Norway datacenter dumps diesel diet, goes veggie with biofuel backup
- Reference: 1729002605
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/10/15/norway_datacenter_biofuel/
- Source link:
The Denver, Colorado-based biz operates bit barns in the Americas, Asia-Pacific region, and Europe, but it is a new facility on its OSL04 campus in Oslo, Norway, where it is rolling out the use of biofuel.
The biofuel in question is hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO), or "advanced biofuel HVO100," according to the firm, which means that it is 100 percent vegetable oil rather than being partly blended with diesel.
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As with other operators, [2]Stack has picked HVO100 as a fuel for its backup generators, in place of the standard diesel traditionally used for this purpose.
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The company said it is committed to reducing and eventually eliminating Scope 1 emissions from its datacenters, which are those directly emitted by an organization from sources it owns or controls. Advanced biofuels such as HVO can reduce but not eliminate this as the hydrotreatment process involves reacting the oils with hydrogen at high temperature and pressure.
According to Stack, burning 1,000 liters of HVO will release 195 kg of carbon dioxide, compared to 3,600 kg for the same amount of regular diesel. The company also claims the biofuel is less polluting, producing 33 percent fewer fine particles, lower levels of nitrogen oxides, 24 to 30 percent lower carbon monoxide, and lower levels of polyaromatic hydrocarbons than traditional diesel, leading to lower smoke and soot emissions.
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"Stack understands that sustainability is a business imperative that shapes how we design, construct, and operate critical infrastructure in an increasingly digital world," said the company's EMEA chief, John Eland.
"To address our Scope 2 emissions, we already utilize 100 percent renewable energy across our global datacenter portfolio," Eland added. "Implementing HVO100 aligns with our commitment to reducing our Scope 1 emissions, marking a significant step toward a greener future."
[6]Digital Realty ditches diesel for salad dressing in US to cut datacenter emissions
[7]AWS wants to cook its datacenter chips with vegetable oil
[8]European datacenters worried they can't get cheap, reliable juice
[9]Power grid worries force Amazon to run Oregon datacenters using fuel cells
Earlier this year, global bit barn firm Digital Realty said it was [10]replacing diesel with HVO at sites in the US to reduce carbon dioxide emissions following a successful trial implementation in Europe.
Cloud giant AWS also announced last year it was making the move to [11]HVO for backup power generators at its datacenters in Europe , with sites in Ireland and Sweden the first to make the switch.
As far as operators are concerned, HVO has advantages over some other biodiesel replacements as it does not require any modification to the backup generators. It is also said to remain stable in cold winter temperatures and deliver similar performance to conventional diesel.
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However, other operators have chosen alternatives to simply putting a different fuel in their diesel generators. Equinix is [13]testing fuel cell technology as an alternative backup power source, starting with a demonstration unit at one of its facilities in Dublin, Ireland. It was beaten by Dutch datacenter biz NorthC, which put in place a [14]hydrogen fuel cell module at one of its facilities back in 2022. ®
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[2] https://www.stackinfra.com/
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[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/11/digital_realty_datacenter_biofuel/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/20/aws_wants_to_cook_its/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/18/access_to_cheap_reliable_power/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/06/amazon_datacenter_hydrogen_fuel/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/11/digital_realty_datacenter_biofuel/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/20/aws_wants_to_cook_its/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Zw6RpReb0I4Tip_FruAJhQAAAAg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/16/equinix_shows_off_demo_fuel/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/15/northc_hydrogen_power/
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Can someone please explain
the hydrotreatment process involves reacting the oils with hydrogen at high temperature and pressure.
...and presumably that temperature and pressure is created by burning some sort of fuel, which will have it's own emissions
Re: Can someone please explain
The article didn't examine why the hydrotreatment process is required at all . It's perfectly possible to run a diesel engine on straight vegetable oil, if you heat it sufficiently to get the viscosity down to the design parameters of the injection system. Rudolf Diesel ran his on peanut oil.
OK, I get that you need your backup generators to start up quickly, but how long does it take to heat up a fuel inlet pipe?
-A.
Re: Can someone please explain
It's... somewhat better. I wouldn't say it's "much" better.
The difference is that if you dig up a fossil and burn it, you are adding carbon to the carbon cycle that was not there before . Not on a time scale that makes any difference to anything. It won't go back into the ground.
