[HCoop-Discuss] EnvironmentalPolicy

[Nathan Kennedy]

David W. Bettis wrote:
> I'm a little uncomfortable with actions that have such an indirect 
> relation to providing hosting services.
>   
How is this indirect?  We _buy_ 10 Amps of power from Peer1 as part of 
our contract.  We use some portion of it.  Isn't that as much our 
responsibility as the servers or the bandwidth we buy?  If we were 
running an open relay that was being used by a spammer, we wouldn't 
claim we weren't responsible for remedying it.  If the power we buy is 
polluting the atmosphere and contributing to global warming, that's a 
more serious problem, isn't it?
> Does this mean as power companies become more efficient at generating 
> energy, the amount we donate to NativeEnergy will go down? 
We're not donating cash in the abstract.  We're buying certified 
renewable energy credits for an amount calculated to be equal to our 
power utilization.  The cost of these credits is proportional to the 
difference in market price between wind power and conventional power, so 
the price is adjusted from time to time.  If renewable energy were 
cheaper than conventional energy, then everyone would be using it and it 
wouldn't be an issue.
> Does the 
> creation of wind power really mean 0 emissions?  Do they use clean 
> energy to create the turbines, install, and maintain them?
>   
That is getting way beyond the scope of the discussion here.  There's 
really no question that wind power is vastly cleaner and vastly lower 
emission than coal, which is the biggest chunk of the mix in the 
northeast.  I'm not getting into that.  Are you implying that coal 
plants build themselves?

Rob:

> Is there any direct benefit to the co-op by doing this?  We're offsetting
> the electrify consumption at Peer1.  Does this mean Peer1 is going to
> decrease our colocation cost to reflect this?
Why would they?  Their contract doesn't say they provide renewable power, just power.  We're not buying renewable electricity for our machines (that is not possible since we don't own the wires), we're buying credits to offset the dirty power we get from Peer1.  If Peer1 bought wind or other renewable power (which they certainly could, in NYC), then we wouldn't have any need to do this.
> If the only reason we're doing this is to give us a happy warm fuzzy
> feeling inside I am sorry to say I am against this proposal.
I thought that I explained that the reason to do it is to ensure that HCoop is not damaging the environment.  That's worth your five cents, no?  If any environmental and social responsibility at all is just a "happy warm fuzzy feeling," then I think you're missing the point of being a cooperative.

-ntk