Developing a NREN and Institution Climate Change Preparedness Plan

TNC 2014 Dublin

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

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Executive Summary• Climate Change Preparedness or Adaptation is recognition that we are already

committed to at least average 2°C temperature increase with some parts of the world forecast to see 6°C temperature increase by 2050

• Rather than thinking about how to prevent climate change we need to face reality and develop plans to adapt to a much warmer world with more severe weather

• NRENs and higher ed institutions need to develop climate change preparedness plans in line with national or regional climate change preparedness initiatives e.g USA, UK, New York, etc– Distance education seen as a important component because of flooded classrooms

• A proper adaptation or preparedness strategy should also result in a good mitigation strategy

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What is a Climate Change Preparedness Plan?

• A process to develop a multi-year risk methodology to identify infrastructure and services that would most likely be susceptible to climate change weather extremes and explore possible mitigation strategies and their costs

• Risk methodology is very similar to the Monte-Carlo system used in disaster planning and large project pricing analysis

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Why focus on preparedness and not prevention?

Presentation title

President Obama’s Executive Order on Climate Change Preparedness

• All US government departments, agencies, data centers, etc must develop climate change preparedness plans

• States, municipalities, universities and other institutions are also encouraged to develop similar plans

• Disaster preparedness plans must cover range of scenarios of severe flooding, droughts, hurricanes, long term power outages, etc

• http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/11/01/executive-order-preparing-united-states-impacts-climate-change

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First step• NREN and/or institution should determine if there already exists a national or

regional preparedness framework, and how they fit within those plans

• Use Notre Dame Adaptation Index tools – Open source tools to rank your institution– http://gain.org/– Corporations are now being ranked by S&P in terms of climate change preparedness-

• Some national preparedness plans expect tools such as distance education and NREN networks to serve as critical services during severe weather events

• UK Government has developed s a risk assessment and national adaptation program for all sectors including Telecom and Higher Ed

• New York State Authority: ClimAID97. The report is a framework that uses data from extreme climate events such as Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.

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What are likely Climate Impacts for Institutions and NRENs?

• Institution and NRENs are generally less susceptible to direct climate impacts such as flooding and droughts – But there are exceptions and should be included in the

analysis where applicable e.g. flooding in The Netherlands, water shortages in California

• The biggest threat is the vulnerability and reliability of the electrical grid and/or the cost of electricity as supplies are rationed because of shut down of plants or variability of renewable power on the grid

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Lessons from Hurricane Sandy• Many classrooms and research facilities at NYU and Polytechs were flooded

• It took months to restore and repair facilities to remove mold and other damage

• Distance education and remote research critical for surviving climate change severe weather– Distance education has been identified as a key element in any national climate

change preparedness framework

• But need a reliable and robust network to sustain reliable distance education– Flooding also took out campus network gear, but core optical network continued

to function

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Reliability of the Grid• Weather related outages and duration have

increased significantly

• Outages counted are only those that affect over 30,000 customers and cause over 1 million hours outage and last longer than 1 hour– Far greater number of smaller local outages– Probability of major outage increasing 4% per

year

• Particular vulnerability is Large Power Transformers (LPTs), which are custom-designed, expensive to replace and hard to transport. – LPTs weight between 100 and 400 tons, cost

millions of dollars and can take as long as 20 months to manufacture

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Scary reading• “US Energy sector vulnerabilities to climate change and extreme

weather” US Department of Energy July 2013– http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/07/f2/20130716-Energy%20

Sector%20Vulnerabilities%20Report.pdf

Recent Sample outages

• Rising water temps forcing power plant shutdowns

• Coal and nuclear power generating capacity will decrease by between 4 and 16 percent in the United States and a 6 to 19 percent decline in Europe due to lack of cooling water.• http://www.reuters.com/ar

ticle/2012/06/04/climate-water-energy-idUSL3E8H41SO20120604

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.

• 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

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Dramatic changes in precipitation

• Every continent has suffered record rainfalls

• 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

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.php?publication_id=990

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

om/pics/Freudenburg_2010_ASC.pdf

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Monte Carlo risk analysis• Monte Carlo risk analysis is the ideal tool for assessing long term risk

where there are many input variables and large uncertainties– Developed in WWII during the development of atomic bomb by solving

deterministic problems using a probabilistic analog

• Gold standard for assessing climate impacts and used by many climate preparedness plans to look at economic and social impacts of climate change

• May help identify some unexpected vulnerabilities for NREN and/or institution

• Requires intensive resources and analysis

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The reality at the end of day• Despite careful analysis most NRENs and institutions will likely opt to

