Monthly Archives: July 2015

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A power plant for the Internet: our newest data center in Alabama


 

Every time you check your Gmail, search on Google for a nearby restaurant, or watch a YouTube video, a serverwhirs to life in one of our data centers. Data centers are the engines of the Internet, bringing the power of the web to millions of people around the world. And as millions more people come online, our data centers are growing, too.We’ve recently expanded our data centers in Iowa, Georgia, Singapore and Belgium. And today we’re announcing a new data center in Alabama—our 14th site globally.This time, we’re doing something we’ve never done before: we’ll be building on the grounds of the Widows Creek coal power plant in Jackson County, which has been scheduled for shutdown. Data centers need a lot of infrastructure to run 24/7, and there’s a lot of potential in redeveloping large industrial sites like former coal power plants. Decades of investment shouldn’t go to waste just because a site has closed; we can repurpose existing electric and other infrastructure to make sure our data centers are reliably serving our users around the world.

At Widows Creek, we can use the plants’ many electric transmission lines to bring in lots of renewable energy to power our new data center. Thanks to an arrangement with Tennessee Valley Authority, our electric utility, we’ll be able to scout new renewable energy projects and work with TVA to bring the power onto their electrical grid. Ultimately, this contributes to our goal of being powered by 100% renewable energy.

In 2010, we were one of the first companies outside of the utility industry to buy large amounts of renewable energy. Since then, we’ve become the largest corporate renewable energy purchaser in the world (in fact we’ve bought the equivalent of over 1.5 percent of the installed wind power capacity in the U.S.). We’re glad to see this trend is catching on among other companies.

Of course, the cleanest energy is the energy you don’t use. Our Alabama data center will incorporate our state-of-the-art energy efficiency technologies. We’ve built our own super-efficient servers, invented more efficient ways to cool our data centers, and even used advanced machine learning to squeeze more out of every watt of power we consume. Compared to five years ago, we now get 3.5 times the computing power out of the same amount of energy.

Since the 1960s, Widows Creek has generated power for the region—now the site will be used to power Internet services and bring information to people around the world. We expect to begin construction early next year and look forward to bringing a Google data center to Alabama.

Posted by Patrick Gammons, Senior Manager, Data Center Energy and Location Strategy

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Time To Fix Overtime … Cap


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The President Releases A New Draft Overtime Rule

You know the story: Americans are working longer but wages aren’t keeping up. Now, thanks to President Obama’s new overtime rule, that is about to change for nearly 5 million workers. Currently, the only salaried workers guaranteed the right to overtime pay are those earning less than $23,660 per year. The administration’s new rule more than doubles that—raising the salary threshold to $50,440. That means that millions of hardworking middle-class Americans are going to get fairly compensated for their work. And that in turn will help the whole economy.

Americans are overdue for an overtime update. In 1975, more than 60 percent of full-time salaried workers earned time-and-a-half pay for every hour worked over 40 hours per week. Today, just 8 percent do. The rule was put in place to protect the middle class, but the threshold has fallen so much that current overtime law no longer covers middle class workers.

The new rule will raise the salary threshold to cover all full-time workers earning $970 a week–or $50,440 a year–or less and prevent future erosion of overtime by automatically updating the salary threshold based on either inflation or wage growth over time. Under the new rule, workers and employers will also enjoy clarity about who should be earning overtime. CAP Action, along with the Economic Policy Institute, has created a website with more information about what the new rule will do and how you can help. On it, you can check out this handy calculator to see how the new rule could benefit you.

Strengthening worker protections like overtime pay will help ensure that workers are fairly compensated for their hard work and will put extra money in the pocket of millions of middle-class workers. But this fix won’t happen on its own–-already, special interest groups are working against the law. Now that the draft rule has been released there is an important comment period before the rule will become final and the Department Of Labor needs to hear your voice. Visit FixOvertime.org and submit a comment letter directly to Secretary Tom Perez explaining how the rule could help you.

BOTTOM LINE: Ensuring that a hard day’s work earns a fair day’s pay is good for everyone. Strengthening overtime protections is one of several policies that could put more money in the pockets of hard-working, middle class families, helping create an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few. And more money in the pocket of workers means more money spent at local businesses, helping the whole economy

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My doctor’s negligence nearly killed me


rick martinez

Miami, FL
2,903
Supporters

A doctor’s negligence nearly killed me and left me $175,000 in debt. In most other states her malpractice insurance would have covered any costs but in Florida doctors aren’t required to carry it, putting patients lives and livelihoods at risk.

On January 11, 2013, I had surgery at the Office of Dr. Amaryllis Pascual. During the next 5 days, I began to feel ill, to the point that I thought I was going to die. When I finally checked into an emergency room, a CT scan revealed that Dr. Pascual had perforated my intestines and colon. It took two operations to save my life. Due to Dr. Pascual’s negligence I spent an extra 21 days in the hospital. The surgeons told me that if I had not gone to the ER, I would have died at home that evening.

My doctor — who forewent traditional malpractice insurance — was legally required to “self insure” herself by putting up collateral  assets of at least $100,000. But trickily she has avoided all obligations by filing for bankruptcy. Now, my insurance company refuses to cover my hospital stay and because Dr. Pascual has filed bankruptcy I have nowhere to turn and am left swimming in a sea of debt.

I am asking the state of Florida to require doctors to retain no less than $250,000 of malpractice insurance. Florida’s patients deserve protection from medical negligence and irresponsible physicians. Please join me.

I have fought very hard for the last two years to stay alive but Dr. Pascual’s unethical and deceitful practices just make me want to give up. I once had a nearly perfect credit score and now I may have to file for bankruptcy myself to protect myself from creditors whose money I relied on pay my hospital bills.

We will all have to trust a doctor at some point. Hopefully that medical professional will be responsible and have our best interest in mind when they treat us. But Florida makes it easy for those doctors who cut corners to get away with an astonishing amount of negligence with little or no consequences. This isn’t right.

Please join me in telling the State of Florida to require doctors to carry malpractice insurance. When you go under the knife, the last thing you should worry about is your pocketbook.