Mountains of Data: The Physical Reality of the Virtual World (pt. 2)
Part Two: Considering Energy Efficiency, Solutions for How to Move Forward Well, and the Present March towards Technification
(This is the second piece of a two-part writing. Click here for the first.)
More than 7 million data centers dot the world, with relatively little scrutiny. Each of these units requires large amounts of electricity, and large amounts of water, largely for powering equipment and maintaining optimal temperatures for the heat-generating electronic operations. According to the Department of Energy, these buildings “are one of the most energy-intensive building types, consuming 10 to 50 times the energy per floor space of a typical commercial office building.”
In the pursuit of efficiency, support is growing for the construction of these centers in areas close to abundant renewable and passive energy — think cooler weather and coastlines where the ocean’s wind and thermal energy can be captured. Microsoft’s Project Natick even experimented with sinking a server into the Pacific to harness the cooler temperatures. Its website quips: “50% of us live near the coast. Why doesn’t our data?”
Well, in Singapore, for example, land is already in short supply, and abundant population centers along the coast are vying for space with the construction of data centers. For that reason, the Natick trial is a model Singapore might find future hope in. Currently, all data center construction has been halted, and concerns about powering facilities loom.
Ireland is going through similar electrification struggles. While the rest of the European Union depends on expansion of the data center capital: “…more than doubling the size of Ireland’s data center industry by 2030 is directly at odds with Ireland’s otherwise progressive climate action goals.”
“Yes, they [data centers] are supporting renewables, but we cannot have all our renewables going towards new developments instead of decarbonizing our existing energy system.”
And here in the United States, if you’re looking for solutions, you might peruse the five-suggestion publication, “Steps You Can Take To Save Energy,” from the U.S. Department of Energy. Their “Data Centers and Servers” website, under the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, proposes:
1.) Design efficient new data centers,
2.) Improve the efficiency of your existing data center,
3.) Learn how others saved energy in their data centers,
4.) Purchase energy efficient data servers,
5.) Find a qualified data center energy efficiency professional.
My circumstances vary considerably from others, but I don’t find those suggestions very helpful.
To add to the quandary, the “efficiency” those steps push for is far from all-encompassing. PUE, or Power Usage Effectiveness, is the industry-wide figure used to assess data center energy efficiency. It doesn’t take account of the cost of replacing and updating electronic components and infrastructure. Think minerals, magnets, and mountains of iron ore for processing into steel.
The growing need for these materials used in constructing server hubs, as well as manufacturing our phones, laptops, televisions and other data-heavy devices, exacts a heavy toll on ecosystems beyond our own surroundings. For example, all major technological equipment and device manufacturers currently depend upon rare earth mineral supplies in Southeast Asia. Nearly all of the current rare earths are funneled through the Chinese market, including large amounts from border transcendent, largely untrackable, watershed wracking mining operations in Myanmar. No one seems to have concrete answers for solid alternatives or systems of accountability, despite the well-known harm to the people and areas involved. Cradle-to-grave analysis and the lifetime cycles of equipment and infrastructure that we depend on is disheartening. That’s a reality that I’m privileged to not have to encounter. If I did, I’d likely view data-heavy operations with very different eyes.
I know innovation and entrepreneurial optimism purport to hold the keys to continuing the data, tech and consumption-heavy patterns of modern society — “our multi-millionfold-petabyte dataverse.” This podcast, featuring two data center decarbonization experts from Hitachi, describes the numerous quandaries that need to be accounted for as “a journey or maybe it’s a marathon, or maybe it’s more like an urban adventure race if that’s a better analogy.“
Further along, they tease: “I think we can say it’s pretty much exactly like going to Disney World — this is what you’re basically saying here. You have a big course ahead, a big adventure ahead of you; you’ve got different tech innovations, it’s exhilarating; sometimes you have headaches, you get exhausted; you have to plan your projects — ‘we’re going to tackle this one right now, tackle that one later’; you can explore different worlds.”
Stopping right there, the analogy breaks down. As of now, we only have access to one planet offering the conditions and resources hospitable to life and human culture. The work of meeting the needs of people and the land — living things — long-term is complex and humbling work. There are high costs to wrong answers.
The line between what is excessive and what is necessary, between responsible data dependance and technologically inconsiderate behavior, in my own life is difficult to parse, and honing in on it involves a lot of internal work and discernment. We need to observe what has worked for others in terms of consumption and resources, and work to implement those patterns in our own lives. That’s no small task.
The Jewish mystic Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote that “God is waiting on every road that leads from intention to action, from desire to satisfaction” (Heschel, I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology). It’s the “how do you do it” that matters more than just having the intention. Doing the work is where efforts pick up steam. I want to hear what you’re doing and how it’s going.
Last year, our family sought respite from the pervasive world of data for a bit. We traveled north, past the big bridge, and spent a few days in an off-grid cabin off on a lake about an hour east of the Tilden mine site. We got out. We hiked. We refreshed our bodies and minds. Evenings were spent around the campfire, and daybreak brought with it canoeing in the morning mist — the experience only heightened by the realization that we were floating atop an undulating blanket of freshwater jellyfish. I suspect future trips will include jaunts towards Mount Arvon and Curwood.
Heading north to get away from the buzzing and connected world is a bit of an annual pilgrimage for plenty in the lower peninsula. Sometimes folks are looking to hunt, and sometimes it’s just an excuse to drop out — an excuse to spend slow and quiet time with friends and loved ones. Fittingly, we didn’t have internet service where we were. It was good. It was nice to be disconnected. I do wonder if that’s an option increasingly on its way out, unless we start making more decisions that reflect its value. As we traveled back into cellular range, my phone buzzed back to life with a headline.
It’s been some time since then. I still hope we’re coming to better understand where we’re at. And I still hope we’re headed in the right direction.
