IT Benefits of Climate Change to Canada

ICT and Climate ChangeBenefits to Canada

Bill St. ArnaudCANARIE Inc – www.canarie.ca

[email protected]

Unless otherwise noted all material in this slide deck may be reproduced, modified or distributed without prior permission of the author

The Climate Change Threat

> Obama’s National Science Advisor John Holdren on Global Climate Disruption– http://greenmonk.net/john-holdren-on-global-climatic-disruption

> Stephen Chu – new head of DoE – “Wake up America!!”– http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/california-agriculture-global-warmin

g-47020402

> MIT report predicts median temperature forecast of 5.2C– 11C increase in Northern Canada– http://globalchange.mit.edu/pubs/abstract.php?publication_id=990

> Last Ice age average global temperature was 6C cooler than today– Most of Canada was under 2-3 km ice

Climate Forecasts

MIT

The Planet is Already Committed to a Dangerous Level of Warming

Temperature Threshold Range that Initiates the Climate-Tipping

Additional Warming over 1750 Level

90% of the Additional 1.6 Degree Warming Will Occur in the 21st

Century

V. Ramanathan and Y. Feng, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD September 23, 2008

www.pnas.orgcgidoi10.1073pnas.0803838105Source: Larry Smarr CAL-It2

Climate tipping points> USGS report finds that future climate shifts have been underestimated and

warns of debilitating abrupt shift in climate that would be devastating.– http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap3-4/final-report/default.htm– http://climateprogress.org/2008/11/24/what-are-the-near-term-climate-pearl-harbors/

> Tipping elements in the Earth's climate - National Academies of Science– “Society may be lulled into a false sense of security by smooth projections of global change. Our

synthesis of present knowledge suggests that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point within this century under anthropogenic climate change. “

– http://www.pnas.org/content/105/6/1786.abstract?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=tipping+elements+lenton&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT

> Arctic Climate Change may be at tipping point – Globe and Mail -Sept 2009– We thought by 2050, multi-year [sea] ice would be cut in half,” said Mr. Stewart from Ottawa.

“Well, it happened in 2007.”– http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/science/arctic-climate-change-at-tipping-point/a

rticle1272939/– http://www.panda.org/wwf_news/news/?uNewsID=173262

Climate Change is not reversible

> Climate Change is not like acid rain or ozone destruction where environment will quickly return to normal once source of pollution is removed

> GHG emissions will stay in the atmosphere for thousands of years and continue to accumulate

> Planet will continue to warm up even if we drastically reduce emissions

All we hope to achieve is to slow down the rapid rate of climate change

Weaver et al., GRL (2007)

j

j

26 tons/person

1 ton/person2008 2050?

j2100

2 tons/person

Source: Stern 2008

Our Challenge

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CO2 emissions from Information, Computer, Telecommunications (ICT)

> It is estimated that the ICT industry alone produces CO2 emissions that is equivalent to the carbon output of the entire aviation industry 2-3%

> ICT emissions growth fastest of any sector in society, doubling about every 4 years

> One small computer server generates as much carbon dioxide as a SUV with a fuel efficiency of 15 miles per gallon

> ICT represent 8-9.4% of total US electricity consumption, and 8% of global electricity consumption

> Projected to grow to as much as 20% of all electrical consumption in the US– http://uclue.com/index.php?xq=724

*An Inefficient Tuth: http://www.globalactionplan.org.uk/event_detail.aspx?eid=2696e0e0-28fe-4121-bd36-3670c02eda49

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ICT’s Enabling Effect is Significant

> Can deliver carbon emission reductions five times size of sector’s own footprint by 2020– 7.8 Giga-tons carbon

dioxide equivalent – Greater than US or China’s

current annual emissions> Key sectors include

Transportation, Buildings, Industrial Processes, and Power

> No other sector can achieve this enabler effect !!

