Earth Day Enemies: Greenpeace Slams Apple, Facebook, Google Data Centers
http://mashable.com/2011/04/22/cloud-computing-dirty-energy
Environmental activist organization Greenpeace emphasized the environmental effects of cloud computing this Earth Day, releasing a report that assigns grades to 10 prominent technology companies based on how they power data centers.
According to the report, computer servers in data centers account for about 2% of global energy demand and are growing their energy consumption at a rate of about 12% per year. About half of the companies studied, which include Google, Facebook and Apple, used coal to meet 50% to 80% of their energy needs instead of renewable energy resources like wind and solar.