Transcript How Universities can play leadership role in helping reduce global warming

How Universities can play leadership
role in helping reduce global warming
and building future zero carbon
economy
Bill St. Arnaud
CANARIE 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
Imperative
> One of , if not, the greatest threat to our future society and
economy is global warming.
> 15-30% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 will be needed to
keep the temperature increase under 2 °C, and a deeper reduction
by 60-80% may be needed by 2050.*
> Past IPCC assessments have underestimated the pace of change
>
Latest data indicates we are at the high end of projections
> It will be necessary to go beyond incremental improvements in
energy efficiency, current life-styles and business practices.
Significantly more drastic measures will need to be undertaken
*International Panel on Climate Change
Our Challenge
26 tons/person
j
2008
?
2 tons/person
1 ton/person
j
j
2050
2100
Source: Stern 2008
ICT and Cyber-infrastructure
and CO2 emissions*
> It is estimated that the ICT industry alone produces CO2
emissions that is equivalent to the carbon output of the entire
aviation industry.
> 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
> Average utilization of servers is less than 6%.
> Typical university produces 200,000 – 500,000 metric tons CO2
per year of which 100,000 – 300,000 tons is from Cyberinfrastructure and ICT
*An Inefficient Tuth: http://www.globalactionplan.org.uk/event_detail.aspx?eid=2696e0e0-28fe-4121-bd36-3670c02eda49
University GHG emissions
 Projected GHGs are
based on Planned
Growth in Ten Year
Capital Plan
Source: SFU Facilities Services
SFU
ENERGY MANAGEMENT
1965 - 2008
CI major cause of GHG
emissions
TASC2 Research Building
SFU
UCSD Greenhouse
Gas Emission
Measuring Our Footprint
The Problem
> Compute energy/rack : 2 kW (2000) to 30kW today
> Cooling and power issues now a major factor in CI design
> But academic CI is often too small: departmental closets and
server huggers
> Energy use of departmental facilities is growing exponentially
creating crises of space, power, and cooling
> Unfortunately, almost nothing is known about how to make
these shared virtual clusters energy efficient, since there has
been no financial motivation to do so
*Sourrce: Tom Deafnti GreenLight
Why ICT and Internet is
critical to reducing CO2
> Direct emissions of Internet and ICT are important at 2-3% of
world emissions but, in order of impact, the most significant
contribution we can make is through leveraged, or indirect,
emissions reductions.
>
According to SMART 2020 these represent as much as a 15%
reduction opportunity in global emissions.
> (And SMART 2020 is one of the most conservative reports on
the topic. Others identify even higher potential for savings).
Virtualization and
De-materialization
Source: European Commission Joint Research Centre, “The Future Impact of ICTs on Environmental Sustainability”, August 2004
Universities and regional optical
networks are key
> Bits and optical bandwidth are virtually carbon free
> Optical networks (as opposed to electronic routed networks) have
much smaller carbon footprint
> Significant reduced CO2 impacts are possible through use of
cyber-infrastructure tools like virtualization, clouds, SOA, grids,
Web 2.0, etc.
> Research needed in new “zero carbon” computer and network
architectures needed to connect remote computers, databases and
instruments will be essential
> New zero carbon applications and “gCommerce”
Energy consumption versus
GHG emissions
> Number one problem facing the planet is climate change
– Lots of confusion between Green IT, energy consumption, energy
efficiency, Clean ICT, sustainable IT, Corporate social responsibility
> Turning off the lights or computers may not be the answer
– Also misleads people into thinking problem is easy to solve
– CERN super-collider may produce less GHG than a single router in USA
> Our focus should be on how ICT can reduce GHG emissions
– NOT energy consumption or energy efficiency
– NOT Clean ICT such as computer waste etc
– NOT sustainable IT
– NOT Corporate Social Responsibility
The Falsehood of Energy
Efficiency
> Lots of confusion between energy efficiency and consumption
versus CO2 emissions
> Most current approaches to reduce carbon footprint are focused
on increased energy efficiency of equipment and processes
> This approach is doomed to failure because of KhazzoomBrookes postulate (aka Jevons paradox)
– Greater energy efficiency reduces overall cost and therefore promotes
increased usage
> We need a “zero carbon” strategy because increased usage will
not change emission equation
– Anything times zero is zero
“Zero Carbon” Data Centers
> Purchasing green power locally is expensive with significant transmission
line losses
–Demand for green power within cities expected to grow dramatically
> Data center facilities DON’T NEED TO BE LOCATED IN CITIES
–-Cooling also a major problem in cities
> Most renewable energy sites are very remote and impractical to connect to
electrical grid.