Source: SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age, 2008

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Canada’s ICT enabler effect

•ICT sector contributes one megatonne of GHG emissions or < 1% of Canada’s total

•Enabling effect estimated at between 19.1 – 36 MT of CO2e

•Telework, Car pools, Transportation logistics, Virtual Meetings, Smart Buildings & e-commerce

•Estimated financial benefit between $7.5 billion – $12.9 billion Source: Industry Canada

Growth ProjectionsData Centers

> Half of ICT consumption is data centers

> 50% of today’s Data Centers and major science facilities in the US will have insufficient power and cooling;*

> By 2010, half of all Data Centers will have to relocate or outsource applications to another facility.*

> During the next 5 years, 90% of all companies will experience some kind of power disruption. In that same period one in four companies will experience a significant business disruption*

> Data centers will consume 12% of electricity in the US by 2020 (TV Telecom)

Source: Gartner; Meeting the DC power and cooling challenge

IT biggest power draw

Heating,CoolingandVentilation58%

Lighting11%

IT Equipment 25%

Other6%

Sources: BOMA 2006, EIA 2006, AIA 2006

Energy Consumption World Wide

Transportation

25%

Manufacturing25%

Buildings50%

Energy Consumption Typical Building

Why is this important?

> RFPs from customers to include shadow carbon accounting

> UK government is planning to link the funding available to universities and colleges with their performance in reducing carbon emissions.

> All Government RFP responses must include shadow cost carbon accounting

> EU and other nations expected to follow soon–  

http://www.carbonoffsetsdaily.com/global/government-funding-to-reward-greenest-universities-3996.htm

>  

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Moratorium on coal plants

> Ontario suspends nuclear power plants– http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontario-suspends-nuclear-power-

plans/article1200469/

> CANDU reactor safety design may limit power production to 50%– http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/reactor-design-puts-safety-into-q

uestion/article1200130/

> Britain and Canada to phase out coal plants that don’t have CCS by 2025– http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0429-hance_cleancoal.html

The Carbon Economy

> $500 billion - Value of low-carbon energy markets by 2050

> $100 billion - Demand for projects generating GHG missions credits by 2030

> Global carbon market expected to grow 58% this year to $92 billion

> Carbon market could be worth billions for telecoms & IT– US market estimated at $700 billion– http://telephonyonline.com/global/news/carbon-trade-arnaud-0626/

> Obama’s cap and trade (Waxman-Markey) bill will force emitters to spend $1.25 on carbon offsets for every $1.00 on emission permits

Source: ClimateCheck

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Impact of Cap and Trade on Data centers

> Company Servers Electricity Cost http://ccr.sigcomm.org/online/files/p123.pdf– eBay 16K 0.6×105 MWh $3.7M– Akamai 40K 1.7×105 MWh $10M– Rackspace 50K 2×105 MWh $12M– Microsoft >200K >6×105 MWh >$36M– Google >500K >6.3×105 MWh >$38M– USA (2006) 10.9M 610×105 MWh $4.5B– MIT campus 2.7×105MWh $62M

> If a data center has an average load of 40MW, the annual carbon footprint would be 88,000 mTCO2e in California and 348,000 mTCO2e on a campus that uses coal-generated electricity.

> Assuming carbon trades at $20 per metric ton then the cost to a California university will be an additional $1.76 million in the first year. For a university that uses coal-generated power the increased energy cost for the data center will start off at around $7 million per year!

Trends: Policy and Legislative Changes

> Provincial/Territories: -BC (Bill 44, 31) -AB (Climate Change and Emissions Management Act (2007)) -Saskatchewan Bill No. 95) -Manitoba (The Climate Change and Emissions Reductions Act (June 2008)) -Ontario (Draft Bill) -Quebec (Bill 42) -Atlantic Canada – targets set in climate change plans> Government of Canada's proposed GHG Offset System > July 8, 2009 - Statement of G8 on energy and climate

Public Sector to be carbon neutral by 2010 in BC

> British Columbia was first government to introduce carbon tax in Western Hemisphere

> Provincial Government in province of British Columbia has mandated all public sector institutions to be carbon neutral by 2010– Other provinces exploring to implement the same policy– New Zealand has also made the same requirements

> Many universities and businesses are adopting voluntary carbon neutrality objectives– Dell, Cisco, Google etc

> This will have big impact on university research and optical networks

The Falsehood of Energy Efficiency

> Most current approaches to reduce carbon footprint are focused on increased energy efficiency of equipment and processes

