Yesterday (April 7th, 2011) Facebook announced its Open Compute Project and shared with the world technical details about its efficient data center in Prineville, OR. GigaOm did a nice summary of the technical details about that data center (as have others, here and here) but I wanted to talk about
Read moreGetting serious about climate solutions means shutting down coal plants, starting with the old dirty ones. Washington State just announced an agreement to shut down the last coal plant in the Pacific Northwest, the first boiler by 2020 and the 2nd by 2025 (another facility is already scheduled to be
Read moreI wrote about the importance of distinguishing facts from values in Chapter 19 of Turning Numbers into Knowledge, and I wanted to summarize that point here, because it is so often forgotten in discussions of technical issues. Every human choice embodies certain values. When technical people advocate a technology choice
Read moreThe folks at the Breakthrough Technology Institute (BTI) have kindly agreed to work through the concerns I raised in my memo on the state of the rebound dialogue in a collaborative way. We’re beginning that process by focusing on what’s called the elasticity of substitution in firms, which
Read moreThe various participants are continuing the email dialogue about the rebound effect, and the parties have agreed on a strategy for making progress on the key issues. We’re examining the specific example of rebound for an industrial facility, we’re analyzing the comments of various parties on that example,
Read moreTwo days ago I received word that I’d be one of the first class of Google Science Communications Fellows. The program is focusing first on climate change, and the 21 scientists selected are experts in various aspects of climate science and solutions. A post on the Google blog gives
Read moreJames Barrett has recently published two very well reasoned posts on the rebound effect that walk through his thinking, and they are worth a read. The first one is introductory (written in response to the recent New Yorker article), and the second one more technical. Both will help people who
Read moreOver the past few weeks I’ve been engaged in an email conversation with about 30 energy analysts and environmental reporters about the rebound effect. That conversation has had many threads, but one of particular interest is a specific example I asked the rebound advocates to create. After some resistance
Read moreI was invited by Christian Belady at Microsoft to give a talk about my computing trends work at Microsoft, and the video of that Dec. 2, 2010 talk can be found here. The talk turned out pretty well. The implications of this work related to the capabilities and prevalence of
Read moreWell, my letter almost made it into the New Yorker, but I just learned today that they had cut it for space reasons. They did a nice job shortening and editing it, though, and I was pleasantly surprised. Edited version follows: “Owen’s article conflates two different effects: the rebound
Read moreI chatted with a reporter a few days ago about the electricity used by data centers. This happens every month or two—somebody comes to me with concern about the power used by computers and other information technology (IT) equipment and I talk them through the history of this topic.
Read moreAn article in the New Yorker raises, yet again, the question of whether energy efficiency actually saves energy or promotes more consumption. This issue comes up periodically, but proponents of this idea never seem to be able to prove their case, and there’s a reason for that: it doesn’
Read moreFor many years I’ve maintained a simple biographical web page, and that one served me well, but I realized in 2010 that it was time to create something more modern. This new site is the result. There are still a few quirks to be worked out, but we’re
Read moreThis post appeared on Climate Progress on Oct. 27, 2010. This short essay describes why I think California’s Prop. 23 should be voted down. Taking action on climate is the best way to ensure that California continues to develop the industries of the future. We need to stay ahead
Read moreThis blog post appeared first on Climate Progress on June 21, 2010, but I’m reposting it so I have the text on my site. For the Climate Progress version, which contains useful commentary and additional links from Joe Romm, go here. Debunking the myth of the Internet as energy
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