Unfriend Coal

A little while ago, Greenpeace initiated a campaign to get FaceBook users to play an active role in pushing the social networking site to opt for renewable energy when choosing it's data centre. They have done this by setting up a Facebook group page to "unfriend coal", with the deadline of Earth Day, April 22nd.

This action started because Facebook is due to move to a new data centre to cope with the increasing demand on its servers. This move will take place this year, and they have so far opted to move to Oregon. The area is well known as being driven by coal and fossil fuels for it's electricity needs. For a company with such a broad social impact, it it imperative that they send the right message to their followers. And that message should be to go green. 

Greenpeace want Facebook to

• Increase the use of clean energy to make Facebook coal free
• Develop a plan to make Facebook coal free by 2021
• Educate their users about how Facebook powers its services and its carbon footprint
• Advocate for clean energy at a local, national and international level

Greenpeace has been working in the IT industry for half a decade to get companies to be greener. Facebook's coal problem is representative of the IT sector's growing demand for energy. At current growth rates data centers and telecommunication networks, the two key components of the cloud Facebook depends on, will consume about 1,962 billion kilowatts hours of electricity in 2020. That's more than triple their current consumption and more than the current electricity consumption of France, Germany, Canada and Brazil combined.


PacifiCorp is the power company which Facebook chose to supply their new US$ 180 million data centre in Prineville, Oregon. Pacific Power, whose parent company is PacifiCorp, gets almost 60 percent of its energy from burning coal. Facebook also went to a state, Oregon, with only one existing in-state coal plant (that's shutting down within the decade) and instead decided to throw its lot with a utility that imports dirty coal from Wyoming, two states over.



Source: Greenpeace