Web Hosting and Power, Resource Issues - Going Green?

There are other ways of saving all that power. A lot of web hosts recently have talked about “going green” to reduce pollution. What exactly does that involve? For many web hosts, it means buying carbon offset credits – basically paying for something that mitigates greenhouse gas emissions. This doesn’t reduce your costs, because you’re still doing business as usual. But there are other ways to go green.

Mitch Keeler on one of his recent Web Hosting Show podcasts noted that green web hosts who go green through carbon credits sound like scams to him. In his opinion, a web host would be really green “if that host made changes that actually have to do with the business that they're doing...they could turn off their monitors in their office after an hour of not being used, use more efficient servers...there's a million and one different things that you could do to save energy and cause less pollution out there.”

Greenest Host is one company that claims it is doing everything it can to be green. The company has built a data center in San Diego that boasts 120 solar panels. These panels generate all of the power needed to keep their AMD Opteron servers running; AMDs were chosen because they consume 60 percent less energy and generate 50 percent less heat than the alternatives. The center was built using steel, and features several layers of “environmentally friendly insulation” to reduce the amount of energy needed to run it.

Greenest Host’s back up generator runs on propane gas, which burns more cleanly than diesel. The cooling system is also energy efficient; it monitors the outside air, and when it gets to 50 degrees Fahrenheit or below, the system sucks the air inside, filters it and uses it for cooling, saving on electricity. These are just a few of the company’s practices. Getting environmentally friendly could be good for your bottom line as well.