Published in News

Greenpeace bashes Facebook over data center plans

by on16 March 2010


Image

Wants it to use 100% renewable energy


Greenpeace
has started a campaign against Facebook demanding that the social networking site switches to 100 percent renewable energy. Greenpeace communists launched the campaign in response to Facebook's plans to build a custom data center in Oregon.

Now you might think that the new data center will be powered by freshly squeezed polar bear fat, but it won't. It will run on energy provided by coal power plants, which are still the dominant power source around the globe. However, Facebook claims that the plans were originally drawn up to use hydro power, but the Bonneville Power Administration chose to sell hydro power to an aluminium plant. The fact that aluminium production is one of the most energy costly processes known to man doesn't seem to bother Greenpeace too much. Tree huggers aren't too thrilled with the hydro power idea either, as it makes life miserable for salmon and the bears that eat them, as well as manbearpig.

Gartner VP Rakes Kumar says Greenpeace's position is idealistic, and that's putting it mildly. "I think Greenpeace’s position is admirable but not realistic at the moment," said Kumar. Green IT expert Greg Shulz believes Greenpeace's criticism is misdirected. “Why is Greenpeace calling out Facebook and ignoring Google? The poster child for inefficiency is Google. Facebook requires less resources per pages displayed.”

Mind you, although it might be a power hog, Google is useful. Unlike Facebook, it does something.

More here.
Rate this item
(0 votes)