Jonathan Koomey

31 Mar 2014 • 1 min read

An invitation: I'm headlining at a Clean Tech Open event on Clean Energy and Climate in San Francisco on Wednesday evening, April 2nd, 2014

Here are the details on the April 2nd, 2014 event: Clean Energy and Climate Change, a Cleantech Open business briefing at Impact Hub in SF Wednesday, April 2, 2014 from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM (PDT) Location: Impact Hub San Francisco 925 Mission St San Francisco, CA 94103

28 Mar 2014 • 1 min read

My interview today on Bloomberg West about making data centers more efficient

I had a wonderful interview today about data center efficiency on Bloomberg West today, which you can watch here. The focus was on our case study of eBay’s management practices, which came out last September. The interviewers were really prepared which is always gratifying. Let me know what you

26 Mar 2014 • 1 min read

CO2 Scorecard analyzes coal exports

My friends at CO2 Scorecard just released a short data analysis demonstrating that coal exports from the US have more than offset carbon emissions savings from switching from coal to natural gas in the US electricity sector. This result is one important piece of evidence that an “all of the

24 Mar 2014 • 1 min read

Transport constraints and Keystone XL: New Calculations from Max Auffhammer at UC Berkeley

Max Auffhammer at UC Berkeley brings his formidable economic talents to bear on the Keystone XL question, and finds that not approving the Keystone XL Pipeline will keep at least 1 billion barrels of bitumen in the ground. It is a nice counterpoint to the circular reasoning that still pervades

21 Mar 2014 • 3 min read

This is a huge deal: Exxon agrees to evaluate the "stranded asset" risk associated with climate action

The financial markets are starting to realize that the “booked” reserves of the fossil fuel companies are based on a fallacy: these estimates assume that those fossil fuel resources can be burned and still maintain a stable climate. As I and others have written for years, we must keep a

19 Mar 2014 • 1 min read

Yale Environment 360 on energy harvesting

Cheryl Katz at Yale Environment 360 wrote a nice article on energy harvesting in which I’m quoted. Here are the two intro paragraphs: Computers feasting on their own exhaust heat. Super-efficient solar panels snaring lost thermal energy and recycling it into electricity. Personal electronics powered by stray microwaves or

18 Mar 2014 • 1 min read

My new blog post on the Corporate Eco Forum site: "Bringing Enterprise Computing into the 21st Century: A Management and Sustainability Challenge"

The Corporate Eco Forum (CEF) just posted a new essay of mine titled "Bringing Enterprise Computing into the 21st Century: A Management and Sustainability Challenge". Here are two key intro paragraphs: Most companies view IT as a cost center, but the most effective users of these new technologies

18 Mar 2014 • 1 min read

My talk on energy and the information economy at the Physics of Sustainable Energy conference on March 8th, 2014

I gave a talk on energy and the information economy at the Physics of Sustainable Energy Conference on March 8th, 2014. The event was sponsored by the American Physical Society, which has been doing this conference for at least three cycles. It was a great event, and I got to

3 Mar 2014 • 1 min read

My keynote interview with Joel Makower of GreenBiz from the Fall 2013 VERGE conference in San Francisco

GreenBiz just posted video of my keynote interview with Joel Makower of Green Biz from last fall’s VERGE conference in San Francisco, which took place on October 16, 2013. The key message: Information technology is our “ace in the hole” when it comes to facing the climate challenge. In

14 Feb 2014 • 1 min read

More on journalism in a scientific age

Joel Achenbach at the Washington Post has posted today a must-read article about pseudo science and journalism. The final two paragraphs echo the findings in my recent post titled “Separating Fact From Fiction”: There’s nothing at stake here except the survival of credible journalism. For those who are trying

5 Feb 2014 • 1 min read

WNYC Radio show New Tech City asks whether we should delete more of our digital history

I was interviewed for the WNYC radio show New Tech City last week, and the story appeared today. It’s a fun piece, and worth listening to. My one quibble is that the report explicitly creates false balance, because it contrasted my data and analysis-based view of how much electricity

3 Feb 2014 • 7 min read

Separating Fact From Fiction: A Challenge For The Media

This article is an abridged, re-edited, and amended version of an article that recently appeared as Koomey, Jonathan. 2014. “Separating Fact From Fiction: A Challenge For The Media.” In IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine. January. pp. 9-11. “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’

3 Feb 2014 • 1 min read

Our panel at the Open Compute Summit: Bringing integrated design, mass production and learning by doing to the data center industry

Last week I moderated a panel at the Open Compute Summit V in San Jose that focused on bringing integrated design, mass production and learning by doing to the data center industry. The great irony is that information technology (IT) has had amazing success at transforming other industries, reducing costs

19 Jan 2014 • 4 min read

Another example of why strong environmental regulations are needed

The chemical spill that fouled West Virginia’s water supply provides yet another example (as if any more were needed) showing why unregulated markets will underinvest in environmental protection. The Wall Street Journal has a summary here (subscription required) Freedom Industries Inc., the company connected to a chemical spill that

14 Jan 2014 • 1 min read

The new omnibus spending agreement has at least three provisions that are bad for the climate

The National Journal (among others) is reporting that The $1 trillion federal spending bill that lawmakers unveiled Monday night would soften an Obama administration climate-change policy that greatly restricts U.S. support for coal-plant construction in developing nations… The bill also targets a policy to phase out inefficient light bulbs