Comments by the undersigned Members of the Board of directors of the Climate Change Centre Austria (CCCA)
on
MICROSOFT BUILDING IN AUSTRIA THE “GREENEST AND MOST SUSTAINABLE” DATA-CENTER
By em. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Helga Kromp-Kolb, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Harald Rieder, Mag. Simon Tschannett, Prof. Dr. Eva Horn, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Johann Stötter, em. Prof. Dr. Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Dr. Gerhard Wotawa
Graz/Vienna, February 16th 2021
Introduction
The Climate Change Centre Austria (CCCA), an association of Austrian Universities and research institutions active in the field of climate change research and relevant applications, was informed of the intentions of Microsoft to build a new data center in Austria and was asked by MASTERMIND Public Affairs Consulting GmbH to comment on the project.
CCCA sees the perspective that such an investment has the potential of strengthening Austria as a relevant business location, and of creating some new jobs. However, CCCA´s guiding principles must be climate change mitigation and adaptation with a view also of reaching the UN sustainable development goals. Besides, as a science network CCCA is firmly committed to open science, open data sharing and data management principles. Therefore, CCCA must take a wider view including governmental risk management in a world in turmoil.
Although CCCA has been asked to comment on the planned data center, it has not received any project description, in fact the project proponents refused to make any material available. Asking scientists to comment on a project, when knowledge is based essentially on hearsay (media reports) leads to the question on how serious the proponents are in wanting feedback from Austrian scientific communities.
In view of this situation, CCCA can only ask questions that need to be answered by the proponent before an evaluation of the project can be made. CCCA therefore undertook the effort to provide a structured list of questions, that must at this stage, without access to detailed project description, be considered as neither complete nor final.
A comprehensive discussion of the complexity of the undertaking and a holistic view on the overall approach should be in the vested interest of the investing party/Microsoft (hereinafter referred to as MS) as well as stakeholders such as the Austrian government, the administration, Universities, scientists, policy makers, NGOs, economic players, trade unions and so on.
Based on the questions raised by CCCA scientists, a preliminary conclusion is drawn at the end of this paper.
List of Questions
Climate Issues
- Austria has the declared goal to achieve net-zero GHG emissions by 2040.
- What is the carbon footprint of the building including the grey energy in the building materials?
- What is the carbon footprint of operations and IT services in their widest sense in terms of a scope 3 assessment?
- How is this footprint consistent with the net-zero goal? (What emissions will the Center help save?)
- What share of the Austrian carbon budget will the data center require?
- How will the building be constructed?
- How will climate friendly architecture be guaranteed? (ratio volume/surface, building with the sun, shading, etc.)
- What materials will be used (made in Austria, short transportation, natural materials)?
- To what extent will reuse of materials after the end of service life be facilitated by supplying material plans, avoiding compound materials, etc.?
- What is the land-use management concept behind it?
- Will the façade cladding be “green”?
- How will the building be made climate proof?
- How will the National (and/or Local) Adaptation Strategy for climate change be implemented?
- What kind of adaptation measures will be implemented to avoid or minimize summer heat stress, low wind comfort and/or heat islands for neighbors, employees, customers and guests?
- How will these effects be quantified?
- How will the data center be cooled?
- Will the site still be viable in a future climate with respect to cooling requirements?
- What potential risks such as torrential rain, drought, snow load, heat etc. are considered?
- On the basis of which data are these risks evaluated?
- What is the intended mobility and transport concept with regard to the planned location?
- How will the site be connected to the public transport net?
- How will employees and/or customers be encouraged to commute in climate and pollution neutral/friendly ways to the site?
- What are the plans in this respect for support units? (catering, technical support, cleaning staff, etc.)
- How many new expats will this project bring to Austria? More expats mean more flights. Americans – long-distance flights. But even drawing technical staff from countries such as PL, RO, BG, … will mean more (forced) mobility.
- Climate and energy friendly culture
- Will there be a climate policy requiring that climate issues be considered in all decisions, with reporting requirements?
- Will there be an energy and resources policy requiring that energy and resource issues will be considered in all decisions, with reporting requirements?
- How are supervisors and CEOs trained for their tasks as role model for climate friendly behavior?
