How Canada and Alberta can be a world leader in the next industrial transformation:

Building a zero carbon economy through IT

Bill St. ArnaudCANARIE Inc – www.canarie.ca

Bill.st.arnaud@canarie.ca

Unless otherwise noted all material in this slide deck may be reproduced, modified or distributed without prior permission of the author

Transferring Alberta’s Wealth to the rest of Canada

www.td.com/economics

• PM Harper has committed reduction of 20% CO2 by 2020 from 2006 baseline

• Government will need to collect $40 -$70 Billion in carbon taxes or cap and trade

• About half the revenues will go to purchasing international offsets

Is there a better way?

• Can we use IT to keep some of that wealth in Alberta (and Canada)?

• And create a knowledge based economy that generates little carbon versus the current situation?

• Rather than Co2 taxation can we develop other policy techniques to reduce that does not penalize consumers or provinces?

Climate Forecasts

MIT

> MIT report predicts median temperature forecast of 5.2C– 11C increase in Northern

Canada– http://globalchange.mit.edu/pub

s/abstract.php?publication_id=990

> Last Ice age average global temperature was 5-6C cooler than today– Most of Canada was under 2-3

km ice– With BAU we are talking about

5-6C change in temperature in the opposite direction in less than 80 Years

2008 second warmest year ever

Climate Change is not reversible

• Climate Change is not like acid rain or ozone destruction where environment will quickly return to normal once source of pollution is removed

• GHG emissions will stay in the atmosphere for thousands of years and continue to accumulate

• Planet will continue to warm up even if we drastically reduce emissions

All we hope to achieve is to slow down the rapid rate of climate change

Weaver et al., GRL (2007)

Climate tipping points

• USGS report finds that future climate shifts have been underestimated and warns of debilitating abrupt shift in climate that would be devastating.

• Tipping elements in the Earth's climate - National Academies of Science– “Society may be lulled into a false

sense of security by smooth projections of global change. Our synthesis of present knowledge suggests that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point within this century under anthropogenic climate change. “

j

15 - 20 tons/person

1 ton/person2008 2050? 2100

2 tons/person

Source: Stern 2008

Our Challenge

80/50 rule – 80% reduction in CO2 by 2050(Commitment made by G8 countries)

The Global ICT Carbon Footprint isRoughly the Same as the Aviation Industry Today

www.smart2020.org

But ICT Emissions are Growing at 6% Annually!

ICT represent 8% of global electricity consumption

Projected to grow to as much as 20% of all electrical consumption in the US (http://uclue.com/index.php?xq=724)

Future Broadband- Internet alone is expected to consume 5% of all electricity http://www.ee.unimelb.edu.au/people/rst/talks/files/Tucker_Green_Plenary.pdf

The Global ICT Carbon Footprint by Subsector

www.smart2020.org

The Number of PCs (Desktops and Laptops) Globally is Expected to Increase

from 592 Million in 2002 to More Than Four Billion in 2020

PCs Are Biggest Problem

Data Centers Are Low Hanging Fruit

IT biggest power draw

Heating,CoolingandVentilation40-50%

Lighting11%

IT Equipment 30-40%

Other6%

Sources: BOMA 2006, EIA 2006, AIA 2006

Energy Consumption World Wide

Transportation25%

Manufacturing25%

Buildings50%

Energy Consumption Typical Building

The Falsehood of Energy Efficiency• Most current approaches to reduce carbon footprint are focused on increased

energy efficiency of equipment and processes

• But growth in ICT deployment of equipment and services is outstripping any gains made in efficiency– Which is likely to accelerate as ICT is used to support abatement in other

fields such as smart homes, smart buildings, smart grids etc

• Also greater efficiency can paradoxically increase energy consumption by reducing overall cost service and therefore stimulates demand– Khazzoom-Brookes postulate (aka Jevons paradox aka rebound effect)– In last Energy crisis in 1973 Congress passed first energy efficiency laws

(CAFÉ) which mandate minimum mileage for cars, home insulation and appliances

– Net effect was to reduce cost of driving car, heating or cooling home, and electricity required for appliances

– Consumer response was to drive further, buy bigger homes and appliances

US Climate Legislation• Waxman-Markey H.R. 2454

– “Average” increase in electricity costs for businesses and institutions will be 60% with cap and trade

– Organizations that use electricity from coal fired power plants will see significantly higher costs (by as much as 3 times current prices)

– 30% of electricity will come from non carbon sources

– Utilities will be required to spend 16% revenues on energy reduction strategies

– If you emit above your “cap” you are required to purchase offsets at $11-$15 per ton in 2012 and roughly double in price by 2025.

