Critical Role that R&E networks and clouds will play in helping

universities reduce their carbon footprint

Bill St. ArnaudBill.st.arnaud@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted all material in this slide deck may be reproduced, modified or distributed without prior permission of the author

Theme of this talk• Climate Change is real and is happening much faster than the most

pessimistic forecasts

• Traditional solutions at most universities to address climate change – particularly energy efficiency are insufficient and in some cases counter productive

• We need to move to low or zero carbon solutions and de-couple energy consumption from production of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. Innovation is essential

• R&E networks and clouds can play a critical role

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Global Average Temperature

2009 second warmest year ever

Spring 2010 warmest everThis is despite a solar sun spot minimum

The Earth is Warming Over 100 Times Faster TodayThan During the Last Ice Age Warming!

CO2 Rose From 185 to 265ppm (80ppm)

in 6000 years or 1.33 ppm per Century

CO2 Has Risen From 335 to 385ppm (50ppm)

in 30 years or 1.6 ppm per Year

http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/program_history/keeling_curve_lessons.html

Climate Forecasts

MIT

> MIT report predicts median temperature forecast of 5.2°C– 11°C increase in Northern

Canada & Europe– http://globalchange.mit.edu/pub

s/abstract.php?publication_id=990

> Last Ice age average global temperature was 5-6°C cooler than today– Most of Canada & Europe was

under 2-3 km ice– With BAU we are talking about

5-6°C change in temperature in the opposite direction in less than 80 Years

Climate Change is not reversible

• Climate Change is not like acid rain or ozone destruction where environment will quickly return to normal once source of pollution is removed

• GHG emissions will stay in the atmosphere for thousands of years and continue to accumulate

• Planet will continue to warm up even if we drastically reduce emissions All we hope to achieve is

to slow down the rapid rate of climate change

Weaver et al., GRL (2007)

Climate tipping points

• USGS report finds that future climate shifts have been underestimated and warns of debilitating abrupt shift in climate that would be devastating.

• Tipping elements in the Earth's climate - National Academies of Science– “Society may be lulled into a false sense

of security by smooth projections of global change. Our synthesis of present knowledge suggests that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point within this century under anthropogenic climate change. “

Arctic Summer Ice MeltingAccelerating Relative to IPCC 2007 Predictions

Source: www.copenhagendiagnosis.org

Urgency of Action• “We’re uncertain about the magnitude of climate change, which is

inevitable, because we’re talking about reaching levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere not seen in millions of years.

• You might think that this uncertainty weakens the case for action, but it actually strengthens it.

• This risk of catastrophe, rather than the details of cost-benefit calculations, makes the most powerful case for strong climate policy.

• Current projections of global warming in the absence of action are just too close to the kinds of numbers associated with doomsday scenarios. It would be irresponsible — it’s tempting to say criminally irresponsible — not to step back from what could all too easily turn out to be the edge of a cliff.”

Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/magazine/11Economy-t.html?pagewanted=1

The Falsehood of Energy Efficiency• Most current approaches to reduce carbon footprint are focused on increased

energy efficiency of equipment and processes

• Also greater efficiency can paradoxically increase energy consumption by reducing overall cost service and therefore stimulates demand– Khazzoom-Brookes postulate (aka Jevons paradox - not to be confused with

rebound effect)– In last Energy crisis in 1973 Congress passed first energy efficiency laws (CAFÉ)

which mandate minimum mileage for cars, home insulation and appliances– Net effect was to reduce cost of driving car, heating or cooling home, and

electricity required for appliances– Consumer response was to drive further, buy bigger homes and appliances

• The issue is not the amount of energy that we use, but the type of energy

More on Energy Efficiency• If we add all of the potential savings from energy efficiency, they only abate

about 25% of GHG emissions.

• To make matters worse, the “low hanging fruit” will grow smaller over time, decreasing returns to our efforts.

• “To reduce our GHG emissions by 85 percent by 2050, we need radical innovation to provide clean energy alternatives, rather than just using carbon-based fuels a bit more efficiently. ”– ITIF Institute - Debunking the Myths of Global Climate Change

• Offsetting efficiency savings will be more people in the US in the next decase(391 million vs. 305 million), more households (147 million vs. 113 million), more vehicles (297 million vs. 231 million) and a bigger economy (almost double in size).

Obama's Energy Pipe Dreams http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/21/obama-s-energy-pipe-dreams.html

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The challenge of utilities• Utilities prime motivator is to sell as much power as possible – whether publicly or

private owned

• Utilities are focusing “peak” power demand to avoid investment in new power plants – hence Smart grids and meters– As much as possible they want to increase base load power demand which is

mostly coal and some nuclear as this is most cost effective power– Energy efficiency paradoxically allows utilities to use more GHG producing coal

power, rather than costly but environmentally friendly, gas and hydro

• For public relations purposes, or as ordered by government, they are purchasing expensive “green” power– But need to keep coal and nuclear plants operating in case of green power is

unavailable– Ideally they want to keep coal and nuclear plants operating at 100% because they

are most efficient under full load and it is also very difficult for these plants to change power output to match load

