Previously I had panned Loic very publicly for the way he handled the Le Web conference last year. Loic starts this video by asking how he can do better this year. Soliciting people’s opinions is a great start Loic. Loic finished by asking me to be on the advisory board of this year’s Le Web. I’m now on the advisory board of the Le Web conference, the Web 2.0 Expo in Berin and I’m chair of the organising committeeit@cork annual Business in Technology conference. Phew!
For the majority of the interview (from 06:30 onwards) we talked about CIX, how to make data centres carbon neutral (while at the same time facilitating bringing more wind energy onto the national grid!) and the energy efficiency strategies we have designed into the CIX data centre.
I’m going to be printing out the screen grab from this video and using it to scare away the neighbours kids!
The problem with wind power is that its production is variable and difficult to predict. From the perspective of a power supply company, such a supplier is unreliable and likely to de-stabilise the power network.
For instance, at 2am in Ireland, when the demand for electricity is near its lowest, if a 40mph wind is blowing across the country, wind can be supplying up to 30% of the demand. However, if the wind picks up to 50mph, the wind farms shut down to protect their mechanisms and suddenly you lose 30% of your supply! The electricity supply companies have to scramble to bring power stations online to meet the sudden fall off.
In CIX, we have come up with a strategy for Data Centre’s to act as a flywheel for electricity supply companies. This will allow the supply companies to greatly increase the amount of green energy they buy. And if the Data Centre’s are burning biodiesel then you are in a win-win situation .
It seems we are not alone in our thinking - Google, no-less, has come up with a similar strategy using cars! Yes cars. You’d think that with all their data centres they’d use them in the way we propose but they have decided to go the ‘vehicle to grid’ route for now.
Google’s strategy is modify hybrid cars so that they can consume power from the grid. These new ‘plug-in hybrids’ achieve 70-100mpg.
These plug-in hybrids take power from the grid overnight at times of low demand, say. Then the batteries in these cars, which store electricity, can ’sell’ electricity back to the grid at times of high demand.
Check out the Google video on this to see what I mean:
A cute idea but one which would have to achieve massive scale before making a difference, I suspect.
I was speaking to a sales rep yesterday who was driving a company car. He told me about the Irish government’s scheme to tax people for receipt of company cars. It is called Benefit in Kind (BiK).
Basically, if your employer gives you a company car, you are liable to pay 30% of the original market value of the car in tax (the original market value includes the amount the government already collects in VRT!).
However, if you do more than 15,000 per annum, the amount of BiK you have to pay drops. The more mileage you do, the less BiK you have to pay (up to a ceiling at 30,000 miles).
Sounds fair, you might say. These people are using the cars the company gave them.
Possibly, until you realise that what this law does is incentivise company car owners to use their cars more to drive to meetings (for example) where they might otherwise have taken a more carbon friendly alternative (telecon anyone?). The rep I was talking to said he will preferentially drive anywhere to get his mileage up!
If you want to tax company cars, why not do it on the basis of their carbon footprint (or engine size if that rating isn’t easy to come by). Something like €500 for cars 1.6L and less; €2,500 for 1.6L to 2L; €6,000 for 2L to 3L and €12,000 for 3L and above index linked.
I was waylaid in the corridors several times so I didn’t get to as many talks as I would have liked.
I did get to good friend and TCD law lecturer Eoin O’Dell’s talk on the law, and how it relates to blogging. It was very sobering (and I hadn’t even had a drink!) and very entertaining at the same time! Eoin told us the only way to ensure we weren’t likely to be sued for something we publish online is not to publish anything online!
I also got to Darren Barefoot’s presentation on Social Media which was excellent, as you’d expect from Darren, despite the wifi letting him down.
I spent the next couple of hours catching up with people and unfortunately I missed Eoghan’s talk on usability
After lunch I listened eagerly to John Ward’s fascinating story of selling Web 2.0 technologies to financial institutions. Well done John, no mean feat.
Then we had a panel discussion on social media. I was on the panel with Sean, Darren and Karlin. We had a highly interactive and wide-ranging discussion which touched on everything from Cavalier King Charles Spaniel forums (no, really!) to blog comment spam.
After the panel discussion it was time for my presentation on CIX. I was pleasantly surprised by how many people stayed awake during a presentation on data centre energy efficiency strategies and a hair-brained carbon neutrality strategy!
After this, I was interviewed for a podcast by Ina (missing out on Krishna’s talk - sorry Krishna).
Then we retired to the Lord Edward pub.
Unfortunately I couldn’t stay long as I had to catch the train back to Cork but it was shaping up to be a good night when I left.
Registration starts at 09:15 with the talks kicking off at 10:00.
There are lots of great speakers lined up to talk on topics as diverse as “Web Usability 101″ right through to “Law of Blogs; Blogs of Law”.
I’ll be giving a talk on CIX’s data centre and how we hope to be carbon neutral.
I’m really looking forward to the day. It will be a fantastic opportunity to catch up with lots of old friends, make lots of new ones and hear fantastic talks into the bargain.
Oh, did I mention that entry is free?
See you there.
Tom Raftery
Sevilla, Spain.
E tom@tomrafteryit.net
Tel +34 954 255 105
Mob +34 677 695 468
Skype/Gizmo: tomraftery
Twitter: twitter.com/tomraftery
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