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Host: Lester Graham
Show date: 02/16/2009
Summary:
Gender bending in fish as a result of water pollution. What we put in the water is turning male fish into females.
And, just how much energy does an internet search use? Data centers are scrambling to make their servers save energy.
More…
Turning males into females...
This is the Environment Report. I’m Lester Graham.
Scientists already know estrogen from things like “The Pill” is getting into the water and messing with fish. Male fish are having trouble reproducing and some males are even growing eggs.
Now a study finds there are other chemicals getting into water that might be messing with fish gender even more. Rebecca Williams is covering this.
RW: Yeah, that study just came out in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. It found a group of chemicals that block the male hormone testosterone is getting into rivers.
Charles Tyler is the lead author of the paper and he’s a professor at Exeter University in the UK. I gave him a call and he told me they don’t know exactly where these chemicals are coming from... but some medicines and pesticides can block testosterone. So add that to the estrogen...
“And so it’s very likely they’re going to have interactive and additive effects, if you like, to induce a double whammy on the poor fish.”
LG: If it’s affecting fish, what about us?
RW: Yeah you know human male fertility has been declining.... but Tyler says they just don’t know if what’s happening in fish is also happening in people. Fish can’t get away from these chemicals – they live in them! So Tyler says they’re definitely getting a much higher dose.
(((STING)))
This is The Environment Report.
The recession doesn’t seem to be hitting one industry, information technology. The demand for IT keeps growing. But , Julie Grant found… our growing number of internet searches and data storage is using a heck of a lot of energy.
[SOUND: internet search/ tea kettle]
By some estimates, two Google searches create the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling water for a cup of tea.
Most people don’t think about the greenhouse gas emissions caused by their internet use. But there are about 200-million
searches globally each day – and each search kicks a lot of servers into gear. It adds up.
Albert Esser is an IT expert with Dell Computers. He says
in just a few years internet use could use 3-percent of the nation’s energy supply. That’s a lot of carbon pollution:
ESSER: FROM A GLOBAL GREENHOUSE PERSPECTIVE, THAT’S ABOUT THE SAME AS THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY WILL COST. [:07]
But Esser says computers don’t NEED to use that much energy. Most computer systems are so
in-efficient today – that they’re wasting more than 90-percent of the energy they use.
[SOUND: DATA CENTER SOUND.]
This is a data center. It’s filled with racks and racks of servers. A hundred different companies rent space here. Each company has its own set of servers – to coordinate its email systems, online credit card transactions – all kinds of programs.
[SOUND: DATA CENTER ELECTRICITY]
But data centers can be real energy hogs. They need electricity to run all those servers. One data center can use as much electricity as a good-sized town.
But some are finding ways to use servers better.
Bryan Smith is marketing director for Expedient, which runs this and other data centers around the country. They’re starting to use software to create what are called virtual servers.
SMITH: THIS RACK HERE IS A VIRTUALIZATION RACK, SO YOU’VE GOT ONE RACK HERE THAT HAS ONE, TWO THREE, FOUR, FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT, NINE – TEN COMPUTERS IN IT. RIGHT? SO EACH ONE OF THESE SERVERS IS EQUAL TO SIXTEEN PHYSICAL SERVERS. [:16]
And so for each of those “virtual servers” they can turn off
15 actual servers.
But, even with all that saved space and energy, Expedient’s data centers are growing faster than they ever anticipated. This one built in Cleveland only two years ago is just about sold out of space – so Expedient is building another data center next door.
[SOUND OUT.]
Albert Esser at Dell says the most environmentally friendly way to build data center is not to build one at all. He says making better use of old centers, with virtual computers and other efficiencies, produces a lot less pollution. And it saves money.
ESSER: I THINK THE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN, AS HARSH AS IT SOUNDS, IS THE BEST THING WHICH EVER COULD HAPPEN TO GREEN I-T. BECAUSE THE ECONOMIC PRESSURES WILL MAKE PEOPLE THINK MUCH HARDER TO JUST BUILD A NEW DATA CENTER WITHOUT CHANGING THE WAY THEY OPERATE IT. [:18]
So IT is learning what a lot of companies are learning – that going green can mean saving energy – and that’s better for the bottom line.
