Information technology energy usage and our planet

The report issued from the EPA entitled "Report to congress on server and data center energy efficiency" was a wakeup call to the IT industry on energy usage of IT equipment and that actions need to be taken in the future to improve energy efficiency of IT equipment as well as the supporting infrastructure. Based on this report the IT industry will provide increased focus on this area as already evident by the formation of the green grid and the stepped up activity in the ASHRAE TC9.9 committee related to data centers. Although IT companies are observing a shift in thinking about energy and its importance to the bottom line, many people are still not relating these efforts to the bigger problem of our energy supply and the impact of energy usage to our environment. This paper is an attempt to gather the key facts on how our industrialized economy contributes to pollution and CO₂ emissions and the effects of this non-equilbrium condition of CO₂ in the atmosphere may be contributing to increased environmental temperatures. Based on this scientific evidence, the question then is how will the IT industry contribute to decreasing this CO₂ emission and how can the IT industry affect a change in the future to improve our environment. Is there a way to cut our energy in half if political forces decide that something drastic needs to be done? Is there a way to tie renewables to the needs of IT industry such that our industry can continue fueling the growth in the economy. What is the science behind all of this and what can we expect to see over the next decade on energy usage as it relates to the IT industry and what technologies might be implemented to realize these energy initiatives. These issues and others will be discussed in this paper and show how our IT industry can contribute to the solution and not the problem.