21/11/2020 - Environment

KEY POINTS 

·       The ministry of electronics and information technology (MeITY) sought to establish data centres at the state level to further the National eGovernance Plan and released comprehensive guidelines to regulate the same.

·       A ‘data centre park’ is a facility housing multiple data centres that cater for the operational and organisational needs of data-driven companies. Data centres are physical warehouses responsible for the storing and dissemination of data for information services.

·       They contain computers, network communications and storage systems, and power systems that keep the centres up and running. In essence, data centres house the IT capabilities required to run data businesses.

·       Storing digital data is set to account for 14% of the world’s CO2 emissions by 2040, with emissions currently on par with the airline industry. Moreover, data centres often rely on water-powered cooling towers to achieve efficient power usage.

·       This overwhelming reliance on natural resources, coupled with increased greenhouse gas emissions has led to data centres being identified as a potential risk to climate sustainability.

·       Reform has also centred on studying methods to re-utilise waste heat generated by data centres. Illustratively, IBM has earmarked $2 million for Project Thrive—an initiative to develop materials that use waste heat to cool data centres.

·       In addition to these measures, businesses and governments have thrown their weight behind renewable energy (RE) to power data centres, thereby reducing emissions.

·       Once the policy installs mechanisms to monitor the environmental impact of data centres, it may subsequently look at measures to mitigate the same.

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