–But can be easily reached by an optical network
–May also meet some of government’s objectives of extending broadband to
rural/remote areas
> Many examples already
–Green House Data, Cheyenne WO
–AISO wind powered data farm
–Iceland and Lithuania National strategies
Significant Economic
opportunities
> Many of these techniques and practices will also lead to exciting
new business opportunities.
> Universities that will be the first to deploy ICT strategies to
mitigate global warming will be the new economic and research
powerhouses
> New revenue opportunities and business models for network
operators and application providers
> Significant revenue opportunities for universities and regional
networks in carbon offsets
The Carbon Economy
> $500 billion - Value of low-carbon energy markets by 2050
> $100 billion - Demand for projects generating GHG
emissions credits by 2030
> Global carbon market expected to grow 58% in 2008 to $92
billion
> $57 trillion - Carbon Disclosure Project signatories, 1000s of
companies participating, expanding to supply chain
accounting
> Carbon economy has potential to pay for several bank bailout’s and 3 or 4 Iraq like wars
> Carbon economy could underwrite costs of national
broadband, healthcare and mortgage defaults
Source: ClimateCheck
Your carbon inventory
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
14062 life cycle
Optical Switch
4 tons
Router
16 tons
Optical Amplifiers
2 tons
Computer server
12 tons
Ethernet switch
8 tons
PC
20 tons
Travel to install and repair -
operation 5 years coal
20 tons
500 tons
40 tons
40 tons
20 tons
5 tons
100 tons
> Virtualized network can save 50% of your carbon emissions!
Do your carbon inventory
NOW!!
> You can not earn credits until you do an inventory and
calculate baseline emissions
> Next year carbon cap price will be $100 per ton in Europe
> At European cap price the cost of GHG emission could be as
much $10 - $50 million per year for university in the next
decade
– A lot depends on details of Obama’s cap and trade
> Conversely university could earn $10 - $50 million per year if a
university is zero carbon
– No revenue potential if university is carbon neutral
American College & University
President’s Climate Commitment
“Signatories agree to…
Create institutional structures
Select & implement tangible
actions to reduce greenhouse
gases
Complete a comprehensive
greenhouse gas inventory
Develop a climate-neutral
action plan
Make information publicly
available”
UK – JISC study
> Why the future's green for IT at universities
– http://education.guardian.co.uk/link/story/0,,2278356,00.html
> Green IT is best achieved through the collaboration of IT and
campus facilities management – power, heat and real estate
– Most researchers are not aware of true costs of computation such as power,
cooling, and specialized buildings.
> Increased energy and computing costs can be offset by
technologies such as grid computing and virtualisation.
– "Eighty to 90% of a computer's capacity is wasted.
> Cardiff University solution to the cost of running super computers
for research projects by centralising departments' IT budgets and
transferring byte-hungry number-crunching to clusters of smaller
high-performance computers.
Green IT MoU
>
Initial Signatories: UCSD, UBC, PROMPT
>
To share best practices in reducing GHG emissions and baseline emission data for cyberinfrastructure and networks as per ISO 14064,
>
To explore carbon reduction strategies by new network and distributed computing
architectures such as PROMPT G-NGI, OptiPuter and CineGrid.
>
To work with R&E network to explore relocation of resources to renewable energy sites,
virtualization, etc.
>
>
To explore the potential for a “virtual” carbon trading systems
>
To explore the creation of a multi-sector pilot of a generalized ICT carbon trading system
including stakeholders from government, industry, and universities.
>
To collaborate with each other and with government agencies and departments and other
organizations
The GreenLight Project:
>
World Accessible Instrument
o Sensors and data available via Web Services integrated into Service
Oriented Architecture
> Architectural Instrumentation for Power/Temperature
o Each data center will have 7 rack spaces devoted to 1 type of cluster
plus one rack for switches.