> This is akin to smoking milder cigarettes in order to avoid cancer– Does not address the real problem

> But growth in ICT deployment of equipment and services is outstripping any gains made in efficiency– Which is likely to accelerate as ICT is used to support abatement in other fields such as smart

homes, smart buildings, smart grids etc

> Also greater efficiency can paradoxically increase energy consumption by reducing overall cost service and therefore stimulates demand– Khazzoom-Brookes postulate (aka Jevons paradox aka rebound effect)– In last Energy crisis in 1973 Congress passed first energy efficiency laws (CAFÉ) which mandate

minimum mileage for cars, home insulation and appliances– Net effect was to reduce cost of driving car, heating or cooling home, and electricity required for

appliances– Consumer response was to drive further, buy bigger homes and appliances

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Zero Carbon strategy essential

> Zero carbon strategy using renewable energy critically important if governments mandate carbon neutrality, or if there is a climate catastrophe

> With a zero carbon strategy growth in demand for ICT services will not effect GHG emissions– Anything times zero is always zero

> Wind and solar power are most likely candidates because of opportunity cost/benefit analysis especially time to deploy– Nuclear has high opportunity cost because of time to deploy– http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/14/stanford-study-part-1-wind-solar-baseload-easily-beat

-nuclear-and-they-all-best-clean-coal/

> But renewable energy sites are usually located far from cities and electrical distribution systems are not designed to carry load– http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/12/pdf/renewable_transmission.pdf

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> Purchasing green power locally is expensive with significant transmission line losses–Demand for green power within cities expected to grow dramatically

> ICT facilities DON’T NEED TO BE LOCATED IN CITIES–-Cooling also a major problem in cities

> But most renewable energy sites are very remote and impractical to connect to electrical grid.– Can be easily reached by an optical network– Provide independence from electrical utility and high costs in wheeling power– Savings in transmission line losses (up to 15%) alone, plus carbon offsets can pay for moving ICT facilities to renewable energy site

> ICT is only industry ideally suited to relocate to renewable energy sites– Also ideal for business continuity in event of climate catastrophe

“Zero Carbon” Computing and data centers

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Many examples

Hydro-electric powered data centers

Data IslandiaDigital Data Archive

ASIO solar powered data centers

Wind powered data centers

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Ecotricity in UK builds windmills at data center locations with no capital cost to user

Relocation of Nordic HPC facilities to Iceland

“Zero Carbon” data centers connected by optical networks

Turbine Spin up Power

Carbon Footprint by state

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Economic benefits of zero carbon data centers

> Cost- and Energy-Aware Load Distribution Across Data Centers– http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~ricardob/papers/hotpower09.pdf– Green data centers can decrease brown energy consumption by 35% by leveraging the green

data centers at only a 3% cost increase

> Cutting the Electric Bill for Internet-Scale Systems– Companies can shift computing power to a data center in a location where it’s an off-peak

time of the day and energy prices are low– Cassatt a product that dynamically shifts loads to find the cheapest energy prices– 45% maximum savings in energy costs– http://ccr.sigcomm.org/online/files/p123.pdf– http://earth2tech.com/2009/08/19/how-data-centers-can-follow-energy-prices-to-save-millions/

> Computing for the future of the planet– http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/dtg/~ah12/– http://earth2tech.com/2008/07/25/data-centers-will-follow-the-sun-and-chase-the-wind

MIT to build zero carbon data center in Holyoke MA

> The data center will be managed and funded by the four main partners in the facility: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cisco Systems, the University of Massachusetts and EMC.

> It will be a high-performance computing environment that will help expand the research and development capabilities of the companies and schools in Holyoke– http://www.greenercomputing.com/news/2009/06/11/

cisco-emc-team-mit-launch-100m-green-data-center–

Ontario Government announcement on low carbon data centers

> McGuinty Government Supports Local Economy And Innovation > New low carbon data centres that provide alternative, less expensive and greener

data storage facilities are being studied in Thunder Bay.

