Rocketboom

Last spring Facebook unveiled a new “green” data center in Prineville, Oregon and yesterday the U.S. Green Building Council showed Zuck and crew some enviro-friendly love by granting the Prinveville data center LEED Gold certification.

Gold is the second-highest LEED certification attainable, while platinum is the highest. Only GE and Vantage data centers have reached LEED platinum status for certain data centers. So, impressive as this gold-seal is for FB, they’ve got some green ground to make up.

Facebook reworked the data center’s entire physical infrastructure obtaining 52% energy-consumption drop at Prineville. These energy savings are due in large part to FB’s director of data center design and engineering, Jay Park, and a vision that came to him in the middle of the night. Park quickly sketched his vision on a napkin now framed proudly on the wall at Prineville for his idea which formed the basis of a revolutionary energy-saving on-site substation design. (Below)

Rocketboom labs had a closer look at that napkin, and when read in reverse, the diagram resembles this…

Arctic Invasion: Earlier this year Facebook confirmed plans to build a 15 football field-sized data center just outside the Arctic Circle in Lulea, Sweden. The long cold winters and mild short summers in the sub-arctic Swedish climate will aid in keeping cooling costs down, in addition to providing better service to FB’s Euro-users. Facebook is not alone in this move to chillier climates. Santa Claus moved operations to the North Pole decades ago, and Google recently opened a data center in Hamina, Finland which uses sea-water to keep its servers iced. Bitchez love ice!