It's great! Good to know that web hosting companies such as HostGator are now adopting the idea of helping preserve nature by going green.
Wait a minute. "purchased certified renewable energy credits (wind) for all of the electricity used to power and cool their servers". What the heck does that mean? Is that like purchasing carbon credits, which means you are still plugged into the power grid and have not reduced your energy consumption at all? If they are not getting their power directly from wind generators, it doesn't mean anything but fluff.
ThinkHost does the same thing that HostGator is doing. They don't have their own wind or solar farms. That isn't the business they are in. Instead the amount of kilowatts they use in a month from the regular electric grid they purchase worth of green energy that is put into the grid. From ThinkHost's website: "Through an extensive audit, we calculated the electricity usage of our servers and staff offices, then purchased the necessary wind and solar green energy tags. There are a number of nationally accredited alternative energy providers around that provide certificates. They are the experts at generating green power; our specialty is web hosting. By not having to concern ourselves with the actual generation of renewable energy, it allows us focus more on our hosting technology and client care. We only purchase tags that have been certified by Green-e; the nation's leading independent certification and verification program for renewable energy By purchasing the green certificates (90% wind/10% solar), the electricity generated by these sources isn't routed directly into our various premises. We still pay all our bills as per usual to our regular providers - but for every X kilowatts worth of green energy tags purchased, X kilowatts less electricity is fed into the grid via non-renewable means. The solar/wind generated electricity we purchased simply goes into the grid, in our case, Portland's. Still, the result is the same - carbon neutral web hosting." From HostGator's website: "All of our shared and reseller servers are now 130% wind powered! That's right! 130%! We're not just neutralizing our environmental impact, we're reversing it! HostGator has purchased certified Renewable Energy Credits representing 130% of the electricity used to both power and cool every last one of our shared and reseller servers! All of HostGator's wind credits are generated here in our home state of Texas! While we can't build a wind farm here in downtown Houston, we're doing the next best thing and investing in renewable energy close to home!"
I thought so too, at first, until I got into the logic of it. It's not practical to run dc's off the grid, since most are in big cities. These credits are not just lip service, though; the money actually goes to wind and solar farms, who provide green energy to the grid. It is sort of a proxy system-excuse the term, I mean it literally-but each KHW used by the host purchases a KWH of alternative enrgy which then feeds the rest of the grid. If we all did this, the grid itself would be run on pure alternative energy. Not as cool as solar panels on the roof, but very much the next best thing.
Well, some people do give a shit, and the more people do give a shit, the bigger difference this can make. Check out a site like TriplePundit.com (disclosure: I am a contributing writer) to see that there are plenty of consumers, entrepreneurs, and businesses that really do care and are trying to do something about sustainability and the environment.