> Rapidly growing global demands on the data management sector have resulted in increased energy consumption to operate and manage these large amounts of data, as well as to maintain proper climatic conditions at data storage facilities.

> This exciting project will not only research the economic development potential of establishing low carbon data centres in Northern Ontario, it will also investigate opportunities for transferring the excess energy to other public facilities. That means everyone involved could experience reduced operating costs.”– -Michael Gravelle, Minister of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry, and Chair of the NOHFC– ontario.ca/north-news

Impact on networks

> Building zero carbon data centers in remote locations creates impact on network in terms of large data volumes being carried greater distances

> More fossil based energy will be consumed in transmission facilities (versus reduction at data centers)

> Optical networks will have modest increase in power consumption especially with new 100G and 1000G waves

> Electronic equipment such as routers and aggregators will have much larger impact

Renewable power is not reliable

> How do you provide mission critical ICT services when energy source is unreliable?– Ebbing wind or setting sun

> Back up diesel and batteries are not an option because they are not zero carbon and power outages can last for days or weeks

> Need new network architectures and business models to ensure reliable service delivery by quickly moving compute jobs and data sets around the world to sites that have available power– Will require high bandwidth networks and routing architectures to quickly move jobs and

data sets from site to site

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PROMPT – Next Generation Internet to Reduce Global Warming

Research on router, optical, W/W-less and distributed computing architectures, applications, grids, clouds, Web services, virtualization, dematerialization, remote instrumentation and sensors, etc.

Share infrastructure & maximize lower cost power by “following wind & sun” networks.

Sources: GENI and Inocybe27

Possible research areas

> Dynamic all optical networks with solar or wind powered optical repeaters

> Wireless mesh ad-hoc networks with mini-solar panels at nodes

> New Internet architectures with servers, computers and storage collocated at remote renewable energy sites such as hydro dams, windmill farms, etc

> New routing and resiliency architectures for wired and wireless networks for massively disruptive topology changes due to setting sun or waning winds that power routers and servers

> New grid and data storage architectures with distributed replication and virtual machines (VM turntables, Hadoop) for “follow the sun” and “follow the wind” grids

> New stats and measurement analysis of bits per carbon (bpc) utilization, optimized “carbon” routing tables, etc

GENI Topology optimized by source destination

Sensor Network

Thin Client Edge Site

Source: Peter Freeman NSF

Mobile Wireless Network

Wind PowerSubstrateRouter

Solar PowerWirelessBase Station

GENI with remote nodes at renewable energy sites

Sensor Network

Thin Client Edge Site

Source: Peter Freeman NSF

Mobile Wireless Network

Wind PowerSubstrateRouter

Solar PowerWirelessBase Station

Topology optimized by availability of energy

>Virtual carbon trading systems where carbon offsets are traded for access to grid computational cycles, wide area network bandwidth, research funding and or other virtual services;

>Creation of a multi-sector pilot of a generalized ICT carbon trading system including government, industry, and universities;

Innovative Research funding model

Technologies du bâtiment

Nouvelles technologies énergétiques

Procédésbiotechnologiques

Technologies de l’information et des

communications

Technologies du bâtiment

Technologies du bâtiment

Nouvelles technologies énergétiques

Nouvelles technologies énergétiques

Procédésbiotechnologiques

Procédésbiotechnologiques

Technologies de l’information et des

communications

Technologies de l’information et des

communications

Strong Interest worldwide

•Over $15M commitments by 11 companies, 15 Canadian universities & institutions and 11 international organizations;•Open initiative: Expanding MOU across California, Canada & ROW.

Vertical Windmills for networks

MAGENN AIR ROTOR SYSTEM (M.A.R.S.)

