Google, the Efficient Datacenter Company - Page 3

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The remaining issues

This leads to issue three, water management. On average, two gallons of water is consumed in a datacenter for every kilowatt-hour of electricity produced in the U.S., and it must be fresh water. Ocean water has too many particulates and is highly corrosive.

The first step in the water savings comes from using less electricity. Less juice, less water needed. The next step is recycling the water, either its own or using it from local sources that, while not suitable for consumption, is clean enough to cool the systems. By the end of 2008, two Google facilities will run on 100 percent recycled water and by 2010 Google expects recycled water to provide 80 percent of its total water consumption.

Then there's disposal. Servers constantly break down, but also, more efficient hardware is constantly hitting the market. For Google, setting up proper disposal of old computers was actually quite tough. For starters, it doesn't have a single vendor to turn to for recycling. HP and IBM have been quite active in recycling programs but Google builds its own servers, so it couldn't turn to an OEM partner.

First, there weren't a lot of e-waste disposal programs out there. Second, the socially-conscious company didn't want its old gear being sold to third-world companies that would dispose of them in incinerators with no pollution scrubbers.

Repurposing the servers

The main solution was repurposing. A full 70 percent of servers that ended their days answering user queries were reused somewhere else, either as servers within the company or as spare parts. Others were sold or donated.

While Google has focused on the building, it still has the hardware in mind, and a few other ideas for the datacenter building. "We believe that we can definitely do better," sayid Teetzel. "This is a first starting point. Part of what we want is to make sure the whole industry starts to look at this."

Staten said Google is "an excellent example" for building efficient datacenters. "They are in a position where they can afford to take more risks and try things other companies can't, so they can prove this green IT technology first," he said.