This weekend I finally moved my website to a new web host: Ecohost, possibly the ultimate web host.
It’s been a long time coming because my criteria for a new host included that it be low carbon, not store any data in the U.S. and do business in English. That’s a surprisingly difficult combination being that most English-speaking low carbon web hosts are in the U.S., using Californian solar energy to power their data centres.
I would have liked bragging rights that my web host produced its own energy but these guys do the next best thing, according to their website, and offer webspace in a data centre called Smartbunker, powered by 100% renewable energy sourced from Ecotricity.
Furthermore this data centre is apparently located in a high-security former nuclear bunker, offering a money back guarantee of 100% uptime. Not that my web host offers this but I’ll be curious to see how reliable it is compared to my last host.
And to top it all off, not only is Ecobee low carbon but it’s also a not-for-profit co-operative. Being a pareconist it really doesn’t get much better than this!
So it’s all roses—and fast to boot—but I’ll be sure to keep you posted.
Update 16-05-2008: Name changed from Ecobee to Ecohost
· I agree, Christiaan, and I’m envious; I’ve switched my main archive to a free site in Germany, for those sorts of reasons.
· I like what you said: “my criteria for a new host included that it be low carbon, not store any data in the U.S., and do business in English. That’s a surprisingly difficult combination being that most English-speaking low carbon web hosts are in the U.S., using Californian solar energy to power their data centres.”
David. http://mitglied.lycos.de/davd/
_Ecotricity_’s: http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/about/our-progress/
- has:
“Ecotricity Progress Report 2007
… http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/about/our-progress/report-2007.pdf
-(1.64 MB PDF) has, on page 12 of 16:
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The chart below shows that from April’05 to
April’06, 20% of our total energy supply was from
New Energy and that it increased to just over 24%
the next year (year ending April’07). Based on our
current schedule we’re on course to make
further big strides this year - we expect to hit
30% by April 2008.
It’s worth mentioning that this increase in our
% of new green energy is against a background
of customer numbers (and therefore amount of
electricity supplied) growing strongly year-on-
year. We’d have our work cut out just keeping
our % of green steady with customer numbers
growing like that. In fact we achieved an increase
of 50% in green supply while our customer
numbers quadrupled over the last four years
– We’re pretty pleased with that.
Fuel supply ~_~_ ~_~_ ~_~_ Ecotricity ~_~_ ~_~_ ~_~_~ UK-National Avge
~_~_ ~_~_ ~_ Apr05-Mar06 _ Apr06-Mar07 _ 2007/08 (proj)_ 06-07 UK avge
Coal _~_~_ ~_~_ 20.2%~_~_ ~_~_ 23.8%~_~_ ~_~_ 21.7%~_~_ ~_~_ ~_ 35.8%
Natural gas~_~_ 24.7%~_~_ ~_~_ 22.8%~_~_ ~_~_ 20.8%~_~_ ~_~_ ~_ 38.8%
Nuclear~_~_ ~_~ 30.3%~_~_ ~_~_ 25.9%~_~_ ~_~_ 23.7%~_~_ ~_~_ ~_ 18.6%
Renewable~_~_ ~ 20.2%~_~_ ~_~_ 24.1%~_~_ ~_~_ 30.7%~_~_ ~_~_ ~_~ 4.7%
Other ~_~_ ~_~_~ 4.5%~_~_ ~_~_~ 3.3%~_~_ ~_~_~ 3.1%~_~_ ~_~_ ~_~ 2.1%
Environmental Impact
CO2 emissions* _ 0.292 ~_~_ ~_ 0.316 ~_~_ ~_~_ N/A _~_~_ _~_~_ 0.461
Radioactive
- waste** ~_ ~_ 0.00363 ~_ ~_ 0.00285 _~_ ~_~_ N/A _~_~_ ~_~_ 0.0025
*CO2 emissions are in kg/kWh;
**Radioactive waste relates to high-level waste in g/kWh
Renewable supply figures include an estimated 11% reduction for transmission and distribution losses.
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