Canada's First "Large-Scale Green Data Center"

British Columbia, Canada is going to see the country's first large-scale data center powered not by coal or natural gas, but by hydro electricity.

IBM and RackForce Networks Inc. are pairing up to build what is planned to be a 150,000 square foot data center in Kelowna, BC.

They chose the area for several reasons, one being the climate. Another being its accessibility to a well-serviced airport. Not a good "green" plan if by plunking a new data center several hundred km away from the province's biggest city, the company is encouraging what it calls the "corporate IT traveller" to burn fossil fuels to get to it.

And I wouldn't call hydro electricity clean, as IBM calls it. The eco system of the Kootenays has been severely compromised by the installation of the dams. The sturgeon, for example, have been in decline since the building of the dams.

IBM calls it green because this data center will have 1/50th the carbon footprint of a conventional North American data center. With wind powered data centers going up in the U.S., I would like to see more for Canada than hydro electricity.

Canada's first large-scale green data center opens its doors