Cloud computing 'dirty', says Greenpeace

policies, CBS News reports.

Greenpeace released a report on Tuesday titled "How Clean is Your Cloud?" The environmental advocacy group graded 14 companies: Akami, Amazon, Apple, Dell, Facebook, Google, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Rackspace, Salesforce, Twitter and Yahoo.

UPI.com reveals that, in its report, Greenpeace said: "If the cloud were a country, it would have the fifth-largest electricity demand in the world," based on the fact that, in 2007, the combined electricity demand of the cloud was around 623 billion kilowatt hours, beating out India, Germany and Canada in terms of total energy demand.

Apple responded to the report by saying Greenpeace's numbers were flawed and its Maiden, North Caroline, data centre operates with much less electricity than Greenpeace reported.

Greenpeace has been engaged in a campaign to draw attention to tech companies that rely on dirty energy to power their clouds, The Guardian writes.

In addition to the tech giants, it called out Twitter for expanding its data operations from Sacramento, which uses renewable energy, to coal-heavy Atlanta. Meanwhile, the campaign group gave bonus points to Yahoo and Google for pursuing renewable sources of energy for their data centres, and for pressing government on clean-energy policy.

Data centres account for a growing share of the carbon pollution associated with the IT industry. With the move to the cloud, IT companies are spending $450 billion a year on new space for data centres. Electricity demand from data centres is expected to grow by 19% in 2012, the report said, quoting industry leaders.