Cash for Clunkers vs. Cash for Data Center Improvement it's a No Brainer

I read an IDC report a while back that estimated there were upwards of 20 million servers out there that weren't being utilized or that could be consolidated off of and shut down. That same report says that every server creates as much CO2 as 1.5 cars.  So after my little brain did the math, I came up with the following; removing 20 million servers equates to removing 30 million cars from our roads and highways. That's 30 Million! On the other hand, we could continue to pursue "Cash for Clunkers" where it's estimated that the $3 billion plus the government has allocated will remove roughly 350,000 clunkers and replace them with more efficient models. Even if we say that the more efficient model gets 2X the gas mileage of the "Clunker" we're only talking about removing the equivalent of 175,000 cars. Another way to look at this is to say that the government is paying roughly $17,000 for every car's worth of CO2 removed or if we were saying this was servers, then they're paying $25,000 each. I don't know about you, but I'd be real happy to take $25K for every server I removed from my environment!

The Power Reduction Incentive Program that DCP proposed to the Federal Government has the potential to reduce U.S. energy use by 1%+ over the course of three years. Let's put 1% of our energy use into perspective. In 2005 US estimated energy use was 29000 TWh. One percent of 29000 is 290 TWh or about 2.9 Trillion KWh, and remember this usage statistic was a 2005 estimate.

2.9 Trillion KWhs worth of CO2, that's a lot of cars, my brain's starting to hurt. Yet even with this potential opportunity we can't seem to get any real traction with our elected officials. Yes, we've had a few introductory meetings and there's been agreement that it's a great idea, but still no action. I have to ask, why? I think the simple answer is because we haven't shown how it will help any one or more specific officials get re-elected. The worst thing about all this is that the "Cash for Clunkers" program is feeding more money into an industry that has already taken 10s of billions of our tax payer dollars. Our Power Reduction Incentive Program Proposal would have created new jobs in the data center industry, reduced our reliance on foreign sources of energy, helped us create more Green Tech, and made our companies more competitive and we could have done it all for not much more money than the Clunkers program!

If you feel strongly about this, please contact your local elected officials and let them know!