Using ICT to “adapt” rather than “mitigate” Global Warming

Bill St. ArnaudBill.st.arnaud@gmail.com

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Theme of this talk

• We have already lost the battle to save the planet from extreme climate change. Rather than focusing on reducing energy consumption, (Mitigation) we now need to focus on surviving climate change (Adaptation)

• Explosion of data and energy consumption by computers and networks is contributing to energy demand and CO2 emissions

• Use the Internet and IT, in combination with electric vehicle to build the “Energy Internet”

Although there is less news coverage global warming has not disappeared

Half of US experienced record droughts or deluges in 2011

2010 warmest year ever – we are only at the start of the curve of the hockey stick. The worst is yet to come

Climate Change is not reversible• Climate Change is not like acid rain,

water management 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)

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.

• 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. “

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Blame it on CanadaHow warming in the Arctic affects weather in Texas and Europe

• Warming Arctic slowing down jet stream– There’s been a 20 percent drop in the zonal wind

speeds.

• As get stream slows down, it leads to those bigger, long lived kinks in the jet stream.– That amplification is associated with persistent

weather patterns that lead to “extremes” like drought, flooding and heat waves.

• Those slow-moving, persistent waves of weather energy may have played a role in the big snows that hammered Europe this winters, as well as the extreme drought that hit South West US

• http://summitcountyvoice.com/2012/01/14/global-warming-revenge-of-the-atmosphere/

Future Droughts• Palmer Drought Severity Index, or PDSI.

• The most severe drought in recent history, in the Sahel region of western Africa in the 1970s, had a PDSI of -3 or -4.

• By 2030 Western USA could see -4 to -6. Drought in Texas clearly caused by global warming: http://goo.gl/QjHRS

• By 2100 some parts of the U.S. and Latin America could see -8 to -10 PDSI, while Mediterranean areas could see drought in the -15 or -20 range.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39741525/ns/us_news-environment

/

Dramatic changes in precipitation

• Every continent has suffered record rainfalls• Rains submerged one-fifth of Pakistan, a

thousand-year deluge swamped Nashville and storms just north of Rio caused the deadliest landslides Brazil has ever seen.

• Observed increase in precipitation in the last few decades has been due in large part to a disproportionate increase in heavy and extreme precipitation rates which are exceeding predictions made in models

Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS)

• Sits on land below sea level• Can easily break up once sea water gets under ice• Originally thought that breakup would take hundreds of years• New evidence indicates that breakup will happen within 40 years when planet warms up 1C (we are already up .8C)•S ea levels would be 3.3m – 4.8m•Ice collapsed as recent as 125,000 years ago•IPCC says ice is one of the poorest understood areas

http://news.discovery.com/earth/how-stable-is-the-west-antarctic-ice-sheet.htmlSea levels may rise 3x faster than predicted by IPCChttp://climateprogress.org/2009/12/09/sea-level-rise-six-feet-three-times-faster-than-the-ipcc-estimat/

Climate Forecasts

MIT

• MIT report predicts median temperature forecast of 5.2°C– 11°C increase in Northern Canada

& Europe– http://globalchange.mit.edu/pubs/abstract.p

hp?publication_id=990

• Last Ice age average global temperature was 5-6°C cooler than today– Most of Canada & Europe was

under 2-3 km ice

• Nearly 90 per cent of new scientific findings reveal global climate disruption to be worse, and progressing more rapidly, than expected.• http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Freud

enburg_2010_ASC.pdf

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What does 1C average temperature mean?

• In the 1700s – when global average temperature was 1C colder than now, New Yorkers could walk from Manhattan to Staten Island on ice as thick as 8 feet– http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/in-th

e-little-ice-age-lessons-for-today/

CO2 vs Temperature

Rule of Thumb: 1°C for 10 ppm CO2

Climate SensitivityThe Worst is yet to come

Little Ice Age

Medieval Warm Period

200018001400 160012001000

You are Here

Rapid Increase in the Greenhouse Gas CO2

Since Industrial Era Began

Urgency of Action• “We’re uncertain about the magnitude of climate change, which is

inevitable, because we’re talking about reaching levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere not seen in millions of years.

• You might think that this uncertainty weakens the case for action, but it actually strengthens it.

• This risk of catastrophe, rather than the details of cost-benefit calculations, makes the most powerful case for strong climate policy.

• Current projections of global warming in the absence of action are just too close to the kinds of numbers associated with doomsday scenarios. It would be irresponsible — it’s tempting to say criminally irresponsible — not to step back from what could all too easily turn out to be the edge of a cliff.”

Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/magazine/11Economy-t.html?pagewanted=1

New Challenge: Climate Adaptation

• Obama’s National Science Advisor John Holdren “Mitigation alone won’t work, because the climate is already changing, we’re already experiencing impacts….A mitigation only strategy would be insanity,”

• Equal emphasis given to adaptation – avoiding the unmanageable, and adaptation – managing the unavoidable.”

• Obama’s Climate Adaptation Executive Order– http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1tU8go/www.good.is/post/obama-s-secret-climate-adaptation-plan/

Impact of ICT sector

www.smart2020.org

According to IEA ICT will represent 40% of all energy consumption by 2030

ICT represent 8% of global electricity consumption

Future Broadband- Internet alone is expected to consume 5% of all electricity http://www.ee.unimelb.edu.au/people/rst/talks/files/Tucker_Green_Plenary.pdf

• Half of ICT consumption is data centers

• In ten years 50% of today’s Data Centers and major science facilities in the US will have insufficient power and cooling;*

• By 2012, half of all Data Centers will have to relocate or outsource applications to another facility.*

• CO2 emissions from US datacenters greater than all CO2 emissions from Netherlands or Argentina http://bit.ly/cW6jEY

• Coal fuels much of Internet 'cloud,' Greenpeace says http://bit.ly/bkeSec

• Data centers will consume 12% of electricity in the US by 2020 (TV Telecom)

Source: Gartner; Meeting the DC power and cooling challenge

Growth Projections Data Centers

R&E biggest consumer!!

Australian Computer Society Studyhttp://www.acs.org.au/attachments/ICFACSV4100412.pdf

Per employee Per sector

Digital vs Traditional appliances

The Falsehood of Energy Efficiency• Most current approaches to reduce carbon footprint are focused on increased energy

efficiency of equipment and processes – No question it save money, but does little for the environment

• Greenpeace Report “Electricity demand of IT remains on the rise, efficiency can only slow emission growth. In order to achieve the reductions necessary to keep the sector’s emissions in check and maintains afe levels of global greenhouse gases, clean energy needs to become the primary source of power for IT infrastructure. – Greenpeace “How dirty is your data”

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/climate/2011/Cool%20IT/dirty-data-report-greenpeace.pdf

• But greater efficiency can paradoxically increase energy consumption by reducing overall cost service and therefore stimulates demand– Khazzoom-Brookes postulate (aka Jevons paradox - not to be confused with

rebound effect)

• The issue is not the amount of energy that we use, but the type of energy

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 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-so

lar-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_tra

nsmission.pdf– Local wind/solar will be an important component

• 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

Get off the Grid!

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/ci

sco-emc-team-mit-launch-100m-green-data-center

Many examples

Hydro-electric powered data centers

Data IslandiaDigital Data Archive

ASIO solar powered data centers

Wind powered data centers

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Ecotricity in UK builds windmills at data center locations with no capital cost to user

GreenStar NetworkWorld’s First Zero Carbon Cloud/Internet

OpenFlow Follow the wind/Follow the sun

Cloud Manager

Host Resource

Cloud Manager

Network Manager

VM

Mantychore2

Host Resource

Canadian GSN Domain

European GSN Domain

Dynamically ConfigureIP Tunnel

• Shudown VM• Copy Image • Update VM Context

• Start VM

Export VM

VMVM

Internet

Notify EU Cloud Manager

Cloud Proxy Host Cloud Proxy

Lightpath

Optical switch Optical switch

Shared storage

Shared storage

Host

AMD, HP & Clarkson U GreenCloud •Demonstrate the feasibility of deploying a network of Performance Optimized Datacenters (PODs), geographically distributed to exploit the availability of renewable energy for its operation.

• Optimizing the utilization of the available renewable power for computing by intelligently redistributing computational load;

•Minimizing losses associated with power transmission by placing the PODs near the power source;

•Providing energy and design efficiency through the use of additional passive cooling for the PODs

•Use the wind power that is currently stranded, i.e. not-delivered to the grid due to the T&D constraints.

National GreenCloud Vision

Carbon rewards instead of carbon taxes?

