Earlier this week Greenpeace launched a campaign aimed at stopping Facebook from using coal power in its data centre.
Facebook announced in February that it will build a massive data centre in Oregon, U.S to house the company's servers. The 300,000 square foot space is rumoured to cost $50 million a year to lease. Facebook plans to run the data center on electricity made by burning coal. Greenpeace claims coal is the dirtiest source of energy and largest single source of global warming pollution in the world. Greenpeace issued the following statement on Facebook's plans:
Facebook can control where it builds its infrastructure; the power purchasing agreements it enters into; and how it uses its brand's power to advocate for strong policies that promote clean energy. Given all of the control Facebook does have, it can make a commitment to phase out coal and show the rest of the IT sector that it can be done.
Greenpeace would like Facebook, and more specifically CEO Mark Zukerberg, to commit to stop using coal power and use renewable sources of electricity for its data centre. The company has created a video that it hopes will go viral and convince Facebook to change its energy policies.
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