A new study produced under the auspices of the venerable environmental group Greenpeace focused on the climate change impact of cloud computing and web hosting. According to their study, many components of web hosts and cloud computing service providers like Google, Yahoo and Facebook provide power to their servers by using fossil fuel derived power. According to the Greenpeace study, the combination of power generation from coal and the increasing size of cloud computing could contribute to global carbon emissions and the climate change that results from carbon dioxide emissions.
The study is designed to increase consumer consciousness of the energy costs related to web hosting and cloud computing and spur development of ‘green clouds’ and web hosting services that get their power from renewable or carbon-neutral power. Here at Fatcow, we’ve already thought about the impact of our servers and anticipated most of the findings from Greenpeace’s study by moving to wind powered servers. That’s right, at Fatcow we’re actually one step ahead of Greenpeace when it comes to environmentally responsible web hosting.

For more about Greenpeace’s study, look here: http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/033010_Greenpeace_Says_Cloud_Contributes_to_Climate_Change