- What incentives will be used to trigger climate neutral/friendly behavior of employees?
- Will the cafeteria (should there be one), restaurants, coffee shops and there like, including beverage dispensers supply fair trade, generic, sugar reduced beverages and healthy generic local food, including vegan and vegetarian menus?
Resources
- Austria is a country with very high land consumption rates per capita and year.
- What studies have been performed to check available brownfields or vacancies as possible sites for the data storage facility?
- How can further loss of natural land be avoided or at least be minimized while realizing this project?
- If agriculturally valuable land is being used – what compensatory recovery of another site will be made?
- If new land is being used – what measures are being taken to make the site useful for agriculture again after end of lifetime of the center? (Recovery fund, ban of toxic materials, etc.).
- If new land is being used – what soil management is planned (the topsoil in eastern Austria is of especially high quality and should not be lost to agriculture)?
- Construction process
- What guidelines will be followed to make the construction process as climate friendly as possible?
- What guidelines will be followed to keep pollution and noise as low as possible during the construction process?
- ·What kind of energy will be used for the operation of the entire center?
- Can the center be operated solely with new renewable/green energy? (Austria lags behind in the transition to renewables and cannot afford to lose existing capacity.)
- Can Austria, if the center is realized, still satisfy its energy demand in 2040 and 2050 from local (=Austrian) sources?
- Are all energy efficiency potentials being exploited? In particular, was there an exchange between MS and the Austrian electricity providers producing renewable energy, regarding the exploitation of all synergies possible between power generation and the operations of the planned data processing center, including but not limited to a possible co-location between the center and one of the existing major hydropower plants.
- Will the waste heat from electronic and air conditioning be used for other purposes?
- Is there a possibility of on-site renewable energy generation and/or storage?
- Supercomputers consume electricity for both the machines themselves and for cooling.
- What concept for efficient cooling is being followed?
- How and to what extent will waste heat be used? (City of Vienna? Glasshouses? heat the office building in winter? what else?)
- Climate change and extreme weather events will put further pressure on the Austrian grid. Black-outs are not just a theoretical possibility.
- How will the center affect the Austrian energy grid?
- How will the Center deal with black-outs?
- What measures to ensure resilience are being taken?
- How will users be protected from power failures?
- What risk analyses are being made for the site?
- How are climate change scenarios being considered in these analyses?
- Such a center might consume a substantial fraction of bandwidth of internet backbone connectivity for the east of Austria.
- Is MS going to pay for necessary upgrades to ensure no limitations in internet access?
- Will current customers suffer bandwidth losses?
- What is the environmental footprint in general and electricity consumption of the extra network infrastructure and who will pay this bill?
- Is there an LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) planned for the new center?
- What is the envisaged life-time of the center?
Embedding the center in the Austrian setting
- How can the climate-research and sustainability communities in Austria provide support to implement acceptable climate and sustainability measures?
- Is an Environmental Protection Assessment planned (UVP)?
- Has a strategic environmental assessment been made (SUP)? Can CCCA get the documents?
- How will Austrian climate and sustainability scientists be involved in the planning process by the proponent (MS)?
- How will other stakeholders, such as SMU, Universities, etc. be involved?
- Research in general in Europe is increasing towards open science, open data, reproducibility of data, of algorithms as well as data process chain
- Does MS plan any beneficial contribution towards the (surrounding) research sector?
- How will it be assured that the project can be migrated as a whole or in parts to existing infrastructure?
- How will the lock-in syndrome be prevented?
- Is MS willing to sign a contract ensuring transferability at any stage?
- Are there potential synergies between the center and existing Austrian research data and processing infrastructures?
- How will EOSC (European Open Science Cloud) recommendations be heeded?
- What interaction between the center and existing infrastructures, e.g. the Vienna Scientific Cluster and the HPC of ZAMG are planned?
