It's Too Darn Hot

The huge cost of powering—and cooling—data centers has the tech industry scrambling for energy efficiency

by Steve Hamm

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In the Alps: Michel of IBM devised a way to cool chips with water jets Bertrand Rey / Strates

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A 35-minute drive south of Iceland's capital of Reykjavik lies the tiny fishing village of Grindavik. One January day, Kristinn Haflioason steers his car a few minutes out of town to a vast, snow-swept expanse of volcanic rock that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean. He climbs out and launches into an unlikely sales pitch that he hopes will persuade corporations from the U.S. and Europe to locate operations there. "Dozens of companies have expressed interest," he says.

This is no joke. Haflioason works for Invest in Iceland, a government agency. He's pitching the desolate spot outside of Grindavik as a site for data centers, the sprawling facilities chock-full of computers that tech companies build to handle the swelling oceans of digital information.

It's a testament to the challenges companies face in operating data centers that Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), and Microsoft (MSFT) have all checked out this remote corner of the world (although none has made a commitment so far). The reason: Iceland has a rare combination of vacant land, cheap geothermal energy, and chilly climate that makes cooling a data center nearly free.

The tech industry is facing an energy crisis. The cost of power consumption by data centers doubled between 2000 and 2006, to $4.5 billion, and could double again by 2011, according to the U.S. government. With energy prices spiking, the challenge of powering and cooling these SUVs of the tech world has become a major issue for corporations and utilities. "The digital economy is pervasive," says Andy Karsner, Assistant U.S. Energy Secretary for energy efficiency. "The demands for computing will grow exponentially, but electric consumption can't grow the same way."

The race is on to come up with creative solutions. Companies are scouring the globe for new technologies and advantageous locations. Iceland may have the ideal climate; Saudi Arabia may offer the lowest energy costs. Every company in the business is looking to squeeze expenses in hopes of becoming the low-cost producer in the Digital Age.

Where will the breakthroughs come from? Utilities, construction companies, and tech outfits all are working on the issue. Bruno Michel, a researcher at IBM (IBM)'s Zurich lab is developing ways that the biology of the human body can be translated into cooling systems for computers. Mark Bramfitt, principal program manager at Pacific Gas & Electric (PCG), is experimenting with incentives to curb overall energy use. Just a few watts per computer can add up. An efficient data center uses about 25% less electricity than a run-of-the-mill one. In a midsize facility, that could amount to $4.5 million a year in savings.

STATE SECRETS

The modern data center is like a vast refrigerator with hundreds or thousands of ovens blazing away inside. Six-foot-tall metal racks stacked with pizza box-size computers, storage devices, and network-routing machines are lined up in rows. Chilled air blows through the equipment from vents in the floors of "cold aisles." Hot air blows out of the back ends into "hot aisles" and is drawn off and vented out of the building. Inside the centers, there's a dull roar as large quantities of air shoot through ducts, vents, and computers.

So intense is the competition among tech companies to lower their costs of processing data that some treat information about their energy use like state secrets. When Google built a data center along the Columbia River in Oregon a few years ago, it bought the land through a third party so its involvement was hidden, and the city manager had to sign a confidentiality agreement. In North Carolina, the state's sunshine laws forced it to disclose the incentive package it offered Google to locate a data center there, but the company's plans for power consumption were redacted as trade secrets.