_______
That’s The Environment Report. I’m Lester Graham.
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This is the Environment Report. I’m Lester Graham.
Scientists already know estrogen from things like “The Pill” is getting into the water and messing with fish. Male fish are having trouble reproducing and some males are even growing eggs.
Now a study finds there are other chemicals getting into water that might be messing with fish gender even more. Rebecca Williams is covering this.
RW: Yeah, that study just came out in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. It found a group of chemicals that block the male hormone testosterone is getting into rivers.
Charles Tyler is the lead author of the paper and he’s a professor at Exeter University in the UK. I gave him a call and he told me they don’t know exactly where these chemicals are coming from... but some medicines and pesticides can block testosterone. So add that to the estrogen...
“And so it’s very likely they’re going to have interactive and additive effects, if you like, to induce a double whammy on the poor fish.”
LG: If it’s affecting fish, what about us?
RW: Yeah you know human male fertility has been declining.... but Tyler says they just don’t know if what’s happening in fish is also happening in people. Fish can’t get away from these chemicals – they live in them! So Tyler says they’re definitely getting a much higher dose.
(((STING)))
This is The Environment Report.
The recession doesn’t seem to be hitting one industry, information technology. The demand for IT keeps growing. But , Julie Grant found… our growing number of internet searches and data storage is using a heck of a lot of energy.
[SOUND: internet search/ tea kettle]
By some estimates, two Google searches create the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling water for a cup of tea.
Most people don’t think about the greenhouse gas emissions caused by their internet use. But there are about 200-million
searches globally each day – and each search kicks a lot of servers into gear. It adds up.
Albert Esser is an IT expert with Dell Computers. He says
in just a few years internet use could use 3-percent of the nation’s energy supply. That’s a lot of carbon pollution:
ESSER: FROM A GLOBAL GREENHOUSE PERSPECTIVE, THAT’S ABOUT THE SAME AS THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY WILL COST. [:07]
But Esser says computers don’t NEED to use that much energy. Most computer systems are so
in-efficient today – that they’re wasting more than 90-percent of the energy they use.
[SOUND: DATA CENTER SOUND.]
This is a data center. It’s filled with racks and racks of servers. A hundred different companies rent space here. Each company has its own set of servers – to coordinate its email systems, online credit card transactions – all kinds of programs.
[SOUND: DATA CENTER ELECTRICITY]
But data centers can be real energy hogs. They need electricity to run all those servers. One data center can use as much electricity as a good-sized town.
But some are finding ways to use servers better.
Bryan Smith is marketing director for Expedient, which runs this and other data centers around the country. They’re starting to use software to create what are called virtual servers.
SMITH: THIS RACK HERE IS A VIRTUALIZATION RACK, SO YOU’VE GOT ONE RACK HERE THAT HAS ONE, TWO THREE, FOUR, FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT, NINE – TEN COMPUTERS IN IT. RIGHT? SO EACH ONE OF THESE SERVERS IS EQUAL TO SIXTEEN PHYSICAL SERVERS. [:16]
And so for each of those “virtual servers” they can turn off
15 actual servers.
But, even with all that saved space and energy, Expedient’s data centers are growing faster than they ever anticipated. This one built in Cleveland only two years ago is just about sold out of space – so Expedient is building another data center next door.
[SOUND OUT.]
Albert Esser at Dell says the most environmentally friendly way to build data center is not to build one at all. He says making better use of old centers, with virtual computers and other efficiencies, produces a lot less pollution. And it saves money.
ESSER: I THINK THE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN, AS HARSH AS IT SOUNDS, IS THE BEST THING WHICH EVER COULD HAPPEN TO GREEN I-T. BECAUSE THE ECONOMIC PRESSURES WILL MAKE PEOPLE THINK MUCH HARDER TO JUST BUILD A NEW DATA CENTER WITHOUT CHANGING THE WAY THEY OPERATE IT. [:18]
So IT is learning what a lot of companies are learning – that going green can mean saving energy – and that’s better for the bottom line.
_______
That’s The Environment Report. I’m Lester Graham.