The data centers that support your Facebook account, ordering an item on Amazon, or being able to log into your bank account requires server up server. These servers require an enormous amount of energy to process and store information but not only that they need energy systems in order to cool them to keep them going. And don't forget about the insurance. In the event that something does goes wrong there needs to be an additional layer of protection to keep the servers going if the main source of energy goes down.
Having some experience in dealing with second source energy supplies, I can tell you that they are not cheap.
Full NYT piece here
- Most data centers, by design, consume vast amounts of energy in an incongruously wasteful manner, interviews and documents show. Online companies typically run their facilities at maximum capacity around the clock, whatever the demand. As a result, data centers can waste 90 percent or more of the electricity they pull off the grid, The Times found.
- To guard against a power failure, they further rely on banks of generators that emit diesel exhaust. The pollution from data centers has increasingly been cited by the authorities for violating clean air regulations, documents show. In Silicon Valley, many data centers appear on the state government’s Toxic Air Contaminant Inventory, a roster of the area’s top stationary diesel polluters.
- Worldwide, the digital warehouses use about 30 billion watts of electricity, roughly equivalent to the output of 30 nuclear power plants, according to estimates industry experts compiled for The Times. Data centers in the United States account for one-quarter to one-third of that load, the estimates show.
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