Who wants to build a Data Center in Delaware?

ZDNET writes on University of Delaware looking for someone else to build a data center after unanimously rejecting the The Data Center LLC.

Despite the unanimous vote by the board of the University of Delaware to revoke the contract with The Data Centers, LLC to build a data center and co-generation plant on their STAR campus, UD is still actively interested in finding another datacenter tenant for the site. The trick, they say, is to find a traditional datacenter operator who just wants to connect to the public power grid.

UD had been fine with the original data center plans, until the scope of the power generation facility came to the attention of community and environmental groups, who raised such a stink about the plan that it even became an issue in the most recent mayoral race in Newark, DE.

As the complaints and protests reached a crest, UD caved to the public pressure and shut the project down, backpedaling with commentary as to how the project had grown too far beyond its original scope to be suitable for their brownfield recycled automotive assembly plant site.

Do you know anyone who has a big demand for data center space in Delaware?  i don’t.  Looking at Level 3 network map it looks like the corner of Delaware is not relevant between Washington DC to NYC.  Philadelphia and New Jersey has more appeal for a data center site.

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A Data Center in Monterey, CA, who will go?

James Hamilton wrote a blog post on a water desalination plant that wants to add a data center in Monterey, CA

 

DeepWater Desal plans to build a desalination plant  at Monterey Bay. Desalination produces drinking water from sea water. Given the abundance of sea water in the world and the shortage of drinking water in many parts of the world, these plants are becoming more common. They are fairly power intensive techniques but still used extensively throughout the world especially in the Middle East.

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Deep Water Desal proposes to mitigate the power consumption of desalination in a very creative way. Rather than reduce the power required to desalinate water, they proposed to co-locate up to 150MW of data center facilities on site and reduce the power required to cool the data center. Essentially the desalination plant and data centers would be symbiotic and the overall power consumption of the combination of the two plants together would be lower.

Being more efficient in cooling is appealing, but probably not a major tipping point.

Avison Young's Jim Kerrigan Shares State of Chicago Data Center Market

Avison’s Jim Kerrigan is a native Chicago resident and his knowledge of the data center market is among the best.  Jim has a newsletter he just shared on the Chicago Data Center market.

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You can see the past newsletter’s Jim has posted here.

Are you ready for the Pacific NW Megaquake?

With all the news about Sandy in the Northeast, many learned whether their data centers could ride out a 100 yr flood natural disaster.

In the Pacific NW, the big risk is a megaquake.

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Oregon Live estimates the financial impact to just Oregon to be $32bil.

The next great Cascadia subduction-zone earthquake will kill thousands in Oregon and cause at least $32 billion in economic losses unless preparations are radically overhauled, a state panel says.

When, not if, the magnitude-9.0 quake strikes -- let alone an accompanying tsunami -- Oregon will face the greatest challenge in its history, the state earthquake commission said in a 290-page draft report released Monday to The Oregonian.

Now, you may think that Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon are a safe distance from the threat of a Tsunami.  But, when a quake this big hits it affects all parts of a the infrastructure.  Pacific NW fiber cables could be broken, water lines break, electrical systems have cascading failures, and diesel fuel is under federal management.

Transmission towers may topple into the river, blocking ships. Fires, landslides and explosions will proliferate. Hydrants and sprinkler systems won't work.

There will be no water or sewer service, no electricity and no ATMs, telephones, television, radio or Internet. Willamette River bridges will be impassable. Food will soon run out.

Responding to the disaster will be difficult, experts found, because of a sort of emergency gridlock. To restore phone service, crews will need restored electricity. To bring back power, workers will require repaired roads and bridges. To fix highways, crews will need restored fuel delivery and distribution.

One issue though is the cascadia earthquakes are spaced out by hundreds of years.

Earthquake magnitude

The Cascadia subduction zone can produce very large earthquakes ("megathrust earthquakes"), magnitude 9.0 or greater, if rupture occurs over its whole area. When the "locked" zone stores up energy for an earthquake, the "transition" zone, although somewhat plastic, can rupture. Great Subduction Zone earthquakes are the largest earthquakes in the world, and can exceed magnitude 9.0. Earthquake size is proportional to fault area, and the Cascadia Subduction Zone is a very long sloping fault that stretches from mid-Vancouver Island to Northern California. It separates the Juan de Fuca and North American plates. Because of the very large fault area, the Cascadia Subduction Zone could produce a very large earthquake. Thermal and deformation studies indicate that the locked zone is fully locked for 60 kilometers (about 40 miles) downdip from the deformation front. Further downdip, there is a transition from fully locked to aseismic sliding.[6]

In 1999, a group of Continuous Global Positioning System sites registered a brief reversal of motion of approximately 2 centimeters (0.8 inches) over a 50 kilometer by 300 kilometer (about 30 mile by 200 mile) area. The movement was the equivalent of a 6.7 magnitude earthquake.[7] The motion did not trigger an earthquake and was only detectable as silent, non-earthquake seismic signatures.[8]

Great Earthquakes
estimated yearinterval
2005 source[9]2003 source[10](years)
about 9 pm, January 26, 1700 (NS) 780
780-1190 CE 880-960 CE 210
690-730 CE 550-750 CE 330
350-420 CE 250-320 CE 910
660-440 BCE 610-450 BCE 400
980-890 BCE 910-780 BCE 250
1440-1340 BCE 1150-1220 BCE unknown

[edit]Earthquake timing

The last known great earthquake in the northwest was the 1700 Cascadia earthquakeGeological evidence indicates that great earthquakes may have occurred at least seven times in the last 3,500 years, suggesting a return time of 300 to 600 years. There is also evidence of accompanying tsunamis with every earthquake, and one line of evidence for these earthquakes is tsunami damage, and through Japanese records of tsunamis.[11]

 

The right way to disclose Data Center LEED certification, eBay shows the points they earned for Gold

At 7x24 Exchange Orlando, eBay presented its story on achieving Gold LEED Certification.

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eBay - Data Center Goes Gold

In May 2010, eBay officially opened its newest data center in South Jordan, Utah, named Topaz after the state stone of Utah. The facility was a green field development focusing on the design principles of reliability, maintainability, sustainability, and efficiency. As a result of the design and construction efforts, the facility achieved a LEED Gold rating in October of 2010.

Michael Lewis, Director Mission Critical Engineering, eBay
Stephen Spinazzola, Vice President, RTKL Associates Inc.

And, the one thing that eBay has done that I haven't seen any other data center is disclose its list of points earned to achieve Gold Certification.

Shouldn't this disclosure be a standard practice if someone markets their LEED certification?

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Here is a quote from Olivier Sanche.  Olivier is infamous as the departed Apple Data Center executive.  What few other people know is Olivier's baby, the data center he designed with Mike Lewis is the Topaz eBay Data Center.

We have a company vision of measuring and managing our carbon footprint that includes a hard look at the ways that information, facilities, and operations use energy and water resources.

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Here are few slides more slides that give details behind the LEED point achievements.

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One of the last slides is going beyond LEED.

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