How Government CIOs can make Canada a world leader in the next industrial transformation:

Building a zero carbon economy through ICT

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

Unless otherwise noted all material in this slide deck may be reproduced, modified or distributed without prior permission of the author

Transferring Alberta’s Wealth to the rest of Canada

www.td.com/economics

• PM Harper has committed reduction of 20% CO2 by 2020 from 2006 baseline

• Government will need to collect $40 -$70 Billion in carbon taxes or cap and trade

• About half the revenues will go to purchasing international offsets

Is there a better way?• Can we use IT to keep some of that wealth in

Alberta (and Canada)?

• And create a knowledge based economy that generates little carbon versus the current situation?

• Rather than Co2 taxation can we develop other policy techniques to reduce that does not penalize consumers or provinces?

Climate Forecasts

MIT

> MIT report predicts median temperature forecast of 5.2C– 11C increase in Northern

Canada– http://globalchange.mit.edu/pub

s/abstract.php?publication_id=990

> Last Ice age average global temperature was 5-6C cooler than today– Most of Canada was under 2-3

km ice– With BAU we are talking about

5-6C change in temperature in the opposite direction in less than 80 Years

Global Average Temperature

2008 second warmest year ever

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)

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. “

The Global ICT Carbon Footprint isRoughly the Same as the Aviation Industry Today

www.smart2020.org

But ICT Emissions are Growing at 6% Annually!

ICT represent 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)

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

The Global ICT Carbon Footprint by Subsector

www.smart2020.org

The Number of PCs (Desktops and Laptops) Globally is Expected to Increase

from 592 Million in 2002 to More Than Four Billion in 2020

PCs Are Biggest Problem

Data Centers Are Low Hanging Fruit

IT biggest power draw

Heating,CoolingandVentilation40-50%

Heating,CoolingandVentilation40-50%

Lighting11%Lighting11%

IT Equipment 30-40%

IT Equipment 30-40%

Other6%Other6%

Sources: BOMA 2006, EIA 2006, AIA 2006

Energy Consumption World Wide

Transportation

25%

Transportation

25%

Manufacturing25%

Manufacturing25%

Buildings50%Buildings50%

Energy Consumption Typical Building

• 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

Growth Projections Data Centers

Government CIOs have big responsibility

• Public sector is one of the biggest consumers of electricity in Canada

• Upwards of 50% of government electricity is for ICT

• US government building data centers where each one consume same amount of power as city of Ottawa

• Demand for Government ICT services expected to grow

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

energy efficiency of equipment and processes

• 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

US Climate Legislation

• Waxman-Markey H.R. 2454– “Average” increase in electricity costs for

businesses and institutions will be 60% with cap and trade

– Organizations that use electricity from coal fired power plants will see significantly higher costs (by as much as 3 times current prices)

– 30% of electricity will come from non carbon sources

– Utilities will be required to spend 16% revenues on energy reduction strategies

– If you emit above your “cap” you are required to purchase offsets at $11-$15 per ton in 2012 and roughly double in price by 2025.

• Kerry-Boxer more agrressive reduction targets

State Climate ActionUS STATES 2009

•72% Have Climate Action Plans•42% Have GHG Reduction Targets•66% Are Experimenting with Cap & Trade

SOURCE: Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Climate101-State Actions, January 2009

Carbon Footprint by state

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 CIOs

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• Bill 44-2007 was introduced in 2007 and enacted into law in 2008. The law is known as the Greenhouse Gas Reductions Target Act.

• The Act establishes greenhouse gas emission target levels for the Province.– 2020 BC GHG will be 33% less than 2007.– 2050 BC GHG will be 80% less than 2007.

• Bill mandates that by 2010 each public sector organization must be carbon neutral.

• If a public sector organization can not achieve carbon neutrality then they are required to purchase offsets at $24/ton

SOURCE: “Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report 2007”, Ministry of Environment, Victoria, British Columbia, July 2009

Source: Jerry Sheehan UCSD

GHG Regulation in British Columbia

UBC Greenhouse Gas Liability 2010-2012

2010 2011 2012

Carbon Offset $1,602,750 $1,602,750 $1,602,750

Carbon Tax $1,179,940 $1,474,925 $1,769,910

Total $2,782,690 $3,077,675 $3,372,660

SOURCE: UBC Sustainability Office, August 2009

SOURCE: http://climateaction.ubc.ca/category/emission-sources

SOURCE: UBC Climate Action Plan, GHG 2006 Inventory

Carbon Costs for the University of British Columbia

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 already

Hydro-electric powered data centers

Data IslandiaDigital Data Archive

ASIO solar powered data centers

Wind powered data centersEcotricity in UK builds windmills at data center locations with no capital cost to user

Grand Challenge – Building robust ICT services using renewable energy only

• 30% of electrical power will come from renewable sources

• 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

GreenStar –Clouds and Virtualization

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.

Develop benchmarking tools to earn CO2 offsets

http://www.greenstarnetwork.com/

Economic benefits of follow the wind/sun architectures

• 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-ene

rgy-prices-to-save-millions/

What are carbon offsets?• Many claims of energy savings can only be proven through rigorous process of

carbon offsets (ISO 14064)

• Companies or individuals buy carbon offsets from projects that remove or reduce carbon– Planting trees, building hydro dams, installing energy efficient processes, etc

• 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

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

/

Source: ClimateCheck

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Do your carbon inventory NOW!!

• You can not earn credits until you do an inventory and calculate baseline emissions

• Next year carbon cap price will be $100 per ton in Europe

• At European cap price the cost of GHG emission could be as much $10 - $50 million per year for government department in the next decade

– A lot depends on details of Obama’s cap and trade

• Conversely department could earn $10 - $50 million per year if a university is zero carbon

– No revenue potential if university is carbon neutral

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Three approaches to a better planet

• Carbon Neutral– Attempt to reduce CO2 by undertaking activities that balance our

carbon footprint– E.g. Cap and trade, planting trees, etc

• Zero Carbon– Attempt to reduce directly our carbon footprint as close as possible to

zero– E.g. Use of renewable power

• Carbon Positive– Attempt to reduce CO2 greater than our carbon footprint– E.g. Carbon absorbing roof tiles, carbon rewards or gCommerce

Carbon Rewards rather carbon taxes – “gCommerce”

• Although carbon taxes or cap and trade 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

Final remarks

• The problem we face is NOT energy consumption, but carbon emissions

• Think carbon, not energy

• We must start addressing climate change now – not in 2050 or 2020

• 80% reduction in CO2 emissions will fundamentally change everything we do including ICT and networks

• Huge potential for innovation for ICT sector because 30% of energy must come from renewable sources

Thank you

• More information• List server on Green IT– Send e-mail to bill.st.arnaud@gmail.com

• http://green-broadband.blogspot.com• http://free-fiber-to-the-home.blogspot.com/