What do 10,000 cows and diesel generators have in common?
Both have the ability to power a 1-megawatt data center. Diesel generators are already used for this purpose at some data center sites, though the energy source is not very environmentally friendly. On the other hand, 10,000 cows grazing a dairy farm produce 20,000 metric tons of manure each year that can be turned into methane gas and eventually electrical power. That’s according to researchers from HP Labs, who are presenting a paper on these findings at the ASME International Conference on Energy Sustainability in Phoenix on Wednesday. The idea is this: As our demand grows for computing power and data storage, the capacity to power data centers is not keeping up properly. HP’s goal is to use sustainable processes to build data centers that are self-sufficient. That is, build data centers whose power sources are from sustainable energy sources and whose heat output can be recycled and reused within that same data center. As odd as it may sound, that’s where the cows come in. The aver
