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Data centers account for 1.5% of the energy consumption in the United States according to a recent report by the Environmental Protection Agency. These facilities' IT power and cooling requirements may increase in the future, especially with the rise of cloud computing and increased heat densities of servers. Since most utility power is generated by burning coal or fossil fuel, innovation is essential to meet the challenge of providing sustainable cooling and power for data centers. This paper proposes using Hydrothermal Energy for data centers whereby cooling and power are both sustainably generated. Coastal communities that have nearby cold and warm water resources are candidates for future data centers that can be operated completely off the grid while absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. The paper acknowledges that, while there are still challenges to be met in designing these facilities, Hydrothermal Net-Zero Energy data centers are within the realm of possibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data Centers are an ever increasing user of energy in our economy. While the performance per watt of our IT equipment continues to increase exponentially, this energy performance improvement is still outstripped by increasing demand. Because of this, the efficiency of data centers must continue to improve. Beyond just efficiency, many data centers now are working towards reuse of their waste energy in other areas in the data center or on the site or campus. How to account for this, through metrics and measurements, is the topic of this paper. The Energy Reuse Effectiveness metric or ERE is discussed; both the development and application of the metric are looked at in detail. The use of ERE in conjunction with PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) is also considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]