Microsoft Dodges $210,000 Fine By Wasting Millions Of Watts Of Electricity

And the USA government has built a gigantic date IT center in Utah, for the benefit of monitory "ALL", communications of everyone in the world in real time, if they are guilty of something of not.

Yet, the cost and energy by this massive undertaking is justified by Uncle?

www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency

Talk about a waste of dollars, keeping surveillance on the innocent, sheesh!

I wonder how much power\energy\dollars Google data-IT center us? I am just curious.

I am in so need of an editor, ROFL....

I'm with Microsoft on this one. Why would the energy company have any right to fine Microsoft for energy they didn't use? People will probably be up in arms about a company doing it, but every one of us would do exactly what Microsoft did.

Just imagine being fined for not using enough electricity in your home. You'd waste a ton so you don't have to pay that obnoxious fine.

I agree, DirtySquirties, it doesn't make any sense. Most companies get rewards for using less but this power company gave Microsoft a fine? Why?

I suppose there was a fine because the utility had to spend money to ensure that they'd have the generating capacity to cover Microsoft's planned needs... and when Microsoft didn't buy as much electricity as planned, the utility was left with unsold capacity, which came out of their bottom line. I also suppose that all of this was in the contract that Microsoft signed with the utility. Which means that Microsoft made a mistake.

www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/technology/data-centers-in-rural-washington-state-gobble-power.html?_r=1

That's the full 5 page article popsci quoted from.

They were fined because Microsoft was cut a deal from the utilities: "they offered the company rates that would range from 2.5 cents to 3.8 cents per kilowatt-hour in its first five years — far below the national industrial average of 6 cents to 7 cents".

Even so, wouldn't it make the most sense to just make them pay their estimate price anyway? It is the amount of money the city was expecting to get, and it provides incentive for MS to improve it's estimates so they don't have to pay excess. The huge fine on top is unnecessary, I think.

In regards to the fine:
3 days after opening the server farm, Microsoft starts complaining to the utilities: "Mr. Manos wrote to the utility commissioners complaining that they were slow in building a substation to provide 48 million watts of electrical capacity to Microsoft. That would be enough to power about 29,000 American homes,"
They wanted a SUBSTATION built just for them, then they don't use it. That seems like it should be an offense worth fining over.

Odd, I have never seen the heat come on in our server room. It runs A/C all winter long.

Sun used to rent servers in a box deal that was supposed to pay for it's self in energy savings.

And to think that everyone who keeps their computer on all day is no better than MS.

I'd bet MS still only pays a penny or two per KWH unlike my energy saving cost of 19 cents per KWH

Let me get this straight: they threatened to waste MORE electricity if they were fined? That's the logical equivalent of threatening to murder more if you received a charge for murder.

Time for the waste heat from these server farms to be fed into:

Community swimming pools
Recreation centers and sport complexes
Greenhouses
Nearby warehouses or industry (in winter)

Server farms should be located with heat recipients planned in. Pumping millions of watts worth of useable heat into the environment should be considered criminal.

@ Mukuro

Yeah, except they didn't commit murder. They were just more efficient than they expected, and where being penalized for it. So they used the electricity they were being fined for not using. It's an idiotic move on the power company's part.

And as for Microsoft demanding a substation, yeah, they did. They demanded it because they thought they needed it now, and they will likely still need it in the future. And it is not something they can just build themselves; utilities have a quasi-monopoly because it doesn't make sense for multiple utilities to be present, etc...

Point is, power company had the 'obligation' to put it in under the conditions presented, and they did put it in. But this "fine" for not using enough electricity means that a minimum use of electricity was not contractually obligated. The company has little right to fine Microsoft, and if they're going to be charged for a stupid reason by the power company, they're going to make the company work for it. It's a perfectly fair rebut.

And also, Microsoft is not "steeling" energy. That would imply other people in the community had a right to it, and more importantly that them using it somehow denied the use of energy by others in the vicinity. And since they are being accused of not using /enough/ electricity, well, the accusation pretty much falls flat on its face.

Nice continuing attempt at corporate bashing popsci. You're truly a model for all self-righteous pseudo-journalism.

@brian144

"Corporate bashing"? PopSci linked to a NYT article. It's a current event. Deal with it.

Nobody cares that our government,(USA), created a monolithic super computer IT center, with the single purpose of monitoring everyone on Earth via communications in real time and we are all in the USA paying for this.

Good bye freedom, hello one massive herd of sheep!

Hell, PoPSCi will not even write an article about NSA; how rigged is that by the USA government, control the press!

Nobody cares that our government,(USA), created a monolithic super computer IT center, with the single purpose of monitoring everyone on Earth via communications in real time and we are all in the USA paying for this.

Good bye freedom, hello one massive herd of sheep!

Hell, PoPSCi will not even write an article about NSA; how rigged is that by the USA government, control the press!

A national average of 6 to 7 cent per kWh? Where's that? I've lived in three different states in the last 8 years and paid between 10 and 13 cents.