If you burn wood, you are adding carbon to the atmosphere, but it's all carbon that was in the cycle already anyway. The plant would eventually have died and decomposed, on a time scale that varies a lot but is generally in the order of decades.
It's still bad, but it's a different kind of bad. By burning fossils, you are inflicting permanent damage; by burning wood you are inflicting temporary damage. It's a pretty long "temporary" and it has exceptions, but still.
That's only from the CO2 point of view, though.
There's the we-need-land-to-grow-food point of view, which, as you rightfully note, is a whole lot more urgent and IMHO should be sufficient to relegate biofuels to the dustbin of bad ideas.
Re: Can someone please explain
Has there ever been a time when there hasn't been a global food shortage?
Will there ever be a time when there will not be a global food shortage?
Humans will procreate.
Re: Can someone please explain
Go forth and multiply.
Famine is not a thing to be dismissive of. Famine leads to war.
Humans won't be doing much procreation in a radioactive wasteland in the aftermath of WWIII.. The global economy, for all of its faults, is the only thing keeping humanity from blowing itself to radioactive dust. If it collapses, we're all toast
Re: Can someone please explain
Simple.
The stuff that died millions of years ago doesn't factor into the figures that exist for CO2 today. However, killing and burning stuff wot is alive today, will have absorbed CO2 from the figures that already exist. For example: 100 years ago, each ton of air contained let's say 100kg of CO2. If you planted something 95 years ago, and let it grow, it would absorb, let's give it a figure, 800kg of CO2 over its lifetime, so 8 tons of air worth. Now if you cut it down today and burn it, you release 800kg (or thereabouts, given wood doesn't burn 100% to CO2) CO2 back into the atmosphere. Since that was absorbed over the 95 years that thing lived, it's 'accounted for'.
But, now take 1 ton of stuff wot died millions of years ago... that did not exist in the air when you started burning it. So, you have added all the CO2 released into the atmosphere, and now you have to find a way to bind it again somehow if you want to end up with the same amount of CO2 you had 100 years ago.
It's very creative accounting in the sense that there's no baseline that was set to say "today there is x number of tons of CO2 per ton of air per day", plus then counting the number of days until you do another measurement to say "365 days later, there is y number of tons of CO2 per ton of air, so it works out to Z number of tons of CO2 per ton of air per day" all the way until today, when you burn the thing wot is alive today (and wot you know is A number of years old, and how much CO2 it absorbs over its life time after burning it).
There are a lot of variables, but we have to understand that if you had a fixed figure of CO2 a year ago, you planted something that year, you know much much it absorbed, and you know how much it will release, it's better because you know it's "accounted for", rather than the ton of oil or cubic metre of gas you're burning, which you don't know how many years it took to convert it from its raw materials to what it is today. :-)
burning 1,000 liters of HVO will release 195 kg of carbon dioxide,
I bet it doesn't. I bet it releases damn near the 3.6 tons you get from burning 1000 litres of diesel.
Re: burning 1,000 liters of HVO will release 195 kg of carbon dioxide,
I suspect that the fertiliser, diesel for tractors, and other processing costs such as hydrogenation release 195kg co2 per 1000l, so burning it still releases 3.6 tons, but there is an assumption/hope/wish that it might one day grow back so that part is crossed out.
Also, this cynical bore wouldn't be at all surprised if someone was mixing the biodiesel with old fashioned dino juice and claiming double carbon credits...
Re: burning 1,000 liters of HVO will release 195 kg of carbon dioxide,
Please reread the lesson on "selective accounting" (*) and try again.
(*) The green book with green pages and green text. Green soap included on page 2.
/s
Re: burning 1,000 liters of HVO will release 195 kg of carbon dioxide,
I bet it's creative accounting.
Like 3.6 tonnes released at point of burning but only 195kg is "new" CO2 and the rest is *hand waving* what would have been emitted if something else had happened with that fuel. e.g. if the crop had been left to rot.
Can someone please explain
Why killing stuff wot is alive today and burning it to produce heat and co2 is so much better than burning stuff wot died millions of years ago to produce heat and (slightly less if anything) co2?
I realise biodiesel is better than wood pellets from the Amazon, but ultimately you're still burning food, during a global food shortage.