> Hardware Platform And Software Tools For Hosting Alternative
Architectures:
o Clusters With Multi-core Processors, Processor/Arithmetical Logic Unit
(ALU) Arrays, Specialized Processing Units Such As Graphics
Processing Units (Gpgpus), Reconfigurable Co-processing Units
Using Field-programmable Gate Arrays (Fpgas), And Hybrid
Processing Options Tbd
> Instrumented Process Units, Memory, Disk Drives, and Network
Interfaces
Greening the Internet
Economy Workshop
> On January 22-23, Calit2 will co-host with the California Public Utilities
Commission a two-day workshop to bring together policy makers,
industry, and academics to discuss opportunities for collaboration to use
ICT to meet AB32 goals.
>
Topics to be addressed:
– California’s AB 32 and ICT
– Power Hungry and Greening Data Center
– Reducing Your ICT Footprint
– Advances in Energy Sector and Emerging Technology
– ICT and Smart Buildings
– ICT Based Intelligent Transportation
>
See http://greeninternet.calit2.net
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 Inocybe
Innovative Research funding model
Nouvelles
technologies
énergétiques
Procédés
biotechnologiques
Technologies de
l’information et des
communications
Technologies
du bâtiment
>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;
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.
University initiatives
> Funding councils in Nordic countries will require
GHG costs be included in all funding grants
> BC has a project underway to explore moving all
university computing to a zero carbon data center
using turbine spin up power
Universities could lead the
way to zero carbon society
> Carbon taxes
– Politically difficult to sell
> Cap and trade
– Useful for big emitters like power companies
– Addresses only supply side of CO2
> Carbon offsets
– Immature market with no standards
– But addresses demand side of CO2 by businesses and consumers
> Carbon Neutrality imposed by law
– Growing in popularity especially as protests over gas tax escalates
> But there may be an additional approach….
Carbon rewards rather than
carbon taxes
> Providing free download music, video, and electronic textbooks
in exchange for carbon fees on assessed on student parking
> Free distant learning courses rather than telecommuting
> Free campus wide advanced tele-presence systems in
exchange for carbon fees assessed on researcher’s travel
> Free mobile cell phone using femto cell and Wifi on public
transportation
> Free off campus broadband
Consumers control or influence 60 per
cent of emissions
Emissions under direct
consumer control (35%)
Other sectors (40%)
(e.g. manufacturing, coal mining,
export transport)
http://www.cbi.org.uk/pdf/climatereport2007full.pdf
Consumer influenced sectors (25%)
(e.g. retail, food and drink, wholesale, agriculture, public sector)
Carbon Rewards rather
carbon taxes
> 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 etc
> Carbon reward can also be free ICT services (with low carbon
footprint) such as Internet, cellphone, fiber to the home, etc
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)
> 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
Thank you
> More information
> http://green-broadband.blogspot.com
>
BACKGROUND SLIDES
Carbon Primer
• In general, there are two types of emission
trading schemes:
• Cap and Trade
• Baseline and Credit
• Emission trading schemes can be:
• Regulated (mandated by a government or regional
authority)
• Voluntary (entered into on an individual transaction
basis, or though ongoing contractual arrangements)
Source: ClimateCheck
Cap and Trade
Regulated Markets – Closed System
Company B implements an internal GHG reduction
activity and sells permits to Company A, which uses
the permits to meet its cap
Net Emission
Reduction due
to Trade
GHG Emissions
GHG Emissions
Before Carbon Trading
(Baseline year)
After Carbon Trading
(Future year)
Company A Company B
Total
Company A Company B
Total
Source: ClimateCheck
3
Baseline and Credit
Voluntary and Regulated Markets – Open System
GHG Emissions
GHG emission reduction calculated as the
difference between the actual emissions from
an activity (the GHG project) and the emissions
of the projects baseline scenario
Baseline GHG Emissions
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Project GHG Emissions
Time
Source: ClimateCheck
3
Baseline and Credit
• GHG projects create credits by either:
• Reducing the amount of GHG emissions released to
the atmosphere from one or more GHG sources, or
• Increasing the amount of GHG removed from the
atmosphere.
• Credits are purchased by emitters in
voluntary markets for reasons including
corporate social responsibility, green
branding, and carbon neutral product claims
Source: ClimateCheck
3
Credits and Permits and
Offsets – oh my!
• GHG emission reduction projects and GHG emission
removal enhancement projects generate carbon
credits
• Cap and trade schemes result in permits or
allowances that are traded on a regulated market
• When credits are interchangeable (i.e., fungible )
with emission permits, such credits are strictly
speaking offsets
• ...but “offsets” has come to be used interchangeably
with “credits”
Source: ClimateCheck
3