How Universities can play leadership role in helping reduce global warming and building future zero carbon economy Bill St. Arnaud CANARIE Inc – Unless otherwise noted all material in this slide deck may be reproduced, modified or distributed without prior permission of the author

The Climate Change Imperative >One of, if not, the greatest threat to our future society and economy is global warming. >15-30% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 will be needed to keep the temperature increase under 2 °C, and a deeper reduction by 60-80% may be needed by 2050.* >Past IPCC assessments have underestimated the pace of change >Latest data indicates we are at the high end of projections >It will be necessary to go beyond incremental improvements in energy efficiency, current life-styles and business practices. Significantly more drastic measures will need to be undertaken *International Panel on Climate Change

j j 26 tons/person 1 ton/person ? j tons/person Source: Stern 2008 Our Challenge

ICT and Cyber-infrastructure and CO2 emissions* >It is estimated that the ICT industry alone produces CO2 emissions that is equivalent to the carbon output of the entire aviation industry. >ICT emissions growth fastest of any sector in society, doubling about every 4 years >One small computer server generates as much carbon dioxide as a SUV with a fuel efficiency of 15 miles per gallon >Average utilization of servers is less than 6%. >Typical university produces 200,000 – 500,000 metric tons CO2 per year of which 100,000 – 300,000 tons is from Cyber- infrastructure and ICT *An Inefficient Tuth:

ENERGY MANAGEMENT SFU  Projected GHGs are based on Planned Growth in Ten Year Capital Plan Source: SFU Facilities Services University GHG emissions

SFU TASC2 Research Building CI major cause of GHG emissions

UCSD Greenhouse Gas Emission Measuring Our Footprint

The Problem >Compute energy/rack : 2 kW (2000) to 30kW today >Cooling and power issues now a major factor in CI design >But academic CI is often too small: departmental closets and server huggers >Energy use of departmental facilities is growing exponentially creating crises of space, power, and cooling >Unfortunately, almost nothing is known about how to make these shared virtual clusters energy efficient, since there has been no financial motivation to do so *Sourrce: Tom Deafnti GreenLight

Why ICT and Internet is critical to reducing CO2 >Direct emissions of Internet and ICT are important at 2-3% of world emissions but, in order of impact, the most significant contribution we can make is through leveraged, or indirect, emissions reductions. > According to SMART 2020 these represent as much as a 15% reduction opportunity in global emissions.SMART 2020 >(And SMART 2020 is one of the most conservative reports on the topic. Others identify even higher potential for savings).

Source: European Commission Joint Research Centre, “The Future Impact of ICTs on Environmental Sustainability”, August 2004 Virtualization and De-materialization

Universities and regional optical networks are key >Bits and optical bandwidth are virtually carbon free >Optical networks (as opposed to electronic routed networks) have much smaller carbon footprint >Significant reduced CO2 impacts are possible through use of cyber-infrastructure tools like virtualization, clouds, SOA, grids, Web 2.0, etc. >Research needed in new “zero carbon” computer and network architectures needed to connect remote computers, databases and instruments will be essential >New zero carbon applications and “gCommerce”

Energy consumption versus GHG emissions >Number one problem facing the planet is climate change – Lots of confusion between Green IT, energy consumption, energy efficiency, Clean ICT, sustainable IT, Corporate social responsibility >Turning off the lights or computers may not be the answer – Also misleads people into thinking problem is easy to solve – CERN super-collider may produce less GHG than a single router in USA >Our focus should be on how ICT can reduce GHG emissions – NOT energy consumption or energy efficiency – NOT Clean ICT such as computer waste etc – NOT sustainable IT – NOT Corporate Social Responsibility

The Falsehood of Energy Efficiency >Lots of confusion between energy efficiency and consumption versus CO2 emissions >Most current approaches to reduce carbon footprint are focused on increased energy efficiency of equipment and processes >This approach is doomed to failure because of Khazzoom- Brookes postulate (aka Jevons paradox) – Greater energy efficiency reduces overall cost and therefore promotes increased usage >We need a “zero carbon” strategy because increased usage will not change emission equation – Anything times zero is zero

