---
title: Mi3M episode 4 making significant progress. airports and web scale renewables
date: 2016-05-23T10:08:53Z
modified: 2016-05-23T10:08:53Z
permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/mi3m-episode-4-making-significant-progress-airports-and-web-scale-renewables/"
type: post
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 4251
categories:
  - Uncategorized
timestamp: 2016-05-23T10:08:53Z
tags:
  - Uncategorized
---

Last week a few things caught my eye in the world of renewable energy – we’re making so much rapid progress in that respect there is real cause of optimism. An Indian airport running 100% on solar, Portugal making all the running as a global post Carbon leader, and new commitments from Microsoft to renewable energy.

On the other hand I was waxing on this stuff [back in 2009](https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/2009/01/12/how-green-is-the-cloud/), so progress is slower than needed.

> It seems to that we’re facing an economy of scale problem here- and frankly if Goog and M$ didn’t know energy was an issue they wouldn’t be building on rivers, and investing in wind farms

Economies of scale come with a direct measurable cost – Apple’s data investment in Ireland, is projected to [potentially increase the country’s energy consumption by 8%](http://uk.businessinsider.com/apple-data-centre-could-increase-irelands-electricity-consumption-by-82-2016-4). It will be up Ireland to work with Apple to ensure investments in renewable energy to support the country’s new requirements.

Meanwhile on the minus side – it’s too damn hot. Last Friday India recorded its hottest temperature ever.