Cow dung to power datacenters

Courtesy: Silicon India



Cow dung may soon be used as a source of energy to power computers in the near future as the researchers at HP are developing datacenters that can be powered on energy generated from cow dung.

The company has released a study called "Design of Farm Waste-Driven Supply Side Infrastructure for Data Centers" that draws attention to biogas energy created from cow dung. The company plans to build datacentres on dairy farms where they would be hooked up to power plants fueled by waste.


Planet Green explained the process of transforming cow manure to biofuel called biogas. In this process, manure is first collected from the cows, and put under an anaerobic digestion process, releasing methane gas. This gas can be used as natural gas or diesel fuel in generators that produce electricity.

It apparently takes 10,000 cows to produce enough manure to power a small computer center for a bank.
One cow produces enough waste every day to power the televisions in three typical households. However, around 10,000 cows would be needed to produce enough to run a typical data center and meet the energy needs of the farm.

Green IT Week Virtual Event - Major 3 day Virtual Conference

Courtesy: GreenIt

Hosted by: ComputersOff.ORG
The event will start on: 01 Jun 10 09:00
And will end on: 03 Jun 10 17:00
At GreenITWeek.ORG
GreenITWeek.ORG ,
http://www.greenitweek.org/virtual-event

Green IT is a goal many businesses aspire to, however, to date it has been implemented inconsistently both within organisations and across the world. Organisations are missing a centralised, cohesive initiative that will enable them to both understand the current research, enabling them to plan for the future; and learn about practical implementation of environmentally sustainable IT practices they can undertake today.

ComputersOFF.ORG wants to shine a spotlight Green IT and pave the way for organisations to initiate, promote and support green IT discussions, emboldening employees with the knowledge and innovative ideas to reduce the environmental footprint of the organisation.

International Green IT Awareness Week (1st-7th June 2010) is being developed to encourage organisations during this week to bring together their IT leadership with their business managers, CFO, CEO and corporate environment managers to start the discussion around what their organisation can do to green their IT infrastructure.

On the other side, vendors across the world are working tirelessly to educate organisations on the technology available to assist them with reducing the environmental impact of their IT infrastructure and in turn reducing their carbon footprint and showing their corporate and social responsibility initiatives.

International Green IT Awareness Week will see a variety of programs and initiatives hosted by public and private sector organisations globally. The activities planned for “International Green IT Awareness Week” are valuable in their own right in raising awareness and support for green IT initiatives and inciting continued and internally supported discussion within public and private organisations.

The main outcome of this week is to encourage individuals and organisations to demand more from themselves and their partners, holding each other to account for our impact on the environment.

Some of the topics covered during the week will include:-

•What is Green IT?
•What are we doing about Green IT?
•What is the latest in Green IT research?
•Why set up Green IT initiatives?
•What do we have to gain from implementing Green IT measures?
•What are the Green IT Quick Wins?How can ICT make our company and our staff more sustainable long term?
•How do we become Green IT Champions?
•How do organisations undertake cultural change for green IT?
•What are the top examples of organisations achieving an environmentally sustainable IT?
•What are the risks if we wait too long to take actions?
And we aim to talk about a range of solutions including:-

•Developing a Green IT Strategy
•Data Centre optimisation and consolidation
•Corporate Governance
•Cultural Change
•Lifecycle Management
•Paper
•Water in Data Centers
•Reduce Energy usage
•Energy Efficiency
•Green IT financial incentives
•Storage
•eWaste
•Best practices, metrics
•Assessing, Measuring and Monitoring
•Cloud computing
•Technology replacements for travel
•Green Procurement
•Current standards, legislation and associations