Water impacts Industries Gap, Nestle, Kraft, think about Water in the Data Center

Microsoft recently announced transferring its water treatment plant to the City of Quincy.

Here is an article on how water is impacting other industries.

Water Woes Hit Gap, Kraft, Nestle, MillerCoors

Companies including Gap, Kraft and MillerCoors are all dealing with financial hits from water shortages and floods, according to news reports.

The Gap cut its profit forecast by 22 percent after the Texas drought killed much of the year’s cotton crop, Reuters said. Kraft, Sara Lee and Nestle have all announced plans to raise product prices after droughts and floods drove up commodity prices.

For you beer drinkers which I think there are a few in the data center crowd.  Water efficiency in an initiative in beer companies.

In the Guardian, MillerCoors head of corporate social responsibility Kim Marotta said the company has had to put “considerable funds” into water-related projects that don’t offer the kinds of returns on investment the company looks for, simply because the initiatives are  necessary to keep the business going. In one major investment, the company recently bought a new pasteurizer water reclaim system that it says will save up to 20 million gallons a year.

MillerCoors is also working with farmers to reform their irrigation practices. It has created a “showcase farm,” in collaboration with the Nature Conservancy and an Idaho farmer, and plans to invite all 500 of its suppliers there.

Although one of its parent companies, SABMiller, reported an eight percent improvement in water efficiency from 2008 to 2010, MillerCoors’ water-to-beer ratio has remained constant. The company has a goal of reducing the ratio by 15 percent to 3.5:1 by 2015.

At some point we are going to hear about water impacting a data center.  Quite a few years ago, T-Mobile's data center was flooded and they moved to Sabey data centers in Quincy.

Microsoft comes a long way with Water use in Quincy, Transfers water treatment plant to City of Quincy

When Microsoft's Quincy data center opened, I was able to get a tour of the data center.  One of the questions I asked is how much water does the data center use.  I asked the data center operations staff, they didn't know.  I asked the data center design team, they didn't know either.  And, a response was why do you want to know?  Because I think you use lots of water, and it is an issue in a green data center.

When I went back out to the data center a few months later, the data center operation team said they are storing blow-down water in tanks, and they have 6 months before the tanks fill up.  This problem was not unique to Microsoft as other data center operators had blow-down water that cannot be put into the waste stream.

A water treatment plant was built to reduce the environmental impact.  And now, Microsoft has put a plan in place to transfer the water treatment plant to the City of Quincy.

Microsoft’s Data Center Takes Fresh Approach On Water Reuse

msdcblog

13 Oct 2011 10:00 AM

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Today we are transferring our $ multi-million water treatment plant to city of Quincy, WA

By: Christian Belady, General Manager of Data Center Advanced Development

Around the globe, water is becoming a scarcer and more valuable commodity, and that’s an important factor for data center operators and cloud service providers to consider as consumers and businesses aggressively adopt cloud-based computing. It’s even more critical that all of us in the industry make sure that beyond building sustainability into our designs, running data centers to higher standardize efficiencies, and measuring impact constantly, that we are helping the industry at large in thinking out of the box.

Today offers one of those opportunities. In Quincy, Washington, we are taking steps to transfer the operations of our Water Treatment Plant, located on our data center site, to the City of Quincy. This project involves innovative agreements for promoting a long term sustainable use of a limited natural resource, water, in a desert area that has the added benefit of supporting the foundation of Quincy and Grant County’s growing economy for years to come. To my knowledge, it is the first known transfer of a water treatment plant to a municipality in our industry and I would like to share why I think this type of collaborative project helps the industry and environment benefit as a whole.

Microsoft’s Quincy, Washington Water Treatment Plant

Google's Joe Kava discussed water use in data centers in its 2009 data center summit.  Joe's presentation on water start at the 9:20 mark.

A green data center has smart water use in addition to efficient power and cooling systems.

Who has more Water Rights a Data Center or a Farmer?

MSNBC covers the worsening drought conditions for Texas Farmers.

Drought so far cost Texas farms record $5.2 billion

'I think it's going to get bigger' once harvest is in, official says

Jae C. Hong  /  AP

Ranch owner Myron Calley loads empty bags in the back of his truck after feeding his cattle near Snyder, Texas on Aug. 12.

msnbc.com news services

LUBBOCK, Texas — The blistering drought in Texas has caused an estimated $5.2 billion in crop and livestock losses so far this agricultural season, a record figure likely to rise further, state officials said Wednesday.

