The Water Footprint of Data Centers

The internet and associated Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) are diffusing at an astounding pace. As data centers (DCs) proliferate to accommodate this rising demand, their environmental impacts grow too. While the energy efficiency of DCs has been researched extensively, their water footprint (WF) has so far received little to no attention. This article conducts a preliminary WF accounting for cooling and energy consumption in DCs. The WF of DCs is estimated to be between 1047 and 151,061 m3/TJ. Outbound DC data traffic generates a WF of 1–205 liters per gigabyte (roughly equal to the WF of 1 kg of tomatos at the higher end). It is found that, typically, energy consumption constitues by far the greatest share of DC WF, but the level of uncertainty associated with the WF of different energy sources used by DCs makes a comprehensive assessment of DCs’ water use efficiency very challenging. Much better understanding of DC WF is urgently needed if a meaningful evaluation of this rapidly spreading service technology is to be gleaned and response measures are to be put into effect

Data Center Green Performance Measurement: State of the Art and Open Research Challenges

Data centers (DC/DCs) are indispensable elements of information systems. The increase in information technology service demand drives their worldwide grow in number, size and energy consumption. In the light of depleting raw natural resources and climate change induced by greenhouse gases (GHG) the environmental impacts of DCs have received particular attention. This paper reviews literature to highlight major issues that contribute to DCs ecologic sustainability, and explores the state of the art of green performance indicators (GPIs) to assess DCs environmental performance, in particular the energy, GHG and resource efficiency. Afterwards, the identified GPIs are classified and clustered to construct a green performance measurement system. Furthermore, the paper generates insights in relation to the recognition and application of proposed GPIs in practice through 13 questionnaires and two expert interviews. Thus, the paper provides academics and practitioners with the body of knowledge on DC green performance measurement, and moreover formulates open research challenges

Solar-Powered Cloud Computing Datacenters

In the developing world, reliable and affordable electricity isn’t always available, presenting challenges for the Western “bigger is better” datacenter model. A small-scale, cloud computing datacenter, however, could leverage recent technological breakthroughs to instead rely on solar energy

Redevelopment after the Abruzzo event

Natural disasters raise quite a number of interdisciplinary issues concerning regional economic growth and local development, as well as public finance and sustainability, to mention only a few of them. These issues deserve special attention in our globalized world, given the expectation of a growing impact of climate-related disasters: no surprise that disaster management stands as a new discipline aimed at bridging the gap between theory and practice, so as to prevent natural disasters in the first place; afterwards, considerable efforts are required to accelerate business recovery, quickly restore vital energies, and hopefully carry out specific improvement projects as a sort of compensation for the (both personal and economic) losses suffered. Interesting lessons can be learned from natural disasters and can be shared as a payback to those who helped upon their occurrence. Actually, cooperation calls for cross-cultural activities that are likely to benefit from direct experience made by impacted scholars and practitioners: a case in point has to do with the earthquake that devastated L’Aquila and its environs on April 6, 2009 causing more than 300 deaths, apart from extensive damage in the Abruzzo region, in Central Italy; the Abruzzo event – as this natural disaster is currently referred to – fuels the debate on redevelopment problems to be faced under similar circumstances, that may obliterate the economic environment and attractiveness of an area in a few moments. Due to the huge amount of money needed to undertake appropriate strategies, finance plays a key role and useful insights can be gained by exploring the process of financial innovation. A supporting argument deals with the recourse to micro-finance in order to make the business and economic scenario revive after a natural disaster: micro-credit might be resorted to even within the framework of new financial engineering instruments, such as Urban Development Funds, recently promoted by the European Investment Bank; they include JESSICA (Joint European Support for Sustainable Investment in City Areas) and JEREMIE (Joint European Resources for Micro to Medium Enterprises), to be properly considered as strategic tools in sight of redeveloping L’Aquila and its surrounding boroughs.

An analytical framework to assess the contribution of new technologies to societal challenges

This paper addresses the topic of impact assessment of a research project (encompassed on a Joint Activities Program) considering the major priorities established under the societal challenges defined under the Horizon 2020 programme. A methodology is proposed and demonstrated for the particular case of a project aiming the development of an electric vehicle battery charging system with novel operating modes, which was tested at a laboratory scale. Firstly, the methodology is based on literature review in order to gather meaningful information about societal challenges addressed to this technology and, secondly, questionnaires and interviews directed to the research team of this project were conducted. A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis was derived from the data collected in the questionnaires and interviews to identify and assess the interest of the new technology and its barriers. The results show that, especially, the different operation modes for bidirectional energy transfer are a great advance comparing to other competing technologies. Moreover, the technology can contribute significantly to mitigate climate change by reducing the release of carbon dioxide emissions from the transport sector. However, since the project under analysis was tested only at laboratory, some aspects related to the software and hardware still need to be improved and the effective market uptake is still uncertain, as it is also dependent on the car manufacturers' interest.- This work is financed by the ERDF -European Regional Development Fund through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation -COMPETE 2020 Programme, and by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT -Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, within project SAICTPAC/0004/2015-POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016434 and project UID/CEC/00319/2019