Green Tech Gets a Big Leg Up

The EE Times reports that IBM is planning to spend $1 billion on energy saving technologies that are designed to cut power usage 42%. This is potentially a much larger savings than it might seem at first blush, because IBM's technology is critical to many data centers. These data centers, which drive the digital economy, are power guzzlers that have been growing exponentially. Saving more than 7000 tons of carbon emissions per year would be good if IBM alone could do it, but IBM's technology will be leveraged across many companies.

Google is one of the world's largest users of data centers. With a presence in 13 states, Google is expanding geographically into areas with cheap power. This can most clearly be seen in Google's move to Council Bluffs, Iowa. The key to Google's methodology is hooking thousands of low-cost boxes together to create the essentially instantaneous search results that the world has come to rely on. The upshot is that as the individual machines wear out or break, they are constantly being replaced. If IBM can achieve significant power savings, these power savings will likely be implemented immediately.

In the money hungry technology world, one billion dollars doesn't last as long as might be hoped. The so-called "burn rate" required to keep up will the bleeding edge is frighteningly large and rising all the time, but IBM's outsized commitment to green technology is a sure sign that the movement is achieving real change.

While the environmentalist movement's mindshare is indisputable, many people still question the case for global warming. Yet even if global warming is the greatest hoax since time began, the business case for reducing power consumption is quite strong. The power infrastructure in the United States is very old and running at nearly 100%. Achieving more computing power with less energy is a sure way forward. It takes decades to get power plants out of the planning stages and into everyday production, and it has become clear that the pipeline of power plants ready to come on line tomorrow is empty.

More energy means more pollution, but it also means more money. IBM plans to spend money to make money, but in the process they will save everyone else a great deal more.