What is the impact of a water drought on your data center operations?

Water is getting more attention as a critical resource for a data center.  Compass Data Center's Chris Crosby has a post on Water.

Water, Water, Everywhere…

 

 

As Coleridge made clear, water is essential for survival. Since data centers hadn’t been invented when he published The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in 1798 he didn’t mention them. But if they had, he certainly would have included them in his epic poem since water is too often a common requirement for their operation. This water dependency is an area of consideration that businesses should factor into their plans for upcoming data centers.

A high percentage of today’s data centers use water-based cooling methods to keep them from becoming the equivalent of a Hopi sweatbox in the desert. Although evaporative cooling, whether through traditional towers or “advanced” swamp coolers, remain highly effective cooling methods, when you’re planning a new data center you may want to consider the impact of the weather and water availability on your decision.

Chris mentions the drought in Eastern Washington in 2001.

The other element that water can have a substantial impact on is your data center’s power. Specifically if your new site will be serviced by a utility using hydro-electric power. I was recently reading an article that stated, “Quincy, WA—Big Data Centers Leverage Abundant, Inexpensive Renewable Energy”. Fair enough. But Quincy is located in Eastern Washington, an area that is largely desert-like and relies exclusively on the power produced by the Wanapum and Priest Rapids dams. What would happen if this area fell into a period of pro-longed and severe drought?

We actually have a pretty good idea of what would happen since the area experienced a severe drought in 2001 and a slightly lesser one in 2005. In both instances, water restrictions forced the lay-offs of thousands of nearby aluminum factory workers as the water available wasn’t enough to generate the power to run the factories’ smelters. In both cases, electrical prices also rose substantially as power had to be imported from California. 

What is interesting is the price of power was so high that Alcoa figured out it could make more money selling power than selling Aluminum.

ALCOA:
"Why Sell Aluminum When We Can Make a Bigger Profit Selling Electricity?"

Jun 25, 2001

Alcoa Aluminum's main smelter in Washington state has been shut down, as have the smelting operations of four other aluminum companies on the Northwest Coast.

They weren't shut down because of a lack of buyers for aluminum –nor for a lack of workers. The big aluminum producers shut down simply because they could make more money by reselling electricity than they could by producing and selling aluminum.

Alcoa, for example, had longterm contracts to buy electric power from the federal government's Bonneville Power Administration at a rate of $22 a megawatthour. But deregulation of the electric power industry opened the road to enormous price increases. By last winter, electric power was selling on the open market at rates running between $250 and $500 a megawatthour. Shutting down aluminum production to resell electricity let Alcoa pocket the difference.

The result was an enormous increase in Alcoa's profits. Its profits in the first quarter of this year 120 million dollars - were over ten times as high as what they had been in the same period a year ago, before they started selling electric power.

How big is the water on Earth? a sphere 860 miles in diameter

One of the things Compass Data Center's Chris Crosby, Google's Joe Kava and I will regularly discuss is the lack of appreciation for how scarce water is.

How scarce is water on the earth?  Consider this image that shows how big all of the Earth's water is compared to the size of Earlth.

Picture of Earth showing if all Earth's water (liquid, ice, freshwater, saline) was put into a sphere it would be about 860 miles (about 1,385 kilometers) in diameter. Diameter would be about the distance from Salt Lake City, Utah to Topeka, Kansas, USA.
Credit: Illustration by Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (©); Howard Perlman, USGS.
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 About 70 percent of the Earth's surface is water-covered, and the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth's water. But water also exists in the air as water vapor, in rivers and lakes, in icecaps and glaciers, in the ground as soil moisture and earthgwaquifer.html, and even in you and your dog. Still, all that water would fit into that "tiny" ball. The ball is actually much larger than it looks like on your computer monitor or printed page because we're talking about volume, a 3-dimensional shape, but trying to show it on a flat, 2-dimensional screen or piece of paper. That tiny water bubble has a diameter of about 860 miles, meaning the height (towards your vision) would be 860 miles high, too! That is a lot of water.

 

The Earth's water would be 860 miles in diameter, and the Earth is 7,900 miles in diameter.

Water seems much more scarce now doesn't it.

Thinking of Site Issues in addition to overall consumption, example Water Impact Index

Water is a fundamental to so much we do, but unappreciated except when it is scarce.  You are in the desert. Or more often you are in car full of kids driving and the kids are thirsty, and you forgot to stock up on drinks before you left.  The value of water is much higher now.

So, why shouldn't location and the site's availability of water be considered when thinking of environmental impact?

Veolia water illustrates this point comparing peanuts to tomato sauce.

Another example is beef production.

A second example: the volume of water needed to produce one pound of beef – 1,857 gallons – appears to be the same regardless of whether the beef comes from a water-rich or water-poor area. But the impact on the water resource in two different states or, for that matter, two different areas of one state (East and West Texas, for example) can vary considerably.

The question few environmental groups ask is what is the local impact?  If there is plenty of power from existing infrastructure, is it possible that a renewable energy plant could have a higher environmental impact?

Most don't want to think about this issue, because it complicates the call to action. Save our planet, renewable energy is the answer, in some places. :-)

Water shortages coming, Wars and Financial impact

MSNBC had an AP article on the coming risk of water shortages causing wars.