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State Climate ActionUS STATES 2009

•72% Have Climate Action Plans•42% Have GHG Reduction Targets•66% Are Experimenting with Cap & Trade

SOURCE: Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Climate101-State Actions, January 2009

Virtually all state and federal plans call for 30-40% wind and solar power

Zero Carbon strategy essential

• Zero carbon strategy using renewable energy critically important if governments mandate carbon neutrality, or if there is a climate catastrophe

• With a zero carbon strategy growth in demand for services will not effect GHG emissions– Anything times zero is always zero

• Wind and solar power are most likely candidates because of opportunity cost/benefit analysis especially time to deploy– Nuclear has high opportunity cost because of time to deploy– http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/14/stanford-study-part-1-wind-solar-bas

eload-easily-beat-nuclear-and-they-all-best-clean-coal/

• But renewable energy sites are usually located far from cities and electrical distribution systems are not designed to carry load– http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/12/pdf/renewable_transmissi

on.pdf– Local wind/solar will be an important component

Grand Challenge – Building solutions using renewable energy only

• Most government GHG plans plan to 30-40% of electrical power will come from renewable sources

• How do you provide mission critical services when energy source is unreliable?– Ebbing wind or setting sun

• Back up diesel and batteries are not an option because they are not zero carbon and power outages can last for days or weeks

• Need new energy delivery architectures and business models to ensure reliable service delivery– R&E networks and clouds can play a critical role – Not so much in energy efficiency, but building smart solutions that adapt to

availability of renewable power

ICT and Cyber-infrastructure and CO2 emissions*

• It is estimated that the ICT industry alone produces CO2 emissions that is equivalent to the carbon output of the entire aviation industry.

• ICT emissions growth fastest of any sector in society, growing at 6% per year

• One small computer server generates as much carbon dioxide as a SUV with a fuel efficiency of 15 miles per gallon

• Typical university produces 200,000 – 500,000 metric tons CO2 per year of which 100,000 – 300,000 tons is from Cyber-infrastructure and ICT

• Back of envelope estimates suggests Higher Ed in US produce 5-10% of all emissions

*An Inefficient Tuth: http://www.globalactionplan.org.uk/event_detail.aspx?eid=2696e0e0-28fe-4121-bd36-3670c02eda49

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Most US Universities Will Become Regulated Entities -- Emitting Over 25,000 Metric Tons CO2e

Gross Emissions Scope 1 & 2 (CO2e) Year

US EPA GHG Rule Requires Reporting in 2011?

491,258 2008 YES!

52,2709 2008 YES!80,498 2007 YES!234,000 2008 YES!309, 117 2008 YES!192,862 2008 YES!

SOURCE: American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, http://acupcc.aashe.org/

The Data ExplosionExperiments Archives LiteratureSimulations

PetabytesDoubling every

2 years

Consumer

The Challenge: Enable Discovery. Deliver the capability to mine, search and analyze this data in near real time

The Response: A massive build-out of data centers & HPC facilities

Source: Dan Reed Microsoft

The Technical Computing Pyramid

Petascale/Exascale/…

Mobile/Desktopcomputing

Laboratory clusters

University infrastructure

National infrastructure

Data, data, data

Data, data, data

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109

Cap

able

Use

rs

Source: Dan Reed Microsoft & Ed Lazowska UoWash

85% of research computing can be done using cloudshttp://bit.ly/cC1eQ7

IT biggest power draw

Heating,CoolingandVentilation40-50%

Heating,CoolingandVentilation40-50%

Lighting11%Lighting11%

IT Equipment 30-40%

IT Equipment 30-40%

Other6%Other6%

Sources: BOMA 2006, EIA 2006, AIA 2006

Energy Consumption World Wide

Transportation

25%

Transportation

25%

Manufacturing25%

Manufacturing25%

Buildings50%Buildings50%

Energy Consumption Typical Building

• Half of ICT consumption is data centers

• In ten years 50% of today’s Data Centers and major science facilities in the US will have insufficient power and cooling;*

• By 2012, half of all Data Centers will have to relocate or outsource applications to another facility.*

• CO2 emissions from US datacenters greater than all CO2 emissions from Netherlands or Argentina http://bit.ly/cW6jEY

• Coal fuels much of Internet 'cloud,' Greenpeace says http://bit.ly/bkeSec

• Data centers will consume 12% of electricity in the US by 2020 (TV Telecom)

Source: Gartner; Meeting the DC power and cooling challenge

Growth Projections Data Centers

Digital vs Traditional appliances

• Purchasing green power locally is expensive with significant transmission line losses–Demand for green power within cities expected to grow dramatically

• ICT facilities DON’T NEED TO BE LOCATED IN CITIES–-Cooling also a major problem in cities

• But most renewable energy sites are very remote and impractical to connect to electrical grid.

– Can be easily reached by an optical network– Provide independence from electrical utility and high costs in wheeling power– Savings in transmission line losses (up to 15%) alone, plus carbon offsets can pay for moving ICT facilities to renewable energy site

• ICT is only industry ideally suited to relocate to renewable energy sites– Also ideal for business continuity in event of climate catastrophe

Get off the Grid!

