IT Benefits of Climate Change to Canada

ICT and Climate Change Benefits to Canada Bill St. Arnaud CANARIE Inc – www.canarie.ca [email_address] 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-warming-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 V. Ramanathan and Y. Feng, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD September 23, 2008 www.pnas.orgcgidoi10.1073pnas.0803838105 Source: Larry Smarr CAL-It2 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 21 st Century

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/article1272939/
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)

Our Challenge 5 j j 26 tons/person 1 ton/person 2008 2050 ? j 2100 2 tons/person Source: Stern 2008

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 6

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 12

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 Projections Data 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, Cooling and Ventilation 58% Lighting 11% IT Equipment 25% Other 6% Sources: BOMA 2006, EIA 2006, AIA 2006 Energy Consumption Typical Building Energy Consumption World Wide Transportation 25% Manufacturing 25% Buildings 50%

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-question/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 20

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 mTCO 2 e in California and 348,000 mTCO 2 e 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 16

Many examples Hydro-electric powered data centers Data Islandia Digital Data Archive ASIO solar powered data centers Wind powered data centers 17 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 7

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 Inocybe 27

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 Source: Peter Freeman NSF Wind Power Substrate Router Solar Power Wireless Base Station Sensor Network Thin Client Edge Site Mobile Wireless Network

GENI with remote nodes at renewable energy sites Sensor Network Thin Client Edge Site Source: Peter Freeman NSF Wind Power Substrate Router Solar Power Wireless Base Station Topology optimized by availability of energy Mobile Wireless Network

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

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 Dynamic Lightpaths Starlight CA*net4 KREOnet APEC TEL 33, Calgary, AL, Apr 24-27 2006 Live 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

* 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) Source Total Emissions (Tonnes CO 2 e)* 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

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 1 st , 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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Virtualization and De-materialization Source: European Commission Joint Research Centre, “The Future Impact of ICTs on Environmental Sustainability”, August 2004 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) Heating Private cars Electricity Other transport Consumers control or influence 60 per cent of emissions http://www.cbi.org.uk/pdf/climatereport2007full.pdf 30

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 bill.st.arnaud@canarie.ca
http://green-broadband.blogspot.com
http://free-fiber-to-the-home.blogspot.com/
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IT Benefits of Climate Change to Canada

by Bill St. Arnaud

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IT Benefits of Climate Change to Canada Presentation Transcript