The current explosion in cloud computing offered by major IT companies is driving 
significant new demand for dirty energy like coal and nuclear power, according to a new report from International.The report, “Greenpeace How Clean is Your Cloud?” shows a growing split within the tech industry between companies that are taking steps to power their clouds with clean energy, like Google, Yahoo and Facebook, and companies like Apple, Amazon and Microsoft who lag behind by choosing to build their growing fleets of data centers to be powered by coal and nuclear energy. The report evaluates 14 IT companies and their electricity supply chains of over 80 data centers based on key elements needed to build a clean cloud.
“When people around the world share their music or photos on the cloud, they want to know that the cloud is powered by clean, safe energy,” said Gary Cook, Greenpeace International Senior Policy Analyst. “Yet highly innovative and profitable companies like Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft are building data centers powered by coal and acting like their customers won’t know or won’t care. They’re wrong.”As more people around the world use the cloud to store and share photos, videos, and documents, IT companies have to build more data centers –buildings so large they are often visible from space – that house thousands of computers and consume tremendous amounts of electricity. Some data centers use as much electricity as 80,000 U.S. homes. The report research found that if the cloud were a country its electricity demand would currently rank 5th in the world, and is expected to triple by 2020.
Companies like Google, Yahoo and Facebook are beginning to lead the sector down a clean energy pathway through innovations in energy efficiency, prioritizing renewable energy access when siting their data centers, and demanding better energy options from utilities and government decision-makers. Both Google and Yahoo are increasingly powering their facilities with renewable energy even as they continue to expand. Greenpeace International is calling on all IT companies with cloud services to: Invest in or directly purchase renewable energy; Be more transparent about their energy usage and carbon footprint, demand that governments and electric utilities increase the amount of renewable electricity available on the grid, and build data centers in areas where clean energy will power the facility.
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