Oregon data centers win praise from Greenpeace, a former skeptic

By: Mike Rogoway
The Oregonian

Data centers are huge, hulking industrial operations – remote warehouses packed with thousands of computers. They use as much electricity as small cities to store our e-mails, photos and Facebook updates, and to keep their computers cool.

Environmentalists once fretted over these server farms, lamenting the toll all that energy use took on the environment. But many of the big data center operators have a new, unlikely ally: Greenpeace.

The watchdog group issued an unusually rosy report Wednesday morning, lavishing praise on Apple, Facebook and other companies that Greenpeace had been sharply critical of in the past.

What’s changed? Several big data center operators have gotten religion, committing themselves to using clean energy throughout their facilities. They’re dragging power utilities along by creating demand for renewable power, which n turn prompts the utilities to create new sources of clean energy. Read more