Optera, CarbonQuest & Asperitas Plan a Zero-Emissions Future

Besides the threat of nuclear annihilation and that new mole on your back, climate change is a continuous concern for many. A global survey by Pew Research found that 70% of adults viewed climate change as a major threat, decades after it was first explored by The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988. David Attenborough called the climate crisis “the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced and it is our responsibility to do something about it" – something the data centre sector feels keenly. We spoke to Optera, CarbonQuest and Asperitas to hear about their plans for a zero emissions future. 

Driving corporate climate action at Optera

Up to 80% of global emissions originate from the corporate sector, primarily from manufacturing, distribution and use of goods and services. To tackle climate change, Optera believes that this must start with the corporate sector. 

“Our approach is to identify areas of leverage and overlapping responsibilities where we can influence the greatest number of organisations and have the most significant impact,” said CEO Tim Weiss. “We’ve found that a key area lies in addressing Scope 3 emissions and we’re helping many companies assess emissions from their supply chains, product use phases and infrastructure, which allows them to have more meaningful conversations about decarbonisation with suppliers.”

As the CEO and Co-Founder of Optera, Tim loves working on pragmatic solutions to big problems and his problem solving skills have certainly grown since joining Optera.
“To address significant challenges, especially in the realm of climate tech and sustainability, we can’t afford to wait for ideal conditions or new developments,” he says. “We have to move forward with the resources and circumstances facing us today.” 

This mindset has helped Tim to become more resourceful, focusing on making progress with existing tools and knowledge rather than waiting for new standards. 

“This approach has proven effective, as evidenced by the advancements we’ve seen in sustainability over the past two decades,” he shared. “We’ve charged ahead despite the constraints, driving meaningful change and continuing to push the boundaries of what’s possible in our field.”

Optera is dedicated to stopping climate change by enabling corporate action at scale. Yet with data centres, major cloud providers have made public sustainability commitments and operate demonstrably low-emission facilities. However, the surge in the use of AI tools has increased data centres’ energy needs significantly, so Tim sees that there’s only more work to be done. 

“Some emerging approaches are worth considering, including low-global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants, cooling technologies and waste heat re-use,” he says. “However, our data shows that rapid decarbonisation through renewables – either on-premises or by moving to cloud storage in locations with clean energy sources like geothermal – is currently the fastest path, potentially saving over 90% of data centre emissions.”
Optera’s approach focuses on creating a solid foundation for meaningful strategy. The most critical element is providing actionable data that produces insights for better decision-making. Without this, organisations can't make real progress or understand where to start – and take – their sustainability journey. 

“Organisations need solutions that offer visibility into emissions across scopes 1, 2 and 3. We help organisations pinpoint exactly where their emissions are coming from – down to specific suppliers, products, commodities and manufacturing locations,” Tim explains.
Beyond data, Optera combines its technology platform with expert consulting to help organisations understand the practical implications of their emissions profile. This includes identifying which facilities can be electrified, estimating costs for sustainability initiatives and determining necessary budgets for key technology investments. 

“This marriage of data and guidance gives sustainability practitioners the support they need to follow through on their net zero commitments,” he says. 

Asperitas’ approach to shaping the future of sustainable data centres

Robert Karssiens is the Sales and Marketing Director at Amsterdam-based Asperitas, which enables sustainable data centres with the most efficient and highest-performing immersion cooling technologies.

“My job is in sales and marketing. I love this because it's all about IT for good,” he says.

Asperitas is driven by the workload it wants to address. The company is working on a wide range of projects from small to very large scale.

“For Asperitas, the much bigger picture is that we're contributing to that global effort to create a sustainable model for information management and technology in a world where the data demand is rising. Much of the demand comes from our desire to deal with this existential threat,” Rob explains. “We're trying to make data centres sustainable.”

Yet, real concerns of business remain - such as cost and competitive edge.

This is where Andy Young, Asperitas CTO, comes in. Andy joined four years ago, but he’s been focused on electronics cooling, thermal management and immersion cooling for over a decade. 

“My role is to develop the next generation of technology with the chip OEMs in the supply chain and with partners in immersion fluid technologies,” he explains. “Our technology differentiates in the industry of immersion cooling by leveraging targeted flow technologies that are accepted by the chip OEMs.”

“The true power of the Asperitas technology is fully leveraged regardless of IT equipment used or deployment location, with the precision cooling exceeding power distribution limits. This enables us to cool up to 2kW per chip, which is a vast step forwards in cooling potential.”

Andy sees this as an extremely efficient solution, which is capable of extending right out to the limits of the roadmap for chip level power densities.

CarbonQuest’s approach to onsite carbon capture and emissions reduction

Anna Pavlova is the Senior Vice President of Strategy, Market Development and Sustainability at CarbonQuest, she has over 20 years of experience running policy and sustainability programmes for some of the world’s largest corporations, including Johnson Controls and Schneider Electric. 

“CarbonQuest is a distributed carbon capture company that offers decarbonisation solutions to a variety of emitters, including hospitals, onsite distributed power sources, and data centres,” Anna explains. 

CarbonQuest’s Distributed Carbon Capture™ system captures CO2 from onsite power generation systems like Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems, fuel cells and boilers. CarbonQuest then liquifies the captured CO2, called Sustainable CO2™. The Sustainable CO2™ is sequestered permanently underground or used by CO2 end-users in their manufacturing processes to make concrete, petroleum-displacing plastic substitutes and sustainable aviation fuel. Using recycled, local CO2 helps these companies reduce Scope 3 emissions while supporting a green circular economy.

Data centres are a new segment that CarbonQuest is looking at from a very specific angle. “Data centres are being built in all sizes and in far more diverse geographies than before. Buying renewable energy credits is no longer the only pathway to decarbonising their massive energy needs,” Anna explains. “At CarbonQuest, we believe that some of these data centres, especially those in the 50-150MW range, could benefit from distributed onsite power (fuel cells or reciprocal engines often part of Combined Heat and Power systems), with a bolt-on Distributed Carbon Capture system that decarbonises that power in real-time, onsite. There are many ways to handle the captured CO2 and reduce emissions while still ensuring enough power.”

To make data centres sustainable in the near term, Anna calls for a variety of sustainability solutions for data centres. 

“Efficiency used to be king, but a lot of efficiency has already been squeezed out of those systems,” she says. “Different solutions will also require different timelines. One day we will see fusion-powered AI data centres, which sounded like science fiction 10 years ago — it’s not science fiction anymore, but it’s also not happening today.”

Carbon capture can be an immediate solution and it can also be combined with onsite renewables and efficiency. 

History has shown that humans can achieve incredible things together. It takes diversity of thought, all backgrounds and grit to get there. Across the corporate sector, CarbonQuest, Optera and Asperitas will see it done.

To read the full story in the magazine click HERE

​​​​​​​**************

Make sure you check out the latest edition of DataCentre Magazine and also sign up to our global conference series - Tech & AI LIVE 2024

**************

DataCentre Magazine is a BizClik brand