>Purchasing green power locally is expensive with significant transmission line losses – Demand for green power within cities expected to grow dramatically >Data center facilities DON’T NEED TO BE LOCATED IN CITIES – -Cooling also a major problem in cities >Most renewable energy sites are very remote and impractical to connect to electrical grid. – But can be easily reached by an optical network – May also meet some of government’s objectives of extending broadband to rural/remote areas >Many examples already – Green House Data, Cheyenne WO – AISO wind powered data farm – Iceland and Lithuania National strategies “Zero Carbon” Data Centers

Significant Economic opportunities >Many of these techniques and practices will also lead to exciting new business opportunities. >Universities that will be the first to deploy ICT strategies to mitigate global warming will be the new economic and research powerhouses >New revenue opportunities and business models for network operators and application providers >Significant revenue opportunities for universities and regional networks in carbon offsets

The Carbon Economy >$500 billion - Value of low-carbon energy markets by 2050 >$100 billion - Demand for projects generating GHG emissions credits by 2030 >Global carbon market expected to grow 58% in 2008 to $92 billion >$57 trillion - Carbon Disclosure Project signatories, 1000s of companies participating, expanding to supply chain accounting >Carbon economy has potential to pay for several bank bail- out’s and 3 or 4 Iraq like wars >Carbon economy could underwrite costs of national broadband, healthcare and mortgage defaults Source: ClimateCheck

Your carbon inventory life cycle operation 5 years coal >Optical Switch 4 tons 20 tons >Router16 tons500 tons >Optical Amplifiers 2 tons 40 tons >Computer server12 tons 40 tons >Ethernet switch 8 tons 20 tons >PC 20 tons 5 tons >Travel to install and repair -100 tons >Virtualized network can save 50% of your carbon emissions!

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 university in the next decade – A lot depends on details of Obama’s cap and trade >Conversely university could earn $10 - $50 million per year if a university is zero carbon – No revenue potential if university is carbon neutral

American College & University President’s Climate Commitment “Signatories agree to… Create institutional structures Select & implement tangible actions to reduce greenhouse gases Complete a comprehensive greenhouse gas inventory Develop a climate-neutral action plan Make information publicly available”

UK – JISC study >Why the future's green for IT at universities – >Green IT is best achieved through the collaboration of IT and campus facilities management – power, heat and real estate – Most researchers are not aware of true costs of computation such as power, cooling, and specialized buildings. >Increased energy and computing costs can be offset by technologies such as grid computing and virtualisation. – "Eighty to 90% of a computer's capacity is wasted. >Cardiff University solution to the cost of running super computers for research projects by centralising departments' IT budgets and transferring byte-hungry number-crunching to clusters of smaller high-performance computers.

Green IT MoU >Initial Signatories: UCSD, UBC, PROMPT >To share best practices in reducing GHG emissions and baseline emission data for cyber- infrastructure and networks as per ISO 14064, >To explore carbon reduction strategies by new network and distributed computing architectures such as PROMPT G-NGI, OptiPuter and CineGrid. >To work with R&E network to explore relocation of resources to renewable energy sites, virtualization, etc. > >To explore the potential for a “virtual” carbon trading systems >To explore the creation of a multi-sector pilot of a generalized ICT carbon trading system including stakeholders from government, industry, and universities. >To collaborate with each other and with government agencies and departments and other organizations

The GreenLight Project: >World Accessible Instrument o Sensors and data available via Web Services integrated into Service Oriented Architecture >Architectural Instrumentation for Power/Temperature o Each data center will have 7 rack spaces devoted to 1 type of cluster plus one rack for switches. >Hardware Platform And Software Tools For Hosting Alternative Architectures: o Clusters With Multi-core Processors, Processor/Arithmetical Logic Unit (ALU) Arrays, Specialized Processing Units Such As Graphics Processing Units (Gpgpus), Reconfigurable Co-processing Units Using Field-programmable Gate Arrays (Fpgas), And Hybrid Processing Options Tbd >Instrumented Process Units, Memory, Disk Drives, and Network Interfaces

Greening the Internet Economy Workshop >On January 22-23, Calit2 will co-host with the California Public Utilities Commission a two-day workshop to bring together policy makers, industry, and academics to discuss opportunities for collaboration to use ICT to meet AB32 goals. >Topics to be addressed: – California’s AB 32 and ICT – Power Hungry and Greening Data Center – Reducing Your ICT Footprint – Advances in Energy Sector and Emerging Technology – ICT and Smart Buildings – ICT Based Intelligent Transportation >See

