Greenpeace Calls for an About Face at Facebook

Demonizing Facebook? (image from Oversocialized on Flickr)

Over the past week, news about the new Facebook data center in Prineville, Oregon has caused ripples across the entire country.  Greenpeace challenged the social networking site to make plans to employ more renewable energy at the new location.  It even used Facebook to advance the campaign, setting up a new group on the site which demands that the company use 100% renewable energy.

Greenpeace and fans of its FB group are calling for an “about face” at Facebook.

Specifically, critics don’t like the fact that Facebook will be drawing power from Pacific Power (also known as “PPL,” Pacific Power and Light).   Although PPL has one of the highest percentages of power from renewable resources among utilities in the U.S., it still garners most of its energy from coal power plants.  And data centers require a lot of energy in order to keep the huge banks of computer servers  – necessary to store information, photos and comments – cool enough to run smoothly.

Daniel Kesler, a Greenpeace spokesperson, commented:

“I hope this is making them ask questions internally about where they want to put these things [data centers] and who they want to do business with.  We’re asking companies like Facebook and Google to be strong advocates for clean energy.”

What is the global impact of companies like Facebook? (image from Oversocialized on Flickr)

The old adage, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, comes to mind with respect to Greenpeace.  Not surprisingly, the criticism of Facebook led investigators to determine from where Greenpeace draws its own power.

The international company has offices in New York and San Francisco.  Its San Francisco office receives power from Pacific Gas and Electric which, like PPL, also gets most of its energy from non-renewable resources (natural gas, instead of coal).  But Greenpeace notes that its operations are less energy intensive than those of the Facebook data center.  It also claims that “Greenpeace must operate in the real world, which includes using some power that comes from nonrenewable energy.”

Is Greenpeace "greener" than Facebook (image from Future Atlas on Flickr)

Facebook must operate in the “real world,” too.  In a written statement, the company explained why it chose to locate the new data center in Prineville, and what it will be doing to reduce the carbon footprint of operations there.

Key facts to consider with respect to Facebook:

• The climate in Central Oregon is cool and windy, which will aid in cooling the data center, reducing the need for energy demands
• Facebook is considering using Pacific Power’s Blue Sky program under which it would pay $1.95 additional for every 100 kilowatts of energy used.  The money collected is used to help deliver renewable energy resources to the regional power system (wind energy in particular is a huge component of renewable energy in the Pacific Northwest)
• Pacific Power itself is reducing its dependency on coal, and currently has the second highest use of wind energy among utilities in the U.S.  It aims to double its renewable portfolio by 2018, while reducing coal to 40% in the same time period

Should Facebook do an “about face,” when it comes to its energy sourcing?  Is it realistic to call for reliance on 100% renewable resources?

We’d love to read your thoughts on the debate.