ENGINEERING FRESHMAN INVESTIGATES STATE OF CARBON TAXATION

Through the Clare Booth Luce Engineering Scholars Program, Victoria Margenat ’24 ME is working with Dr. Aaron Wemhoff, associate professor of Mechanical Engineering and researcher in Villanova’s Center for Energy-Smart Electronic Systems (ES2), on analyzing carbon taxation strategies with a specific focus on reducing the environmental footprint of data centers. Data centers collectively consume approximately 2% to 3% of U.S. electricity, and a single data center can consume as much electrical power as a power plant generates.

While data center industry groups and related publications have indicated a growing interest in sustainability, the industry as a whole is unlikely to adopt suggestions for reducing their carbon footprint unless there is a financial driver to do so. “Therefore,” says Dr. Wemhoff, “one of our center’s goals is to link environmental and economic metrics for managing data centers to tools and metrics that can be easily incorporated into making data center design decisions, specifically in cooling system design and in incorporating on-site renewable energy.” One missing piece of key financial information is the state of carbon taxation and cap-and-trade programs, which are present in Canada and Europe, but are not common in the U.S., outside of California and a few mid-Atlantic states.

Victoria is working on a comprehensive survey of currently active and proposed programs to pinpoint areas where pursuing environmental sustainability measures are most attractive. She will present this research to data center industry leaders during ES2 web meetings, as well as via a poster at the ES2 semiannual industrial advisory board meeting. The goal is to have a comprehensive review condensed into a single document to be made available to the data center industry.