• Kerry-Boxer more agrressive reduction targets

SOURCE: Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Climate101-State Actions, January 2009

42% of States Have Existing GHG Reduction Targets

State GHG Targets 2009

Carbon Footprint by state

ICT’s Enabling Effect is Significant

• Can deliver carbon emission reductions five times size of sector’s own footprint by 2020– 7.8 Giga-tons carbon

dioxide equivalent – Greater than US or China’s

current annual emissions• Key sectors include

Transportation, Buildings, Industrial Processes, and Power

• No other sector can achieve this enabler effect !!

Source: SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age, 2008

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Canada’s ICT enabler effect

•ICT sector contributes one megatonne of GHG emissions or < 1% of Canada’s total

•Enabling effect estimated at between 19.1 – 36 MT of CO2e

•Telework, Car pools, Transportation logistics, Virtual Meetings, Smart Buildings & e-commerce

•Estimated financial benefit between $7.5 billion – $12.9 billion

Source: Industry Canada

MIT to build zero carbon data center in Holyoke MA

• The data center will be managed and funded by the four main partners in the facility: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cisco Systems, the University of Massachusetts and EMC.

• It will be a high-performance computing environment that will help expand the research and development capabilities of the companies and schools in Holyoke

– http://www.greenercomputing.com/news/2009/06/11/cisco-emc-team-mit-launch-100m-green-data-center

–

Many examples already

Hydro-electric powered data centers

Data IslandiaDigital Data Archive

ASIO solar powered data centers

Wind powered data centers Ecotricity in UK builds windmills at data center locations with no capital cost to user

Grand Challenge – Building robust ICT services using renewable energy only

• 30% of electrical power will come from renewable sources

• How do you provide mission critical ICT services when energy source is unreliable?

– Ebbing wind or setting sun

• Back up diesel and batteries are not an option because they are not zero carbon and power outages can last for days or weeks

• Need new network architectures and business models to ensure reliable service delivery by quickly moving compute jobs and data sets around the world to sites that have available power

– Will require high bandwidth networks and routing architectures to quickly move jobs and data sets from site to site

Wind powered Cell phone tower

• Over 100,000 cell phone towers to be powered by renewable energy by 2012• Vertical axis turbines and solar

CANARIE Green-IT Pilot

• $3m allocation for world’s first zero carbon Internet

• Two objectives:– Technical viability and usability for relocating computers to zero

carbon data centers and follow the sun/follow the wind network– Business case viability of offering carbon offsets (and or equivalent in

services) to IT departments and university researchers who reduce their carbon footprint by relocating computers and instrumentation to zero carbon data centers

• International partnership with possible zero carbon nodes using virtual router/computers in Spain, Ireland, California, Australia, British Columbia, Ottawa, Quebec and Nova Scotia

Emerging “Follow the Sun” Technologies

• The ability to migrate entire virtual machines (routers and computers) to alternate data centres exists.

• Over HS networks the latency is tiny and transfer is invisible to the user. • Happens instantly without user knowledge, action or intervention

Nortel’s research labs developed and conceived the “Virtual Machine Turntable in 2006 and through collaboration with R&E networks in the US, Canada, Netherlands, and South Korea proved viability.