• Governments have been wrestling with the challenge of how to reduce CO2 emissions– E.g US Congress Cap and trade bill– BC Carbon taxes

• Rather than penalize consumers and businesses for carbon emissions, can we reward them for reducing their carbon emissions?– And stimulate important sectors of the economy that plays to our strengths

• Carbon rewards can be virtual products delivered over broadband networks such movies, books, education, health services, collaborative education and research technologies etc

• Carbon reward can also be free services (with low carbon footprint) such as Internet, cell phone, fiber to the home, etc

Carbon Reward Strategy – Free Fiber to the Home

• Provide free high speed Internet and fiber to the home with resale of electrical and gas power– http://www.newamerica.net/files/HomesWithTails_wu_slater.pdf

• 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– See http://free-fiber-to-the-home.blogspot.com/

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Get off the Grid Part II

Building the Future “Energy Internet”

How California’s Suburban Lifestyle may be the answer to Global

Warming

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Current limitations of eVehicles (EV)

• High capital cost due to large cost of batteries

• High operating cost because batteries need to be replaced every 2-5 years

• Limited range, especially in cold weather when battery capacity is reduced

• Battery capacity reduced by up to 1/3 if air conditioning or cabin heating is required

• Long time to re-charge between trips– So a small number of short trips within a day can deplete batteries– Inhibits spontaneity of taking a long trip because of uncertainty of charge state

• Although operational cost (i.e. fuel consumption) is less than traditional automobile overall amortized cost higher

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Alternative to the battery

• Rather than waiting for perfect battery why not change the charging system?

• Old world thinking that vehicles must be stationary to be refueled. – This was true when using fossil fuels

• But with electric vehicles there is no reason why they cannot be charged while on the move

• Dynamic (on the move) charging

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Two alternative approaches• Induction charging with embedded induction pads in the road

– Auckland University company in $70m deal with Qualcomm for inductive car charging technology

– http://tinyurl.com/73pdksw– But induction charging requires precise tolerances and alignment – Difficult to maintain in heavy traffic and inclement weather such as ice

and snow– Also requires specialized electronics in vehicle

• Capacitive Charging using overhead “electrical umbrellas” - capabuses– Currently operation in Shanghai with public buses– http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/23754/

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New Zealand HaloIPT Induction Charging

http://www.haloipt.com/

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Shanghai Capabus – Capacitive Charging

China is experimenting with a new form of electric bus, known as Capabus, which runs without continuous overhead lines (is an autonomous vehicle) by using power stored in large onboard electric double-layer capacitors (EDLCs), which are quickly recharged whenever the vehicle stops at any bus stop (under so-called electric umbrellas), and fully charged in the terminus.

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Next generation dynamic charging

To Grid for feed in tariff

Inverter

Ultra-capacitor

Charging rail

eVehicle with charging whip

20 – 100 meters

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Why not use power from grid for dynamic charging?

• Most grid systems have large percentage of coal power– CO2 savings are marginal– Scant CO2 Benefit from China’s Coal-Powered Electric Cars– http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/2011/10/scant-co2-benefit-fro

m-chinas-coal.html

• Within 3- 4 years it is expected electricity from solar panels will be cheaper than from grid– http://e360.yale.edu/feature/solar_power_nrg_president_crane_ties_f

uture_to_renewable_energy/2462/

• Grid interconnection fees, transformers, debt retirement charges, etc significantly drive up costs– However in some locations using solar panel to feed power to grid may

allow for additional revenue

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Initial target markets• Drive through banks, fast food restaurants, parking garages,

universities, golf courses, etc– “Will that be fries with your free electrical charge?”– Complete package of PV system on roof connected to ultra-capacitor and

charge rail – When PV is not charging vehicles it can be making money from feed in tariff– Guaranteed 6-10% return even if not a single vehicle charged

• Initial target vehicles: campus service vehicles, utility fleets, golf carts, ride sharing, early EV adopters

• Eventually deployed at toll plazas, on/off ramps, stop lights and intersections

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The Future – “Energy Internet”• eVehicle becomes more than a transportation system – it

also becomes an energy transport system to transfer energy between dynamic charging stations– E.g. power from under utilized charging stations can be delivered

by eVehicle to charging stations that are heavily used– Or power can be brought to the home to provide backup power

to the home

• Dynamic charging station becomes energy packet router/switch!

• Rather than eVehicle coming home with depleted batteries, instead it comes home fully charged in order to provide power to the home

• eVehicle becomes competitive alternative to the electrical grid

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Further Reading• Green Investment Opportunity for small business - on the move electric car charging

http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/2010/04/green-investment-opportunity-for-small.html

• How California suburban sprawl could be the answer to global warminghttp://green-broadband.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-california-suburban-sprawl-could-be.html

• The "Energy Internet" - how the Internet + renewable energy can transform the economyhttp://green-broadband.blogspot.com/2011/10/energy-internet-how-internet-renewable.html#more

• Electric roads and Internet will allow coast to coast driving with no stopping and no emissionshttp://green-broadband.blogspot.com/2011/05/electric-roads-and-internet-will-allow.html

Let’s Keep The Conversation Going

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