HP Labs’ Manure-Fuelled Data Centre Creates Stink

New research unveiled this week has suggested it could be possible to create a sustainable IT ecosystem using dairy farm waste.

But the research, presented by HP Labs at the ASME International Conference on Energy Sustainability in Phoenix this week could just be full of hot air, judging by an initial industry response.

HP’s central research arm attempted to show how the manure output of cows and the heat output of data centres could be combined to create an economically and environmentally sustainable operation.

The paper explains how a farm of 10,000 dairy cows could fulfil the power requirements of a 1-megawatt (MW) data centre, which its says is the equivalent of a “medium-sized” data centre, with power left over to support other needs on the farm.

In this process, it argues, the heat generated by the data centre can be used to increase the efficiency of the anaerobic digestion of animal waste, which results in the production of methane that can, in turn, also be used to generate more power for the data centre.

“This symbiotic relationship allows the waste problems faced by dairy farms and the energy demands of the modern data centre to be addressed in a sustainable manner,” said HP Labs in a statement.

The report said the average dairy cow is quite productive when it come to matters of dung, creating about 55 kg (120 pounds) per day, and approximately 20 metric tons per year – which, if it helps to put it into a visual context, is also roughly equivalent to the weight of four adult elephants, according to the research.

And one dairy cow’s daily ‘output’ can generate 3.0 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electrical energy apparently. But this, HP Labs suggests, would require a “medium-sized” dairy farm with 10,000 cow, producing about 200,000 metric tons of manure per year. “Approximately 70 percent of the energy in the methane generated via anaerobic digestion could be used for data centre power and cooling, thus reducing the impact on natural resources,” it added.

Tom Christian, principal research scientist in HP’s Sustainable IT Ecosystem Lab, stated: “The idea of using animal waste to generate energy has been around for centuries, with manure being used every day in remote villages to generate heat for cooking. The new idea that we are presenting in this research is to create a symbiotic relationship between farms and the IT ecosystem that can benefit the farm, the data centre and the environment.”

But tech pro blogger, Doug Mohney argued in a posting on Green Data Centre News, that – using HP Lab’s own figures – it would take a ‘mega-farm,’ not a mid-sized one, to manage 10,000 cows (and a lot of shovels). But the largest US diary farms have around only 5,000 heads of cattle. And even the largest dairy farm in the world, the Al-Safi Farm, located in Saudi Arabia requires 14 square miles of farmland to maintain its 37,000 heads of cattle.

Not wanting to be a “party pooper,” Mohney points out you would need to either build the data centre next to the farm or bus the droppings in, which defeats the purpose of shovelling the stuff in the first place. And, while the paper’s authors do admit their proposals need more “detailed financial analysis,” Mohney also said the cost of pipes into the data centre big enough to satisfy the needs of telcos could challenge its economics still further.

Nevertheless, HP researchers estimate that dairy farmers would break even in costs within the first two years of using a system like this and then earn roughly $2 million (£1.4m) annually in revenue from selling waste-derived power to data centre customers – a case of making “BS” pay, one could say?