Step by step guide on how NRENs and universities can develop Climate Change Preparedness Plans

1. Developing a NREN and Institution
Climate Change Preparedness Plan
TNC 2014 Dublin
Bill St. Arnaud
Bill.st.arnaud@gmail.com

2. Executive Summary
• Climate Change Preparedness or Adaptation is recognition that we are
already committed to at least average 2°C temperature increase with
some parts of the world forecast to see 6°C temperature increase by 2050
• Rather than thinking about how to prevent climate change we need to
face reality and develop plans to adapt to a much warmer world with
more severe weather
• NRENs and higher ed institutions need to develop climate change
preparedness plans in line with national or regional climate change
preparedness initiatives e.g USA, UK, New York, etc
– Distance education seen as a important component because of flooded
classrooms
• A proper adaptation or preparedness strategy should also result in a good
mitigation strategy
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3. What is a Climate Change
Preparedness Plan?
• A process to develop a multi-year risk methodology
to identify infrastructure and services that would
most likely be susceptible to climate change weather
extremes and explore possible mitigation strategies
and their costs
• Risk methodology is very similar to the Monte-Carlo
system used in disaster planning and large project
pricing analysis
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4. Why focus on preparedness and not
prevention?
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5. President Obama’s Executive Order on
Climate Change Preparedness
• All US government departments, agencies, data centers, etc must develop
climate change preparedness plans
• States, municipalities, universities and other institutions are also
encouraged to develop similar plans
• Disaster preparedness plans must cover range of scenarios of severe
flooding, droughts, hurricanes, long term power outages, etc
• http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/11/01/executive-
order-preparing-united-states-impacts-climate-change
Presentation title

6. First step
• NREN and/or institution should determine if there already exists a national
or regional preparedness framework, and how they fit within those plans
• Use Notre Dame Adaptation Index tools
– Open source tools to rank your institution
– http://gain.org/
– Corporations are now being ranked by S&P in terms of climate change
preparedness
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• Some national preparedness plans expect tools such as distance education
and NREN networks to serve as critical services during severe weather
events
• UK Government has developed s a risk assessment and national
adaptation program for all sectors including Telecom and Higher Ed
• New York State Authority: ClimAID97. The report is a framework that uses
data from extreme climate events such as Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. 6

7. What are likely Climate Impacts for
Institutions and NRENs?
• Institution and NRENs are generally less susceptible to
direct climate impacts such as flooding and droughts
– But there are exceptions and should be included in the
analysis where applicable e.g. flooding in The Netherlands,
water shortages in California
• The biggest threat is the vulnerability and reliability of
the electrical grid and/or the cost of electricity as
supplies are rationed because of shut down of plants or
variability of renewable power on the grid
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8. Lessons from Hurricane Sandy
• Many classrooms and research facilities at NYU and Polytechs were
flooded
• It took months to restore and repair facilities to remove mold and
other damage
• Distance education and remote research critical for surviving
climate change severe weather
– Distance education has been identified as a key element in any
national climate change preparedness framework
• But need a reliable and robust network to sustain reliable distance
education
– Flooding also took out campus network gear, but core optical network
continued to function
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9. Reliability of the Grid
• Weather related outages and duration
have increased significantly
• Outages counted are only those that
affect over 30,000 customers and cause
over 1 million hours outage and last
longer than 1 hour
– Far greater number of smaller local
outages
– Probability of major outage increasing
4% per year
• Particular vulnerability is Large Power
Transformers (LPTs), which are custom-
designed, expensive to replace and hard
to transport.
– LPTs weight between 100 and 400 tons,
cost millions of dollars and can take as
long as 20 months to manufacture
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10. Scary reading
• “US Energy sector vulnerabilities to climate change and extreme
weather” US Department of Energy July 2013
– http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/07/f2/20130716-
Energy%20Sector%20Vulnerabilities%20Report.pdf
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Recent Sample outages
• Rising water temps forcing power
plant shutdowns
• Coal and nuclear power generating
capacity will decrease by between
4 and 16 percent in the United
States and a 6 to 19 percent
decline in Europe due to lack of
cooling water.
• http://www.reuters.com/artic
le/2012/06/04/climate-water-
energy-
idUSL3E8H41SO20120604

11. Future Droughts
• Palmer Drought Severity Index,
or PDSI.
• The most severe drought in
recent history, in the Sahel region
of western Africa in the 1970s, had
a PDSI of -3 or -4.
• By 2030 Western USA could see
-4 to -6.
• By 2100 some parts of the U.S.
and Latin America could see -8 to -
10 PDSI, while Mediterranean
areas could see drought in the -15
or -20 range.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39741525/ns/us_new
s-environment/

12. Dramatic changes in precipitation
• Every continent has suffered record rainfalls
• Observed increase in precipitation in the
last few decades has been due in large part
to a disproportionate increase in heavy and
extreme precipitation rates which are
exceeding predictions made in models

13. Climate Forecasts
MIT
• MIT report predicts median
temperature forecast of 5.2°C
– 11°C increase in Northern
Canada & Europe
– http://globalchange.mit.edu/
pubs/abstract.php?publicatio
n_id=990
• Nearly 90 per cent of new
scientific findings reveal global
climate disruption to be worse,
and progressing more rapidly, than
expected.
• http://www.skepticalscience.c
om/pics/Freudenburg_2010_
ASC.pdf

