Facebook is pressured to run on green power
Posted by Rahul Chitrapu on Mon, Feb 22, 2010
Facebook recently announced plans to build a data center in Oregon. The data center is supposed to be efficient and save on energy and cost. The plan was to use conventional electricity from fossil fuels to power the data center.
Some folks from Greenpeace picked up on this and started a Facebook group petitioning Facebook to purchase renewable electricity for the data center instead of electricity from coal and natural gas. The membership of the group has exploded. About 3,000 members joined the group just today. Purchasing renewable electricity can be as simple as buying renewable energy credits like many of these companies that already do. Tech companies like Intel, Dell and HP are already doing it.
This just goes to show how badly consumers want companies to adopt sustainable initiatives. Facebook will probably have to pay 3-5% more for renewable electricity. Will Facebook listen to its user base and switch to renewables?