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Facebook under fire for using coal-powered electricity

Facebook faces campaign to switch to renewable energy Social networking site under fire over intention to run giant new data centre mainly on coal-powered electricity   John Vidal,  guardian.co.uk,   1 September 2010 Social networking website Facebook is coming under unprecedented pressure from its users to switch to renewable energy. In one of the web’s fastest-growing environmental campaigns, Greenpeace international says at least 500,000 people have now protested at the organisation’s intention to run its giant new data centre mainly on electricity produced by burning coal power.

Facebook will not say how much electricity it uses to stream video, store information and connect its 500m users but industry estimates suggest that at their present rate of growth all the data centres and telecommunication networks in the world will consume about 1,963bn kilowatt hours of electricity by 2020. That is more than triple their current consumption and more electricity than is used by France, Germany, Canada and Brazil combined…… Facebook faces campaign to switch to renewable energy | Environment | guardian.co.uk

September 2, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, climate change | antinuclear, climate change, global warming, renewable energy