10.1007/s40095-022-00539-9

Capping carbon emission from green data centers

  • Tathagata Bhattacharya*1,
  • Mostafa Rahgouy2,
  • Xiaopu Peng3,
  • Taha Takreeti2,
  • Ting Cao4,
  • Jianzhou Mao2,
  • Amit Das2,
  • Xiao Qin2,
  • Apurba Sinha5,
  1. Auburn University, Montgomery, US
  2. Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Shelby Center for Engineering Technology, Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, 36849-5347, US
  3. Lander University, Greenwood, US
  4. Truman State University, Kirksville, US
  5. Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Guru Gobind Singh Educational Society Technical Campus, Bokaro, IN

Published in Issue 2022-10-10

How to Cite

Bhattacharya, T., Rahgouy, M., Peng, X., Takreeti, T., Cao, T., Mao, J., Das, A., Qin, X., & Sinha, A. (2022). Capping carbon emission from green data centers. International Journal of Energy and Environmental Engineering, 14(4 (December 2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40095-022-00539-9
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Abstract

Abstract The world has witnessed a global surge in energy consumption and carbon footprint since the industrial revolution. Data centers are claimed to be the second most significant contributor of the havoc greenhouse gasses. This paper deals with modeling carbon footprint of green data centers. Initially, we use a panel dataset of a green data center that mostly relies on green energy resources for power. Our study reveals that in spite of massive renewable energy usage, the carbon footprint trend of this data center is quite significant. Alongside, due to massive nuclear energy usage in this data center, a hefty amount of nuclear waste is generated causing a global threat to sustainability. This is a novel paper that pinpoints that though green data centers claim they are zero-carbon data centers but the reality is different. We prove that green data centers also emit significant amount of greenhouse gasses and cause danger to sustainability. Alongside, we provide a nuclear footprint estimator that effectively calculates the nuclear emission and carbon footprint from the data center each hour. We also provide a remedy to this entire situation and provide a carbon footprint model in this paper that optimizes the total carbon emission from this green data center.

Keywords

  • Energy modeling,
  • Power management,
  • Green energy,
  • Brown energy,
  • Carbon footprint,
  • Nuclear estimator

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