One of the problems with our growing dependence on the Internet, the Web and the panoply of applications and services that together make an online existence possible is that the electrical power needs of the server farms that host many larger sites - Google, Amazon, Second Life, Facebook - are immense, and their energy efficiency is far below what we might expect from these modern technologies.

A lot of effort is going into improving the servers themselves, with new processors, better power management and other features coming to market.  But we can also do something about the supply-side, as we see in this CNET News.com feature on a new proton exchange membrane (PEM) hydrogen fuel cell in use by Fujitsu in California.

Made by UTC Power, it sits in the car park and can produce 200 kilowatts of power, half that needed to cool the data centre. It's only 50 per cent efficient, so little better than conventional electrical transmission at the moment, but that will improve and UTC reckon they can get it up to 85%.  And it's being used to cool a site which is itself being heated by waste energy from processors, something else which could be improved.

But it is, at least, a start. And for now we should be grateful even for those gestures which demonstrate a willingness to engage with the issues of energy efficiency and show a path towards improvement, instead of sticking with old, bad practice or hoping that a single transformational technology will solve our problems.