Greenpeace Urges End to Facebook Fossil Fuel Use

Social networking website Facebook’s plans to purchase electricity produced by burning fossil fuels have been condemned by half a million site users, according to environmental campaigners Greenpeace.

Fossil fuel incineration is linked to the production of greenhouse gases – CO2 among them – and as such is considered damaging to the environment.

Facebook proposed some months ago to purchase electricity produced by a coal firm to power its new US-based data centre. While support for Greenpeace’s protest against this has been mounting, the situation gained new momentum this week when Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Kumi Naidoo, wrote to Mark Zuckerberg – the founder of Facebook.

In his letter, Naidoo highlights the financial implications and image-damage likely to be caused by the internet company’s apparent support of environmentally-damaging processes.

Facebook counters that environmental responsibility is an issue to which it is committed, adding that the new data facility is among the most energy-efficient on the planet.

Facebook: Fossil Fuel Use

Greenpeace is urging Facebook to abandon fossil fuel energy use in favour of energy produced by renewable sources: wind, solar or hydro power, for example.

“Facebook appears to be on a path that will make breaking our addiction to dirty coal-fired electricity even more difficult,” Naidoo states in the letter. “As you are aware, following Facebook’s announcement to build a new data centre in Prineville, OR., Greenpeace and over half a million Facebook users have expressed significant concerns with your decision to power this data centre with dirty coal-fired electricity from PacifiCorp, which runs an electricity mix that is disproportionately powered by coal, the largest source of global warming pollution.”

Greenpeace: Facebook

Greenpeace says that this “electricity mix” used by Facebook is 83 per cent comprised of coal – a statement that utility firm PacifiCorp denies. It stresses that coal only makes up 58 per cent, with natural gas, hydro energy and other renewable energies contributing the balance.

The construction of Facebook’s Oregon data centre began in January 2009 and, according to Facebook, the facility’s environmentally friendly features include use of recycled server heat and energy efficient air conditioning technologies.

Enviro News will report further on this issue in future News Items.

See also:

Environmental Impact of Online Google Searches