Gartner makes a prediction that THE social networking site is Facebook.
I wrote 2 weeks ago about the idea maybe Facebook should have bought a Bloom Box to diffuse the decision that the company will buy coal based electricity.
Feb 22, 2010
Maybe Facebook should have bought a Bloom Box to diffuse Greenpeace’s campaign against a coal powered data center
Thanks to Matt Stansberry’s reporting on SearchDataCenter, attention was drawn to Facebook’s Prineville Data Center being coal powered.
Tiered energy rates bring higher prices for new customers
By 2012, BPA will charge tiered rates for power. Customers that signed 20-year contracts in 2008 will pay tier-one (i.e., inexpensive) pricing for their current electricity demand. These customers use most of the power produced by the dams.
Matt Stansberry broke the news on this topic and has demonstrated the force one person can have, especially a press writer.
Greenpeace decided to start a Facebook page on getting Facebook to run their data center on 100% renewable energy. They had a goal of 10,000 members of the group. It was 6,700 on Feb 22, 2010.
There is even a Facebook site for this topic with over 6,700 users.
In 2 weeks it is now 138,279
Members
6 of 138,279 members See All
How many more members will there be in 2 more weeks?
This gives a whole different way to think of the value of a green data center. If Greenpeace is successful in getting Facebook to convert to 100% renewable energy and pay a premium over coal who is next?
I've always said the problem with data centers is they have big targets painted on them for environmentalist as they have high concentrations of electricity use and are run by rich companies.