1. Field surveys from November 2010 to Aug. 1 this year indicate livestock losses of $2.1 billion and crop losses of $3.1 billion in Texas.

So here is question for you in drought conditions who has more water rights the Farmer or data center operator?  I would say the Farmer does.

If your issues are within state then you may have this view.

Under the prior appropriation doctrine, water rights are "first in time, first in right." That is, the older, or senior, water right may operate to the exclusion of junior water rights. The concept of "priority date" is significant. The priority date is generally associated with the date that water was first put to beneficial use, or the date that a successful application for a water right was submitted, and indicates the relative status of seniority among competing users. Older rights are senior. More recent rights are junior.

I think most people and a judge could understand beneficial use of water for crops and livestock.  Try explaining them water use for a data center cooling system.

And, it is quite possible you may have Interstate Water Conflicts.

Resolution of Interstate Water Conflicts

Because water bodies may cross political and jurisdictional boundaries, conflicts may arise. In the United States, three basic approaches are used to settle such conflicts: 1) Litigation before the Supreme Court of the United States; 2) Legislative resolution by the Congress of the United States; and 3) Negotiation and ratification of interstate compacts between states. ^[3] In the western United States, for example, the 1922 Colorado River Compact divides the Colorado River basin into two areas, the Upper Division (comprising Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) and the Lower Division (Nevada, Arizona and California). A comprehensive review of existing interstate water compacts has been published by the Model Interstate Water Compact Project at the University of New Mexico School of Law's Utton Transboundary Resource Center.^[4]

After 100 years a dam reaches its end of life, Elwha Dam, largest US dam removal

Many think of hydro-electric as cheap clean energy.  The Elwha dam after 100 years is about to start the largest dam removal project in the US on Sept 17, 2011. 

This PDF shows the dam removal process.

June 1, 2011 was the ceremony to turn off the power.

Two Elwha River dams unplugged on Wednesday

The end of an era arrived here Wednesday with the final shutdown of two dams on the Elwha River.

By Lynda V. Mapes

Seattle Times staff reporter

PREV 1 of 3 NEXT

STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Kevin Yancy, manager of the Elwha hydroelectric project for the Bureau of Reclamation, throws a switch Wednesday to shut down the Elwha Dam for good after nearly 100 years of generating electricity. The Elwha and a nearby dam will be torn down beginning this fall.

STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Members of the media and employees of Olympic National Park watch as the 97-year-old Elwha Dam's giant turbines spin down after being shut off from their flow of water during the shutdown of the dam Wednesday.

Related

PORT ANGELES,

Clallam County —

The end of an era arrived Wednesday with the final shutdown of two dams on the Elwha River.

The dams were unplugged from the Western power grid and their mighty turbines stilled, in preparation for taking both dams down beginning in September.

"We are cutting the heart out of these old girls," said Kevin Yancy, manager of the Elwha hydroelectric project for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. But their time, he acknowledged, has passed, after nearly a century of generating power that fueled development of the Olympic Peninsula.

Data Center in a Water Tank, an empty one

Water is becoming a hotter topic in data center discussion.  I've been blogging on water and data centers from day 1 when I started this blog, and it is now much easier to get answer on how much water a data center uses each day.  When I asked that question three years ago, people wouldn't know and push back why do you care.  Because, water is a scarce resource that is going to get more expensive.

Most of the time when people were discussing water it was whether water should be brought to the rack.  Here is something you don't see much is a data center in a water tank.

Altamonte Springs, Fla., Turns Empty Water Tank into Primary Data Center

This former water tank provides a hurricane-proof home for Altamonte Springs’ primary data center.

February 23, 2011 By Elaine Pittman

During the 2004 storm season, Altamonte Springs, Fla., was pummeled by Jeanne, Charley and Frances — three hurricanes that forced IT staff to protect the city’s data center equipment from the strong winds and onslaught of rain. The data center resided in City Hall, which the city says is vulnerable to hurricane damage.

Here is a bit more information about the above structure.

So before each hurricane approached, the IT staff dismantled the data center, boxed up the equipment and relocated it into a decommissioned water tank. With 8-inch thick concrete walls designed to hold 770,000 gallons, the water tank protected the technology. Because the equipment was disconnected; however, city staff couldn’t access their network.