Data Center Costs

Cooling a data center is quite costly, according to DataSpan:

“Anywhere between 30% to 55% of a data center’s energy consumption goes into powering [data center] cooling and ventilation systems — with the average hovering around 40%.”

Which explains why Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft prefer sites in towns capable of providing billions of gallons of cold water at negotiated low cost. But why such a concerning degree of secrecy? Perhaps because of the costly impacts on community watersheds and ecosystems.

Not quite evil but not sustainable.