“stay the course” rather than make any significant investments in climate change preparedness– Most organizations don’t have the budgets or the mandate to undertake

preparedness given the large uncertainties

• However climate change preparedness analysis will help develop business case to deploy micro grids and energy Internet sooner rather than later– Cost savings of micro grids can be as much as $850,000 per month and can

significantly increase reliability

• UCSD saves $850k/month in electricity and less GHG emissions with microgrids. – http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-17/ebay-to-ellison-embrace-

microgrids-in-threat-to-utilities.html …

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Outcomes & Solutions • There are a range of outcomes and solutions to climate change risk due to

weather extremes– Decision factors include degree of risk, tolerance to risk, etc

• The simplest is to deploy local independent sources of electricity (e.g. micro grids) that are not dependent on fossil fuel deliveries and are loosely coupled to electrical grid such as solar panels and windmills– Many companies will pay for capital cost in return for guaranteed purchase of power;

or– Power from local renewable power sources can be sold to grid under Feed In Tariff

(FIT) programs

• Next step is to develop an energy routing architecture and policy– Local independent renewable power will unlikely be sufficient for most institutions so

power will need to be routed in a priority basis– Using SDN, UCLP and OpenNaaS to integrate micro grids with data networks on

campus and NRENs http://goo.gl/SFaW6p

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ITU recommendations• Decouple communication infrastructure from electric grid infrastructure to the extent possible, and make

both more robust, resilient, and redundant.

• Minimize the effects of power outages on telecommunications services by providing backup power at cell towers, such as solar-powered battery banks, and “cells on wheels” that can replace disabled towers. Extend the fuel storage capacity needed to run backup generators for longer times.

• Place telecommunication cables underground where technically and economically feasible, ensuring that they are appropriately protected against water ingress.

• Assess, develop, and expand alternative telecommunication technologies if they promise to increase redundancy and/or reliability, including free-space optics (which transmits data with light rather than physical connections

• Develop high-speed broadband and wireless services in low-density rural areas to increase redundancy and diversity in vulnerable remote regions.

• Perform a comprehensive assessment of the entire telecommunications sector’s current resiliency to existing climate perils, in all of their complexities. Extend this assessment to future climate projections and

• Resilient pathways: the adaptation of the ICT sector to climate change– http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/climatechange/Documents/Publications/Resilient_Pathways-E.PDF

Lessons from Sandy about backup diesels

• Make sure fuel is changed every year– Diesel fuel deteriorates much faster than gasoline

• Arrange for long term, high priority fuel contracts from multiple refineries

• Make sure IT staff know how to change fuel and air filters

• Make sure fuel pumps are self priming, collocated with diesel and connected to UPS

• Make sure all electrical cabling, transformers and switch gear are in water tight compartments – Double check all egress and ingress ports through

walls

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Preparedness Matrix

Source: Resilient pathways: the adaptation of the ICT sector to climate change

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Preparedness Checklist -1

Source: Resilient pathways: the adaptation of the ICT sector to climate change

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Preparedness Checklist -2

Source: Resilient pathways: the adaptation of the ICT sector to climate change

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Research Initiatives-1• With SDN-P it is assumed that many energy consuming devices power have their own local

power source e.g:– WiFi spot with its own solar panel– Backup battery power on computer– Electric vehicle with its own battery bank

• Many possible virtual and real power circuits. – PoE, USB, Traditional 110/220, 48V Dc,Pulse power over Cat 5– Power routing across devices following path of virtual power circuit

• Ideal for existing intelligent networked devices like computers, switches, routers, servers, Wifi hot spots , electric vehicle charging stations, etc– Most of these devices have their own on board storage and so techniques such as round-robin

power distribution are possible

• The benefits and challenges of software-defined power SDN-P http://dlvr.it/5TGrR5

• Network engineers & researchers have to start thinking how to deploy networks that are powered solely by solar power http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/rob-insight/an-earth-day-look-at-the-sunny-state-of-solar/article18101176/#dashboard/follows/ …

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Research Initiatives -2

• https://www.internet2.edu/news-events/email/internet2-things-uev-research-01/

• http://www.fabric-project.eu/

Let’s Keep The Conversation Going

E-mail

Blogshttp://green-broadband.blogspot.com

Twitterhttp://twitter.com/BillStArnaud

Bill.St.Arnaud@gmail.com

Bill St. Arnaud is a R&E Network and Green IT consultant who works with clients on a variety of subjects such as green data centers and networks. He also works with clients to develop practical solutions to reduce GHG emissions from ICT (See http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/) .