Remember a few weeks ago, the nasty rumor that Oak Ridge decided to kill the Fermi-based supercomputer they were buying?  The rumor was quickly debunked by both NVidia and ORNL, but after several weeks of digging deep, BSN found out that there is a tiny grain of substance behind the rumor, and it all comes down to George Bush’s Executive Order 13423 and inter-lab rivalries.

Just like police cars started to use Ethanol fuel, the world of governmental supercomputing laboratories had to change their approach. EO 13423 mandates that every new governmental project, including ORNL has to have 10% of their power grown from natural resources. You might guess where this is heading – the problem that ORNL has might significantly limit their future expansion, since the closest natural resource is none . other but the Mississippi river and the Southwest Power Pool As we all know, Oak Ridge is some 450 miles away – not exactly feasible to draw the power lines across states [one of our sources did state that new power lines would actually do good, given the state of power infrastructure around United States].

As the new computer is projected to consume 60,000 MWh (60 GWh?) annually, that makes 6000MWh’s that must come from renewable resources or 14,000 Metric Tons in Carbon Credits, which would put the electrical bill in the $8-10 Million annually.

The other solution is to work out a deal with one of the other similar labs, Sandia and LLNL come to mind, to “trade” credits.  Unfortunatey, both labs seem to be holding out for a ‘better’ deal in their favor.

Now, I’m rather uncertain about all of this.  ORNL already gets most of their power from TVA, and a Hydro dam is relatively close (5 miles?) to ORNL.  Wouldn’t that be considered renewable? BSN has the full scoop, read it there.  My sources are unable to corroborate everything in the article, but they do confirm it’s a possible explanation.

via The Real Story behind Fermi & Oak Ridge: Bushes’ legacy threatens progress? – Bright Side Of News*.