14. Monte Carlo risk analysis
• Monte Carlo risk analysis is the ideal tool for assessing long term
risk where there are many input variables and large uncertainties
– Developed in WWII during the development of atomic bomb by
solving deterministic problems using a probabilistic analog
• Gold standard for assessing climate impacts and used by many
climate preparedness plans to look at economic and social impacts
of climate change
• May help identify some unexpected vulnerabilities for NREN and/or
institution
• Requires intensive resources and analysis
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15. The reality at the end of day
• Despite careful analysis most NRENs and institutions will likely opt
to “stay the course” rather than make any significant investments in
climate change preparedness
– Most organizations don’t have the budgets or the mandate to
undertake preparedness given the large uncertainties
• However climate change preparedness analysis will help develop
business case to deploy micro grids and energy Internet sooner
rather than later
– Cost savings of micro grids can be as much as $850,000 per month and
can significantly increase reliability
• UCSD saves $850k/month in electricity and less GHG emissions with
microgrids.
– http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-17/ebay-to-ellison-
embrace-microgrids-in-threat-to-utilities.html …
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16. Outcomes & Solutions
• There are a range of outcomes and solutions to climate change risk due to
weather extremes
– Decision factors include degree of risk, tolerance to risk, etc
• The simplest is to deploy local independent sources of electricity (e.g.
micro grids) that are not dependent on fossil fuel deliveries and are
loosely coupled to electrical grid such as solar panels and windmills
– Many companies will pay for capital cost in return for guaranteed purchase of
power; or
– Power from local renewable power sources can be sold to grid under Feed In
Tariff (FIT) programs
• Next step is to develop an energy routing architecture and policy
– Local independent renewable power will unlikely be sufficient for most
institutions so power will need to be routed in a priority basis
– Using SDN, UCLP and OpenNaaS to integrate micro grids with data networks
on campus and NRENs http://goo.gl/SFaW6p
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17. ITU recommendations
• Decouple communication infrastructure from electric grid infrastructure to the extent possible, and
make both more robust, resilient, and redundant.
• Minimize the effects of power outages on telecommunications services by providing backup power
at cell towers, such as solar-powered battery banks, and “cells on wheels” that can replace disabled
towers. Extend the fuel storage capacity needed to run backup generators for longer times.
• Place telecommunication cables underground where technically and economically feasible,
ensuring that they are appropriately protected against water ingress.
• Assess, develop, and expand alternative telecommunication technologies if they promise to
increase redundancy and/or reliability, including free-space optics (which transmits data with light
rather than physical connections
• Develop high-speed broadband and wireless services in low-density rural areas to increase
redundancy and diversity in vulnerable remote regions.
• Perform a comprehensive assessment of the entire telecommunications sector’s current resiliency
to existing climate perils, in all of their complexities. Extend this assessment to future climate
projections and
• Resilient pathways: the adaptation of the ICT sector to climate change
– http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/climatechange/Documents/Publications/Resilient_Pathways-E.PDF
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18. Lessons from Sandy about backup
diesels
• Make sure fuel is changed every year
– Diesel fuel deteriorates much faster than gasoline
• Arrange for long term, high priority fuel contracts from
multiple refineries
• Make sure IT staff know how to change fuel and air
filters
• Make sure fuel pumps are self priming, collocated with
diesel and connected to UPS
• Make sure all electrical cabling, transformers and
switch gear are in water tight compartments
– Double check all egress and ingress ports through
walls

19. Preparedness Matrix
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Source: Resilient pathways: the adaptation of the ICT sector to climate change

20. Preparedness Checklist -1
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Source: Resilient pathways: the adaptation of the ICT sector to climate change

21. 21
Preparedness Checklist -2
Source: Resilient pathways: the adaptation of the ICT sector to climate change

22. Research Initiatives-1
• With SDN-P it is assumed that many energy consuming devices power have their own
local power source e.g:
– WiFi spot with its own solar panel
– Backup battery power on computer
– Electric vehicle with its own battery bank
• Many possible virtual and real power circuits.
– PoE, USB, Traditional 110/220, 48V Dc,Pulse power over Cat 5
– Power routing across devices following path of virtual power circuit
• Ideal for existing intelligent networked devices like computers, switches, routers,
servers, Wifi hot spots , electric vehicle charging stations, etc
– Most of these devices have their own on board storage and so techniques such as round-robin
power distribution are possible
• The benefits and challenges of software-defined power SDN-P http://dlvr.it/5TGrR5
• Network engineers & researchers have to start thinking how to deploy networks that
are powered solely by solar power http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-
business/rob-commentary/rob-insight/an-earth-day-look-at-the-sunny-state-of-
solar/article18101176/#dashboard/follows/ …
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23. Research Initiatives -2
• https://www.internet2.edu/news-events/email/internet2-things-uev-research-01/
• http://www.fabric-project.eu/
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24. Let’s Keep The Conversation Going
E-mail
Blogs
http://green-broadband.blogspot.com
Twitter
http://twitter.com/BillStArnaud
Bill.St.Arnaud@gmail.com
Bill St. Arnaud is a R&E Network and Green IT
consultant who works with clients on a variety
of subjects such as green data centers and
networks. He also works with clients to
develop practical solutions to reduce GHG
emissions from ICT (See http://green-
broadband.blogspot.com/) .