Windports

Verticainc

Wind powered Cell phone tower

> Over 100,000 cell phone towers to be powered by renewable energy by 2012

> Vertical axis turbines and solar> Ericsson (Montreal) world leader in these developments

CANARIE Green-IT Pilot

> $3m allocation for Green cyber-infrastructure-IT pilot testbed

> Two objectives:– Technical viability and usability for relocating computers to zero

carbon data centers and follow the sun/follow the wind network– Business case viability of offering carbon offsets (and or equivalent in

services) to IT departments and university researchers who reduce their carbon footprint by relocating computers and instrumentation to zero carbon data centers

> International partnership with possible zero carbon nodes using virtual router/computers in Spain, Ireland, California, Australia, British Columbia, Ottawa, Quebec and Nova Scotia

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The “VM Turntable” Demonstrator

seamless remote

rendering

Korea Chicago

Calgary

VMs

DynamicLightpaths

StarlightCA*net4KREOnet

APEC TEL 33, Calgary, AL, Apr 24-27 2006Live VMs migrated from Calgary to Chicago with transit through

S. Korea, resulting in just a 1.011 second of application downtime.DRAC sets up and tears down a lightpath w/ each migration.

What are carbon offsets?> Companies or individuals buy carbon offsets from projects that remove or

reduce carbon– Planting trees, building hydro dams, installing energy efficient processes, etc

> Many companies and universities that claim to be carbon neutral do so, not by reducing their CO2 footprint but by purchasing offsets

> Two types of markets– Regulated markets – Alberta, BC , Europe and New England– Voluntary markets – Air Canada, Chicago, etc– Carbon buying and selling is done through registries or exchanges

• Pacific Carbon Trust, Montreal Carbon exchange, REGI

> In regulated markets all big emitters such as power plants, steel mills, universities, etc must purchase permits based on cap and trade

ISO 14064/2/3

> ISO 14064 is the accounting process required to validate whether a project actually reduces CO2

> ISO 14062/3 sets the measurement process for “life cycle” CO2 emissions for a product or service

> You need to implement ISO 14064 process to demonstrate actual CO2 reductions– Vendors need to provide 14062/3 data for products and services

Define Scope of your Emissions

: Select a GHG Protocol

The World Resource Institute Greenhouse Gas Protocol

The Climate Registry General Reporting Protocol

Source Total Emissions (Tonnes CO2e)*

Scope 1

Natural Gas** 66,150

Oil** 440

Fleet and Fuel 2,120

Animals 1,510

Scope 2 Electricity 6,150

Scope 3

Paper 1,090

Buildings 12,020

Flights 13,630

Commuting 22,820

Fertilizer 150* Based on UBC’s 2006 Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory Report

**Includes core operations, tenants and ancillaries at UBC Point Grey and Okanagan campuses

UBC’S GHG Emissions (tonnes of C02-e)

Impact on UBC

> The greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets act (Bill 44-2007), imposes carbon neutrality on all UBC Scope 1 and 2 emissions plus paper. Carbon neutrality will be achieved through emissions reductions, and the purchasing of offsets for emissions that cannot be avoided. Offsets in BC are regulated through the Pacific Carbon Trust. Indications are that Offsets will be priced at $25/tonne.

 > Since July 1st, 2008, UBC has been paying a carbon tax on all fossil fuel (natural

gas, oil and fleet fuel). This tax began at $10/tonne CO2e in 2008, and will rise by $5/year to $30/tonne in 2012.  The following tables summarize UBC’s estimated GHG emissions liability

Impact on UBC

2007 GHG Inventory Summary Table (Tonnes CO2-e)[1]

  UBC Vancouver Campus[2] UBC Okanagan Campus[3]

Natural Gas 54 595 2 283

Oil 0 0

Electricity 3 865 254

Fleet 2 096 23

Paper 994

Cost of GHG emissions for UBC 2010 – 2012 (/tonne CO2-e)  2010 2011 2012

Carbon Offset $25 $25 $25

Carbon Tax $20 $25 $30

Total $45 $50 $55

UBC’s GHG Emissions Liability 2010-2012[4]

  2010 2011 2012

Carbon Offset[5] $ 1 602 750 $ 1 602 750 $ 1 602 750

Carbon Tax[6] $ 1 179 940 $ 1 474 925 $ 1 769 910

Total: $ 2 782 690 $ 3 077 675 $ 3 372 660

Policy approaches to reducing CO2

> Carbon taxes– Politically difficult to sell

> Cap and trade– Useful for big emitters like power companies– Addresses only supply side of CO2

> Carbon Neutrality imposed by law– Growing in popularity especially as protests over gas tax escalates

> But there may be an additional approach….