PROMPT – Next Generation Internet to Reduce Global Warming  Research on router, optical, W/W-less and 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. Sources: GENI and Inocybe

>Virtual carbon trading systems where carbon offsets are traded for access to grid computational cycles, wide area network bandwidth, research funding and or other virtual services; >Creation of a multi-sector pilot of a generalized ICT carbon trading system including government, industry, and universities; Innovative Research funding model

Strong Interest worldwide Over $15M commitments by 11 companies, 15 Canadian universities & institutions and 11 international organizations; Open initiative: Expanding MOU across California, Canada & ROW.

University initiatives >Funding councils in Nordic countries will require GHG costs be included in all funding grants >BC has a project underway to explore moving all university computing to a zero carbon data center using turbine spin up power

Universities could lead the way to zero carbon society >Carbon taxes – Politically difficult to sell >Cap and trade – Useful for big emitters like power companies – Addresses only supply side of CO2 >Carbon offsets – Immature market with no standards – But addresses demand side of CO2 by businesses and consumers >Carbon Neutrality imposed by law – Growing in popularity especially as protests over gas tax escalates >But there may be an additional approach….

Carbon rewards rather than carbon taxes >Providing free download music, video, and electronic textbooks in exchange for carbon fees on assessed on student parking >Free distant learning courses rather than telecommuting >Free campus wide advanced tele-presence systems in exchange for carbon fees assessed on researcher’s travel >Free mobile cell phone using femto cell and Wifi on public transportation >Free off campus broadband

Other sectors (40%) (e.g. manufacturing, coal mining, export transport) Emissions under direct consumer control (35%) Consumer influenced sectors (25%) (e.g. retail, food and drink, wholesale, agriculture, public sector) Heating Private cars Electricity Other transport Consumers control or influence 60 per cent of emissions

Carbon Rewards rather carbon taxes >Although carbon taxes 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 etc >Carbon reward can also be free ICT services (with low carbon footprint) such as Internet, cellphone, fiber to the home, etc

Carbon Reward Strategy for last mile infrastructure >Provide free high speed Internet and fiber to the home with resale of electrical and gas power (ESCOs) >Customer pays a premium on their gas and electric bill >Customers encouraged to save money through reduced energy consumption and reduced carbon output >Customer NOT penalized if they reduce energy consumption – May end up paying substantially less then they do now for gas + electricity + broadband + telephone + cable >Network operator gets guaranteed revenue based on energy consumption rather than fickle triple play

Thank you >More information > >

BACKGROUND SLIDES

Carbon Primer In general, there are two types of emission trading schemes: Cap and Trade Baseline and Credit Emission trading schemes can be: Regulated (mandated by a government or regional authority) Voluntary (entered into on an individual transaction basis, or though ongoing contractual arrangements) Source: ClimateCheck

GHG Emissions Company A Company B Total Before Carbon Trading (Baseline year) GHG Emissions Company A Company B Total After Carbon Trading (Future year) Company B implements an internal GHG reduction activity and sells permits to Company A, which uses the permits to meet its cap Net Emission Reduction due to Trade Cap and Trade Regulated Markets – Closed System 36 Source: ClimateCheck

Baseline and Credit Voluntary and Regulated Markets – Open System 37 Year 1 Year 2 GHG Emissions Year 3 GHG emission reduction calculated as the difference between the actual emissions from an activity (the GHG project) and the emissions of the projects baseline scenario Project GHG Emissions Baseline GHG Emissions Time Source: ClimateCheck

Baseline and Credit GHG projects create credits by either: Reducing the amount of GHG emissions released to the atmosphere from one or more GHG sources, or Increasing the amount of GHG removed from the atmosphere. Credits are purchased by emitters in voluntary markets for reasons including corporate social responsibility, green branding, and carbon neutral product claims 38 Source: ClimateCheck

Credits and Permits and Offsets – oh my! GHG emission reduction projects and GHG emission removal enhancement projects generate carbon credits Cap and trade schemes result in permits or allowances that are traded on a regulated market When credits are interchangeable (i.e., fungible ) with emission permits, such credits are strictly speaking offsets...but “offsets” has come to be used interchangeably with “credits” 39 Source: ClimateCheck