The SC06 VMT Demonstrator

Computation at the Right Place & Time!We migrate live Virtual Machines, unbeknownst to applications and clients, for data affinity, business continuity / disaster recovery, load balancing, or

power management

DataCenter @Tampa

SC|2006

Nortel’sSensor ServicesPlatform

KoreaKREOnet

Netherlight

DRACControlledLightpaths

Internal/ExternalSensor Webs

Amsterdam

Economic benefits of follow the wind/sun architectures• Cost- and Energy-Aware Load Distribution Across Data Centers

– http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~ricardob/papers/hotpower09.pdf– Green data centers can decrease brown energy consumption by 35% by leveraging the

green data centers at only a 3% cost increase

• Cutting the Electric Bill for Internet-Scale Systems– Companies can shift computing power to a data center in a location where it’s an off-peak

time of the day and energy prices are low– Cassatt a product that dynamically shifts loads to find the cheapest energy prices– 45% maximum savings in energy costs– http://ccr.sigcomm.org/online/files/p123.pdf– http://earth2tech.com/2009/08/19/how-data-centers-can-follow-energy-prices-to-save-million

s/

• Computing for the future of the planet– http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/dtg/~ah12/– http://earth2tech.com/2008/07/25/data-centers-will-follow-the-sun-and-chase-the-wind

What are carbon offsets?• Many claims of energy savings can only be proven through rigorous process of carbon

offsets (ISO 14064)

• Companies or individuals buy carbon offsets from projects that remove or reduce carbon

– Planting trees, building hydro dams, installing energy efficient processes, etc

• Two types of markets– Regulated markets – Alberta, BC , Europe and New England– Voluntary markets – Air Canada, Chicago, etc– Carbon buying and selling is done through registries or exchanges

• Pacific Carbon Trust, Montreal Carbon exchange, REGI

• In regulated markets all big emitters such as power plants, steel mills, universities, etc must purchase permits based on cap and trade

The Carbon Economy

• $500 billion - Value of low-carbon energy markets by 2050

• $100 billion - Demand for projects generating GHG missions credits by 2030

• Global carbon market expected to grow 58% this year to $92 billion

• Carbon market could be worth billions for telecoms & IT– US market estimated at $700 billion– http://telephonyonline.com/global/news/carbon-trade-arnaud-0626/

• Obama’s cap and trade (Waxman-Markey) bill will force emitters to spend $1.25 on carbon offsets for every $1.00 on emission permits at $ 1billion per year

Source: ClimateCheck

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Three approaches to a better planet• Carbon Neutral

– Attempt to reduce CO2 by undertaking activities that balance our carbon footprint

– E.g. Cap and trade, planting trees, etc

• Zero Carbon– Attempt to reduce directly our carbon footprint as close as possible

to zero– E.g. Use of renewable power

• Carbon Positive– Attempt to reduce CO2 greater than our carbon footprint– E.g. Carbon absorbing roof tiles, carbon rewards or gCommerce

Digital vs Traditional appliances

Case Western pilot with Kindle DX

• One pound of printer paper generates 4 pounds of CO2

• One pound of newspaper produces 3 pounds of CO2

• One pound of textbooks produces 5 pounds of CO2

• Babcock school of Management textbooks for 160 students alone produces 45 Tons CO2

– http://www.stewartmarion.com/carbon-footprint/html/carbon-footprint-stuff.html

Free Wifi on Buses• There’s a school bus service called The Green Bus in Birmingham, UK which

operates double-decker, low-carbon emissions buses that carry over 1400 kids to school every day (saving over 2000 car journeys).

• In addition to encouraging kids to play peer-to-peer games, the access points allow the bus company to monitor where the buses are in the city in real time. Parents as well as staff can follow the progress of any bus via Google maps.

• Business bus service in San Francisco offers office on the move – free wifi, femto cell service etc

•  • http://www.muniwireless.com/2009/01/14/school-kids-enjoy-wi-fi-on-green-

bus/

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Carbon Rewards rather carbon taxes – “gCommerce”

• Although carbon taxes or cap and trade 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, collarboartive education and research technologies 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)

– http://www.newamerica.net/files/HomesWithTails_wu_slater.pdf– Pilots in Cleveland, Switzerland, Ottawa, etc

• 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

Final remarks

• The problem we face is NOT energy consumption, but carbon emissions

• Think carbon, not energy

• We must start addressing climate change now – not in 2050 or 2020

• 80% reduction in CO2 emissions will fundamentally change everything we do including ICT and networks

• Huge potential for innovation for ICT sector because 30% of energy must come from renewable sources

Thank you

• More information• List server on Green IT

– Send e-mail to bill.st.arnaud@canarie.ca• http://green-broadband.blogspot.com• http://free-fiber-to-the-home.blogspot.com/