommunications networks. At their existing growth rates, these key components of “the cloud Facebook depends on, will consume about 1,963 billion kilowatts hours of electricity in 2020, [which is] more than triple their current consumption and more than the current electricity consumption of France, Germany, Canada and Brazil combined” (Greenpeace.org). Mark Zuckerberg has replied to Greenpeace’s campaign saying, “Some of the old data centers we rent use coal, but most are already green” (Ross). He also pointed out that the new center in Oregon uses hydro power dams. Moreover, Facebook rented out various data centers, which were also being used by other companies, so it was virtually impossible to change the facilities without an agreement between all of the companies using the facilities (Ross). Another positive change that Facebook has made is their shift from “many small leased data centers to fewer large customized ones” to increase energy efficiency. Barry Schnitt, a spokesman for Facebook, has even said that Facebook is “one of, if not the most, energy-efficient data centers in the world” (Ross).
As Facebook continues to grow, they will seek out new methods of obtaining energy without harming the environment. The company’s widely known name and status allow them to set the standard for other IT companies, so hopefully they will continue on their path to becoming entirely environmentally friendly. This will not only help their business, but it will also benefit our planet as a whole.
-Katie O’Neill
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/globalwarming/interactive/interactive.html
http://www.betanews.com/article/Just-how-fast-is-Facebook-growing/1231372431
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