Posted by: Svava | August 28, 2009

Largest Composting Station in Europe

The new composting station in Eyjafjördur, Northern Iceland is Europe’s largest, handling over 10,000 tons of organic refuse each year and costing about 500 million ISK.  The station provides a very environmentally sound solution for the problem of whereto put organic waste from Northern Iceland was to go.

Composting provides a natural source of organic matter usable for farming and agriculture, reduces the need for increasing landfills and can offset the need for chemical fertilizer, proving to be a green solution all around.

Posted by: wakewan | August 28, 2009

New Green Data Center in Iceland – Double the Greenness

data centerWhy does the new data center in Iceland offer double the greenness you ask?  Well read on.

Design and construction of the new Verne Holdings data center in Iceland is well underway.  This new 40,000 m² green data center, which is set to be completed in late 2009, is located at the former US Naval Air Station near the Keflavik International Airport. 

Data centers in Iceland make all kinds of sense, here’s why:

First, Iceland gets all of it energy needs from renewable sources – geothermal energy and hydroelectric power.  So, the massive energy requirements of a data center – in the case of the Verne Holdings data center, as much as 50 MW at peak capacity – will come from clean, renewable and reliable sources.

Second, the cooling requirements will be met almost entirely by utilizing Iceland’s chilly annual ambient temperatures.  According to Tat Cantrell, Chief Technology Officer at  Verne Global “The mean annual temperature is -0.5°C (30°F) in January and 10°C (50°F) in July. Iceland is very much its own cooling system, standing by to draw the heat right out the computer servers.”  This eliminates the need for expensive and power hungry chilling systems.

This combination of inexpensive and renewable power coupled with the utilization of Iceland’s low ambient temperatures is a real win-win scenario.  It’s double green – less cash, less pollution.  Verne Global gets to save significant money and reduce its carbon footprint.

There were some infrastructure  hurdles that had to be overcome for this green data center project to happen as well as some perceptual ones.  Repurposing the old US navy base in Keflavik was a perfect choice to mitigate fears of earthquake damage.  The US engineers who built the navy base chose this spot very strategically and built all the building foundations directly on bedrock – so the buildings are very capable of handling natural disasters.   Also, the government of Iceland had to invest in four high-throughput fiber optic submarine cables connecting Iceland with Europe and USA. 

The perceptual hurdles were that Iceland is very remote – it is.  But the redundant cables solve that issue.  The other issue were fears that Iceland was simply too geologically volatile – lots of earthquakes and volcanoes.  This was mitigated by housing the data center in the old naval base.

Kudos to savvy and innovative companies like Verne Global.  Who said environmentalism is inconsistent with commerce?

Posted by: Svava | July 29, 2009

Is Geothermal Energy Really Renewable?

Geothermal Power Plant

Geothermal Power Plant

In the current energy scene, some of the major discussions in the media center around the renewability of a resource and whether it is green. While neither term is as objective as it might initially appear to be, it is the renewability of various energy sources that is particularly subject to debate.

What does renewable really mean? For an energy resource to be renewable means that it must be replenished naturally. The unstated implication is that this must happen on a human timescale. For example, the sun is the source of energy behind solar PV, solar thermal, hydroelectric and wind power and solar is considered renewable. It’s renewable because nothing we do to convert solar energy into electricity has an impact on the amount of sunlight that is available.

However, the sun won’t last forever and will not renew itself at some point. Clearly that point is well beyond our concern, but it does speak to the concept of time in regard to whether an energy source is renewable.

If solar energy is renewable, even though it is, in fact, finite, what happens if that timeframe shortens? At what point does an energy become non-renewable? 100 years? 50? 5? Fossil fuels do not renew in any kind of human timeframe but some biofuels do. In the case of these types of questions, the timeframes are rather defined and they are renewable.

What about Geothermal energy? Geothermal energy taps into the vast amount of heat in the earth’s core, but when heat is removed from the core, does it renew or does it just deplete to an infinitesimally small degree?

Online research produces some amusing responses – some indicating that it’s renewable …if we do not use too much. However, this logic would make fossil fuels renewable too and that doesn’t pass muster.

Better arguments indicate that the heat in the earth’s core comes from radioactive decay of elements, which is effectively renewable. In terms of what is legally recognized to be renewable, geothermal makes the list and qualifies for inclusion in programs earmarked for renewable (and/or green) energy sources.

So, is geothermal green? Yes, green like the sun.

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