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Carbon Rewards rather carbon taxes – “gCommerce”

> Although carbon taxes are revenue neutral, they payee rarely sees any direct benefit– No incentive other than higher cost to reduce footprint

> Rather than penalize consumers and businesses for carbon emissions, can we reward them for reducing their carbon emissions?

> Carbon rewards can be “virtual” products delivered over broadband networks such movies, books, education, health services, collarboartive education and research technologies etc

> Carbon reward can also be free ICT services (with low carbon footprint) such as Internet, cellphone, fiber to the home, etc

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Source: European Commission Joint Research Centre, “The Future Impact of ICTs on Environmental Sustainability”, August 2004

Virtualization and De-materialization

Direct replacement of physical goods – 10% - 20% impact

Other sectors (40%) (e.g. manufacturing, coal mining, export transport)

Emissions under direct consumer control (35%)

Consumer influenced sectors (25%)(e.g. retail, food and drink, wholesale, agriculture, public sector)

Heat

ing

Private cars

ElectricityOther transport

Consumers control or influence 60 per cent of emissions

http://www.cbi.org.uk/pdf/climatereport2007full.pdf

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Virtualization is key

> Movies and music delivered over Internet

> Virtual applications – Google docs, ESERI– 4 out of top 10 virtualization companies

are in Canada, CIO magazine

> In many homes electronic devices consume more power than traditional appliances– http://www.iea.org/journalists/headlines.asp

MIT’s Sixth sense

Digital vs Traditional appliances

Case Western pilot with Kindle DX

> One pound of printer paper generates 4 pounds of CO2

> One pound of newspaper produces 3 pounds of CO2

> One pound of textbooks produces 5 pounds of CO2

> Babcock school of Management textbooks for 160 students alone produces 45 Tons CO2– http://www.stewartmarion.com/carbon-footprint/html/

carbon-footprint-stuff.html

More examples

> e-Book device on average can displace the buying of about 22.5 physical books per year, and thus deliver an estimated savings of 168 kg of CO2– http://cleantech.com/research/kindlebrief.cfm

> Buying an album digitally reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 40 to 80 percent relative to a “best-case” CD

• http://download.intel.com/pressroom/pdf/CDsvsdownloadsrelease.pdf

Free Wifi on Buses

> There’s a school bus service called The Green Bus in Birmingham, UK which operates double-decker, low-carbon emissions buses that carry over 1400 kids to school every day (saving over 2000 car journeys).

> In addition to encouraging kids to play peer-to-peer games, the access points allow the bus company to monitor where the buses are in the city in real time. Parents as well as staff can follow the progress of any bus via Google maps.

> Business bus service in San Francisco offers office on the move – free wifi, femto cell service etc

 – http://www.muniwireless.com/2009/01/14/school-kids-enjoy-wi-fi-on-green-bus/

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Carbon Reward Strategy for last mile infrastructure

> Provide free high speed Internet and fiber to the home with resale of electrical and gas power (ESCOs)– http://www.newamerica.net/files/HomesWithTails_wu_slater.pdf– Pilots in Cleveland, Switzerland, Ottawa, etc

> Customer pays a premium on their gas and electric bill

> Customers encouraged to save money through reduced energy consumption and reduced carbon output

> Customer NOT penalized if they reduce energy consumption– May end up paying substantially less then they do now for gas + electricity +

broadband + telephone + cable

> Network operator gets guaranteed revenue based on energy consumption rather than fickle triple play

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Train your IT staff in offsets

> Not for profit eLearning institute> The institute offers rigorous online training and workshops on

GHG accounting, auditing and management. > Most participants are from IT industry> Absolutely essential if you want to sell carbon offsets> http://www.ghginstitute.org/

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Final remarks

> The problem we face is NOT energy consumption, but carbon emissions

> Think carbon, not energy

> Optical networks and components will play a critical role in helping us move to a zero carbon society

Thank you

> More information> Canet List serve on Green IT

– Send e-mail to [email protected]

> http://green-broadband.blogspot.com> http://free-fiber-to-the-home.blogspot.com/

>

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