Facebook has attracted the attention of concerned environmental advocates with the construction of its first data center in Prineville, because the electrical provider that will power the center uses coal energy.
Facebook’s rapid expansion inspired the company to construct its first data center, or server farm, which will increase storage capacity for the Web site to meet the needs of the social networking site’s ever-growing user base.
Critics of the contract between Facebook and Pacific Power say the electrical company relies heavily on coal-burning plants in its electricity supply grid, and the social networking Web site should set an example by choosing a cleaner source of energy to power its data center.
Pacific Power is a subsidiary of PacifiCorp, and 60 percent of PacifiCorp’s total supply of electricity is sourced from coal power, according to a company fact sheet.
Coal provides half of U.S. electricity — it is a notoriously cheap energy source — and use of the non-renewable resource accounts for about 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Other environmental repercussions of using the non-renewable energy source include landscape destruction from mountaintop removal and contribution to acid rain and mercury poisoning.
Despite Facebook’s public defense of the Prineville data center and its pledges to support sustainable development, the company faces mounting pressure from activists to reassess its contract with Pacific Power.
In an irony more and more familiar in post-modern controversy, Greenpeace is using a Facebook group called “Tell Facebook to Use Clean Energy for its Data Center” to spread the word about its beef with the Web site’s Pacific Power contracts. The group received the support of almost 130,000 users in its first 10 days of existence. Also in circulation is a petition sponsored by Change.org aimed at convincing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to reconsider the data center’s energy provider. The petition has 8,812 signatures with a goal of 10,000.
“The information technology industry is one of the largest, fastest growing, most energy-consumptive industries in the world right now. Facebook is symbolic of this,”Greenpeace spokesperson Daniel Kessler said.
Kessler thinks Facebook, headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., has an opportunity and an obligation to set a sustainable standard for IT development.
“If they’re going to expand, they have to do it responsibly,” he said.
Defenders of the project respond to these criticisms by pointing out that the design of the data center is already aimed at reducing energy consumption. According to Facebook, one of the main reasons for choosing Prineville to host the data center was Central Oregon’s arid and temperate climate, which will allow the company to use an evaporative cooling system to chill the facility, rather than a more energy-intensive cooling system, such as air-conditioning.
On Feb. 24, Facebook responded to criticisms of its new data center, saying sustainablity was high on the list of priorities in its site selection.
“This climate enables us to design what we believe to be one of, if not the most, energy efficient data centers in the world,” Facebook said.
Facebook also argues that the electrical grid supplies electricity from a multitude of sources and that the choices the company face for electricity providers in Oregon are not as simple as clean versus dirty.
“The suggestions of ‘choosing coal’ ignores the fact that there is no such thing as a coal-powered data center,” Facebook said. “Similarly, there is no such thing as a hydroelectric-powered data center. Every data center plugs into the grid offered by their utility or power provider.”
Jason Carr, manager of the Crook County economic development program, said that of the electrical companies Facebook had to choose from, Pacific Power offered the most competitive electricity prices.
“Electric cooperatives face impending costs for larger users because a lot of the cheap hydroelectricity that’s been around is dwindling,” Carr said. “There are only so many dams in the region, and with growth in the region and the electricity sold to California, capacity is reducing. … Given some of the proposed energy plans, Pacific Power was more competitive in their pricing.”
Carr also said he thinks Facebook’s energy efficient building and use of “outside air economization” in its cooling system, are reason to give the
company credit.
“The reality is the carbon footprint is less building here than it is anywhere else,”
Carr said.
Kessler urged people to consider the big picture when thinking about this debate.
“Everyone loves Facebook. I think that’s why we have so many people concerned with this,” he said. “This isn’t only about the efficiency of their building. … This is really about the whole IT industry. When you’re are talking about Microsoft and Google and Facebook, these guys have a tremendous influence on policy, and they can be leaders in a number of meaningful ways, including advocating in Washington, D.C., and setting green standards for the rest of the IT community. But first it means cleaning up their own footprint.”

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