Projects that have microbes doing our dirty work
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In this nifty article from this past Sunday's Boston Globe, you can read about several companies in the Boston area and the projects they've initiated to harness the power of microbes. As you remember from the infamous H. G. Wells story, The War Of The Worlds, microbes have helped us before (in fiction) and now they are helping us again (in fact). These micro-organisms are being engineered and "hired" to clean waste water, produce fuel, or to sterilize hospital equipment. Project development time has increased orders of magnitude, even since the 1990s. Where it used to take 10 or 15 years to develop a new biological product, this can be done "at a much more accelerated pace", challenging not just the scientists and engineers invloved, but of course the project teams and necessarily the project manager. The companies involved here are Manus Biosynthesis, Cambrian Innovation, Ginkgo BioWorks, Novophage, and others. Cambrian, for example, is cultivating colonies of naturally-occurring bacteria that can serve as catalysts for chemical reactions, making them significantly more efficient. They activate with electrical impulses. These microbes were only discovered in 1999. When the microbes are grouped, they can convert CO2 into methane, making it easier to collect and therefore preventing CO2 from escaping into the air, and can also, in turn, generate electricity. Read the story. You can see the implications for large numbers of projects, and it reinforces our assertion that project managers should become more attuned to the language of sustainability and understand the opportunities it provides for PMs in fields such as this. Oh, and one more thing. Don't let the idea of engineered bio-products scare you too much. It was beginning to creep us out a bit as we read through it, but the authors make a really good point. Sitting in your house, or one very close to it, is an example of a genetically-engineered organism. There's a picture of one below:
Yep. Dogs are just genetically-modified wolves. And we (generally) trust these even with our little kids. In any case - check out the article and continue to build your knowledge in sustainability and project management; you may find yourself leading a project just like the ones in the story! |
Greenest Data Center
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To date, about $80 million dollars have been committed to the project. This is really an unprecedented collaboration between industry, universities and a state government. One of the major drivers for the increase in datacenters, and by extension increased energy use, is the need for scientific and engineering computing. To do that properly requires a massive amount of computing power. According to the Green High-Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC) website, the facility will include “33,000 square feet of computer room space optimized for high performance computing systems, a 15MW power feed, and a high efficiency cooling plant that can support up to 10MW of computing load. The on-site substation includes provisions for expansion to 30MW and the MGHPCC owns an 8.6 acre site, leaving substantial space for the addition of new floor space. The communication infrastructure includes a dark fiber loop that passes through Boston and New York City and connects to the NoX, the regional education and research network aggregation point. Boston University initially will have a pair of 10 GigE connections from its campus to its resources located in the Holyoke facility.” Some of the features will include:
This is a phenomenal undertaking and a giant leap forward to green data centers utilizing clean, renewable power, lower carbon footprint, collocation, virtualization, and all the other things that go into a comprehensive greening of IT. Hopefully, MGHPCC will be a model to emulate. |
Continuing with the theme of Green IT, a consortium of major colleges in the Boston, including Boston University (where I am have currently developed and am teaching a course in Green IT), Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, U Mass (Rich’s alma mater) along with industry partners Cisco and EMC, together with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are creating a “world-class”, green data center in Holyoke, MA, on the banks of the Connecticut River. Why there? Because, there is a large hydro plant producing clean, renewable energy! State of the Green Business Report
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Earlier this week, US President Barak Obama gave the annual "State of the Union Address", which you can read about here. Timed to go along with this, is the GreenBiz.org "State of the Green Business Report". The report, which measures 20 aspects of environmental performance, from carbon emissions to paper use and recycling, and attempts to answer the question, "Are we bringing a green economy into being?" The news for 2012: not so good. The report shows a slowing of momentum -- or even steps in the backwards direction, in some cases -- on some of the indicators. Among the downgraded topics include investments in clean technology innovations, overall energy intensity, certifications of LEED buildings, and paper use and recycling. We stress that project managers by virtue of their "Change Agent" mindset need to bring sustainability issues (economic, ecological and social) to the forefront. Heck, it's even in the name of our blog - People, Planet, Profits, & Projects - so we think we as Project Managers should be stepping up here, and reversing this negative trend, getting the momentum back - all in the positive direction. We suggest that an informed PM is the best PM. You can download the full report here. Want some good news? There is a short video clip from Joel Makower here, which explains how the CFOs of organizations are starting to take sustainability on as a traditional ongoing measure of success. Of course if you want to be informed we also would recommend our Cleland Award-winning book... The facts remain: good progress has been made. Looks like we slipped a little over the past year, but we can regain this momentum and you as project managers play a key role in bringing sustainability thinking to the forefront. |
Green Information Technology
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So what are the implications; increased energy usage - costs, emissions, strains on an old power grid and capital costs, and more. It affects just about every system. IT is the key to modern business and the way we are using energy is unsustainable! Green IT is about using IT more efficiently. Here are some facts from the EPA (a favorite source for us because it is free):
So what should be the goal of Green IT?
In the future, I will be posting about of the issues involved with the information industry including life cycle assessment of equipment, or lack of. I will also look at some of the best ways to execute on Green IT including basic steps as well as some more complex efforts including its effect on people, planet and profits. |
One of the “real” green impact zones is in the world of information technology. The increase of electronic transactions (How many of you use e-banking?), the growth of Internet communications, on-line shopping, electronic medical records and global positioning systems have caused an explosion in the IT industry. Government documentation going digital, digital record retention, disaster recoveries, emergency services, national security and scientific computing also has a huge impact in the IT industry. Fighting Carbon with Carbon
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Photo: Creative Commons copyright by James Hedberg Find some really cool physics animations and photos by James here.
What would it be like if we could make roofing surfaces - even wildly irregular roofing surfaces - into highly-efficient solar collectors? First of all, for those of you who are a little science-minded (and we're guessing there are a few of you here) you'll want to learn a little more about a new "wonder maerial" called graphene. Graphene is a one-atom-thick layer of carbon. Want to spend a moment to learn about it? You know you do. Have a look at this really nice video from Creative Science, an organization from the UK:
So now that you're familiar with the material, you see there are all sorts of possiblities (read that projects) for what we can do with it. Especially if the material happens to create electricity when it's sturck by light. Oh wait! It does that. See this link. Or see this link. OK, you can see that this has some carbon-fighting applications. So it's potentially "green". What does that have to do with project management? Well, it's actually very simple. The number of research projects and then actual application-based projects are huge. This 'wonder material' has reminded those of us old enough to remember, of the advance of silicon as a wonder material, and the cavalcade of electronics that followed that, employing literally millions of project managers and engineers. So we think this is worth your attention as a project manager. Stay tuned to this blog - we'll have more. |