US intel: Water a cause for war in coming decades

'Water as a weapon or to further terrorist objectives ... more likely beyond 10 years,' says report released on World Water Day

Baz Ratner /  Reuters

An Israeli soldier stands next to a manmade pool containing water from a spring located near the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh on March 19. Jewish settlers have seized dozens of natural springs in the occupied West Bank, barring Palestinians or limiting their access to scarce water sources, a United Nations report said this week. In 2009 the spring was taken over by settlers from Halamish, forcing villagers to obtain their irrigation water from other sources, the report and residents said.

By MATTHEW LEE

updated 3/22/2012 2:18:08 PM ET

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WASHINGTON — Drought, floods and a lack of fresh water may cause significant global instability and conflict in the coming decades, as developing countries scramble to meet demand from exploding populations while dealing with the effects of climate change, U.S. intelligence agencies said in a report released on World Water Day.

An assessment reflecting the joint judgment of federal intelligence agencies says the risk of water issues causing wars in the next 10 years is minimal even as they create tensions within and between states and threaten to disrupt national and global food markets. But beyond 2022, it says the use of water as a weapon of war or a tool of terrorism will become more likely, particularly in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

Fidelity Investments has a video on World's Water with 16,845 views in one month.

If you don't think about water issues in your data center design and operations you are not alone, but the people who think about sustainability and green data centers know water will become scarcer and more expensive.

Google shares its recycled water use in a green data center, 7 reasons why it is smart

It is sad that most think of a Green Data Center almost exclusively in terms of energy use.  Google's Joe Kava has been talking about water publicly since 2009.

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.

Google has a new post on its new recycled/grey water facility in Georgia.

Helping the Hooch with water conservation at our Douglas County data center

March 15, 2012 at 7:00 AM

If you’re familiar with the work of the Southern poet Sidney Lanier, you’ll know hewrote about the beauty of the Chattahoochee River in Georgia. “The Hooch,” as it’s known around here, starts up in the northeastern part of the state, runs through Atlanta and down into Alabama before emptying out into the Gulf of Mexico. Those of us who work in Google’s Douglas County, Ga. data center have a special fondness for the Chattahoochee because it’s an integral part of our ability to run a highly efficient facility.

I got an early peak at the Youtube video yesterday which had only 40 views.  24 hrs later the video has 7,488 views.  Google, water, and data centers is not as esoteric as you may think.

Here is the press release from Douglas County and Google GoogleDouglasCountyRelease.pdf

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 15, 2012

Google and Douglasville-Douglas County Water and Sewer Authority Unveil Reuse Water Facility

Recycled water used to cool Google’s data center equipment

(ATLANTA and DOUGLAS COUNTY, Ga.) - Douglasville-Douglas County Water and Sewer Authority (WSA) officials and Google executives on Thursday announced Google’s first reuse water system for one of their U.S. data centers. Google’s Douglas County data center is also the state’s first data center to conserve water using a reuse water system. The system, financed by Google and owned by WSA, is helping to keep the Chattahoochee River clean and conserving the reservoir's water supply.

“Working with Google on this reuse water system has been a great experience for the WSA. Our water supply gets hit hard during the drought season and in the summer months,” said Peter Frost, executive director of WSA. “The Google-funded sidestream facility is a welcomed reprieve on our reservoir’s water system and saves water capacity for our residents and businesses.”

Some people may flush this idea down the drain as not worth their effort.  But, there is another reason that few would think about.  One of the top risks to data center operations is the breaking of a water main supplying the data center.  Water infrastructure is one of the most ignored parts of society that are critical for life.  As one of my data center friends who told the story of having no water in his apartment for 2 days, it is hard to occupy a building without water.

This Google Water story that has been going on for a long time as the original financial investment from Google was in 2008.

In 2008, Google financed the building of the WSA’s Sweetwater Creek Sidestream Plant, which is a reuse treatment facility that intercepts up to 30 percent of the water from the local water and sewer authority’s treatment plant.

“At Google we’re always looking for smart ways to reduce our impact on the environment,” said Joe Kava, Google’s senior director of data center construction and operations. “We’ve been working for years on maximizing the efficiency of our servers and our data center designs so that we can minimize the entire energy footprint consumed by our data centers.”

It can be hard to bring in a 2nd water line to a data center, and on site storage of water is difficulty for a scenario of a week's worth of water.

What Google's recycled water system does is provide an alternative cooling water source that has many benefits.  Below are 7.

1. 2nd source of cooling water (recycled water and potable city water)
2. brand new and will last longer than data center (water mains can be up to 75 years old)
3. supported by the local gov't (community relations in improved with joint projects)
4. is part of the city's critical infrastructure which makes it a high priority to operate (Google gets to the top of the list after hospitals, fire, and police)
5. financed by Google, city owned (Google's cash reserves put to funding innovation and thought leadership in sustainable data centers)
6. cost effective, reduce cost of water and sewage fees (if you haven't looked at water and sewage costs, the costs are growing faster than any other consumable)
7. good for the environment (obvious)