"Long ago (last week) in an area not-so far away (Newark), datacenters.com brought you more of the ever-unfolding turmoil of the people (who don't want the data center) versus the data center, the local government versus the people and the people (who do want the data center) versus just about everyone else. And then there's Amy Roe (for her side click her - she's afraid the construction workers will make it difficult for the female student body of the University of Delaware.)
What we continue to find interesting about this story: how much time and money will continue to bleed out for the building of the center - or not building the data center? And as a new threat to the build emerges (is the data center ""green"") we are very interested in the newest report that says: ""clean, but not green.""
To shed some light on the newest problem with the proposed data center we turn to Monday, June 2, 2014's Newark City Council Meeting where the exact location of the center was revealed: The Data Center (TDC) would be constructed on the University of Delaware's Science Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) campus, and would require a new 279- Megawatt power plant. To not sound too biased - in any terms that's a lot of heat on a University campus.
Let's go back in time for a bit of history on the proposed plant to combat the public outcry the city council hired an independent contractor to decide if the data center is an environmental hazard and if so, how much of a hazard will it be, and the contractor (Liberty Environment) had this to say: TDC's proposal is ""relatively clean plant"" compared to other fossil fuel burning plants, according to Gavin Biebuyck, an expert with Liberty Environment.
He went on to say that there were several areas where the data center and power plant could improve, according to Biebuyck, the datacenter will emit ""Increased emissions of VOC (volatile organic compound) and HAPs (hazardous air pollutants) like formaldehyde would also be expected during startups but have not been estimated by TDC for the combustion turbines."" All of this was noted in Liberty Environment's report which went out to all the members of the council.
And the general consensus of the council, head by Mark Morehead, seemed ""reasonable."" He went on to say:""I think it's very factual and I'm pleased very pleased with that, and I think it sounds like TDC has some work to do as far as tying up some lose ends and I was glad to hear that the consultant thought it was clean for the most part. But he made it clear, clean but not green.""
Which brings up a few topics we've been discussing on datacenters.com: mainly, how far does a company have to go to build the ""ultimate"" data center. And what makes a data center ""green"". One of the most enormous users of energy is Facebook and they have one of the cleanest data center's around (for more: read about The Node Pole, as well as its Iowa data center that strive for carbon neutrality.) The best data center is a clean and green data center, one with carbon neutrality or better yet one that's carbon negative.
This Data Center is One Hot Subject for Debate
We'll keep posting on this topic as cloud computing is now a household word and all that data has to be stored somewhere. One things for sure in the battle for Green Data Center Supremacy begun the datacenter wars, have.
For more information on all things datacenters and bad Star Wars' puns visit us at datacenters.com or call one of our experts at (877) 406-2248."