„Zusammen wird man ein „Center of Digital Excellence“ ins Leben rufen, um die österreichische IT-Infrastruktur und die des öffentlichen Dienstes zu modernisieren, hieß es in der Ankündigung. Ein essentieller Teil des Center of Digital Excellence soll ein Cybersicherheitsverbund der technischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Universitäten Österreichs werden.“[1]
3. How can synergies be identified and exploited?
4. Does „modernizing “imply MS systems or is support given independently of operating systems?
- The Vienna Scientific Cluster is a High-Performance Computing Facility run by a Network of Austrian Universities with an excellent independent Program (Steering) Board. The CCCA Data Centre as research data infrastructure uses this facility too.
- How will such a multiple consensus driven decision process by the VSC Program (Steering) Board function for future investments with a disproportionately large center competing on the Austrian market?
- The VSC has so far insisted on running its own hardware for good reason. Is MS willing to sign an agreement not to torpedoes such endeavors by undercutting rates for cloud space.
- Likewise, based on the quotation above, to established a “local” cybersecurity network seems not sufficient. Cybersecurity should ubiquitous.
- Does the MS center focus on cybersecurity as unique selling proposition of this Austrian site?
- Why are universities explicitly mentioned? (University infrastructures follows market conditions but in the balance of open and independent systems. Science principles require a free choice of systems.)
- Is MS willing to sign agreements not to endanger the existence of these independent infrastructures?
- Resilience and economic requirements demand the co-existing of local SMEs and start-ups such as are currently operating in Austria.
- How will their future market share be secured?
- How can they profit from the new center?
- How is MS planning to prevent brain drain from these entities as well as from universities and research institutions?
- Establishing a potentially highly-attractive IT competence will surely have a high impact on the Austrian Education Sector for IT and Computer Sciences.
- Could MS share independent beneficial/loss analyses or expertise on their impact on the surrounding education sector?
- Does MS have any implemented actions against brain drain?
- Will MS in their support for training programs finance only programs for MS software and devices or will financial support be given independently of the concepts taught?
Zitat: „Darüber hinaus wird die Regierung ein zweijähriges Schulungsprogramm für IT-Mitarbeiter des öffentlichen Dienstes und relevanten Fachbereichen des Bundes und der Länder einrichten. Ziel dieses Programmes ist es, die Kompetenzen in modernen IT-Technologien weiter zu stärken. Microsoft wird in neue Qualifizierungsmaßnahmen investieren, um die digitale Kompetenz von rund 120.000 Österreicherinnen und Österreicher bis 2024 zu fördern“, kündigte Ritz heute an.[2]
Conclusion
CCCA scientists have contributed their questions regarding the project by MS to build in Austria the “greenest and most sustainable” data center. Some questions would no doubt have been answered by any serious project description – however such a description was not made available to CCCA.
The questions arising range from obvious questions regarding energy supply and greenhouse gas mitigation measures to more complex questions of sustainability. The globally accepted climate goals cannot be reached by just implementing technological fixes, but require a holistic view of sustainability. This also includes issues such as biodiversity, infrastructures, institutions, cooperation and leaving no-one behind. An increasing volume of literature – the latest the Dasgupta Report (2021)[3] – call for enlightened, inclusive economic development that is sustainable and just.
Projects that are based on business models rooted in present day economy must therefore also be tested regarding their sustainability as society transforms. This task is beyond what CCCA was able to accomplish at such short notice and without any further information provided. Some aspects have, however been indicated by the questions. Thus, e.g. it is a logical and sound business model to train and educate potential user with a hope that these future customers will retain a given software and service environment. Although this is legitimate and sound for companies, it is not necessarily acceptable to governments, public institutions including universities, etc. Thus, CCCA as a research association expresses its doubts and concerns about any deal with a single producer of computer and software systems within the public sector as a whole and universities and research institutions as customers, specifically regarding decisions that can lead to a lock-in situation.
There are a large number of similar questions and concerns, and probably many that have not occurred to the climate oriented CCCA Community. A comprehensive discussion of the complex impacts of the undertaking and a holistic view on the overall approach should be in the vested interest of the investing party/MS as well as Austrian stakeholders.
[1] Microsofts Rechenzentrum in Österreich fällt unter US-Überwachung (futurezone.at)
[2] Microsoft kündigt eigenes Rechenzentrum in Österreich an (computerwelt.at)
[3] Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity (2021) – Business Summary – World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)