Sun Finishes Latest Energy-Efficient Data Center

January 27, 2009

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This week Sun Microsystems unveiled its new energy-efficient data center. Located in Broomfield, Colorado, the power and cooling technologies at this data center will help the company save over $1 million in electricity costs and about 11,000 tons in CO2 emissions every year – or enough energy to power about 1,000 homes every month.

Sun Microsystems has recently completely energy-efficient projects in the UK, India, and Santa Clara, CA. The new Broomfield design builds upon the Santa Clara project, which uses a water-saving system, chemical reduction plans, efficient air cooling, and energy-efficient servers. By upgrading computer hardware to be more efficient, the company has been able to reduce space and energy needs by 66 percent.

“As a company, we’ve achieved our first 20 percent reduction in electricity usage since 2002, and the Broomfield data center is a great step forward in meeting our goal of another 20 percent reduction,” said Dave Douglas, Sun Microsoft’s chief sustainability officer.

Earlier this year, Techmanic.com wrote about benchmarking data center energy costs; the EPA estimated that energy efficiency could save data centers billions of dollars. Google, Emerson, and other companies – with the help of consultants like EMC – have been taking the environment into account over the last few years due to this potential for savings.

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Reader Comments

We need to utilize everything in out power to reduce our dependence on foreign oil including using our own natural resources.OPEC will continue to cut production until they achieve their desired 80-100. per barrel. The high cost of fuel this past year seriously damaged our economy and society. Oil is finite. We are using oil globally at the rate of 2X faster than new oil is being discovered. We need to take some of these billions in bail out bucks and bail ourselves out of our dependence on foreign oil. Jeff Wilson has a really good new book out called The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence Now. He explores our uses of oil besides gasoline, our depletion, out reserves and stores as well as viable options to replace oil.Oil is finite, it will run out in the not too distant future. WE need to take some of these billions in bail out bucks and bail America out of it’s dependence on foreign oil. The historic high price of gas this past year did serious damage to our economy and society.If all gasoline cars, trucks, and SUV’s instead had plug-in electric drive trains, the amount of electricity needed to replace gasoline is about equal to the estimated wind energy potential of the state of North Dakota. WE should never allow others to have that much power over our economy again. Every member of congress needs to read this book.

Barry | January 28th, 2009

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