MIT to build zero carbon data center in Holyoke MA

• The data center will be managed and funded by the four main partners in the facility: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cisco Systems, the University of Massachusetts and EMC.

• It will be a high-performance computing environment that will help expand the research and development capabilities of the companies and schools in Holyoke

– http://www.greenercomputing.com/news/2009/06/11/cisco-emc-team-mit-launch-100m-green-data-center

–

Zero Carbon Data Centers

Hydro-electric powered data centers

Data IslandiaDigital Data Archive

ASIO solar powered data centers

Wind powered data centersEcotricity in UK builds windmills at data center locations with no capital cost to user

GreenStar –World’s First Zero Carbon Internet & Cloud

Distributed computing architectures, applications, grids, clouds, Web services, virtualization, dematerialization, remote instrumentation and sensors, etc.

Share infrastructure & maximize lower cost power by “following wind & sun” networks.

Develop benchmarking tools to earn CO2 offset dollars for university and ICT department

http://www.greenstarnetwork.com/

GreenStar Network• World’s first zero carbon network• Nodes in Ireland, USA Spain and

Belgium to be added shortly• http://www.greenstarnetwork.com/

Economic benefits of follow the wind/sun architectures

• Cost- and Energy-Aware Load Distribution Across Data Centers– http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~ricardob/papers/hotpower09.pdf– Green data centers can decrease brown energy consumption by 35% by leveraging the green data

centers at only a 3% cost increase

• Cutting the Electric Bill for Internet-Scale Systems– Companies can shift computing power to a data center in a location where it’s an off-peak time of

the day and energy prices are low– Cassatt a product that dynamically shifts loads to find the cheapest energy prices– 45% maximum savings in energy costs– http://ccr.sigcomm.org/online/files/p123.pdf– http://earth2tech.com/2009/08/19/how-data-centers-can-follow-energy-prices-to-save-millions/

• Computing for the future of the planet– http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/dtg/~ah12/– http://earth2tech.com/2008/07/25/data-centers-will-follow-the-sun-and-chase-the-wind

Economic Benefits of Green Clouds• Cloud computing breakthru! CENIC & PNWGP have connected 10G lightpaths to

Amazon compute & storage, OOI CI early user http://bit.ly/aG0a06

• Cloud helps universities reduce costs by 74% - more clouds reduce energy costs http://bit.ly/c5mT58

• Cap and Trade (state or national) will significantly raise cost of computing on campus

– E.g Uo Indianna with carbon at $24/ton cost of computing will at $7 million to university bill– RGGI wants carbon to go to $100/ton

• Will Clouds make University Computing Services obsolete? http://bit.ly/bauNiI

• Amazon joins Top500 supercomputer list with its Cluster Compute service ... http://bit.ly/99zipE

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Institutions using Google Cloud/Apps

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Policy Frameworks• Cap and Trade e.g. European ETS

– This is the current favourite instrument being deployed by many governments around the world. – Cap and trade systems can be easily gamed and developing meaningful measurable, verifiable and

enforceable offset standards may be very tough. • Cap and Dividend

– is a relatively new concept and works on the similar principle as cap and trade except that all monies used to purchase offsets by large emitters are paid in dividends to consumers.

– The big advantage that jurisdictions with large emissions are not penalized as the money spent on offsets is returned to the constituents in that jurisdiction.

– There is currently a cap and dividend bill in the US congress. The proposed cap and trade bill in California is also evolving along these lines.

• Cap and Reward – is a variant of cap and dividend where instead of paying cash dividends from the sale of offsets the money

is earmarked for the purchase by consumers and businesses of low carbon products and services such as ICT.

– This creates a virtuous circle where the money earned by the sale of offsets is used to further promote the reduction of CO2 emissions in a given jurisdiction.

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Source: European Commission Joint Research Centre, “The Future Impact of ICTs on Environmental Sustainability”, August 2004

Virtualization and De-materialization

Direct replacement of physical goods – 10% - 20% impact

Case Western pilot with Kindle DX• One pound of printer paper generates 4 pounds of

CO2

• One pound of newspaper produces 3 pounds of CO2

• One pound of textbooks produces 5 pounds of CO2

• Babcock school of Management textbooks for 160 students alone produces 45 Tons CO2

– http://www.stewartmarion.com/carbon-footprint/html/carbon-footprint-stuff.html

Free Wifi on Buses• There’s a school bus service called The Green Bus in Birmingham, UK which

operates double-decker, low-carbon emissions buses that carry over 1400 kids to school every day (saving over 2000 car journeys).

• In addition to encouraging kids to play peer-to-peer games, the access points allow the bus company to monitor where the buses are in the city in real time. Parents as well as staff can follow the progress of any bus via Google maps.

• Business bus service in San Francisco offers office on the move – free wifi, femto cell service etc

• • http://www.muniwireless.com/2009/01/14/school-kids-enjoy-wi-fi-on-green-bus/

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Carbon Reward Strategy for last mile infrastructure

• Provide free high speed Internet and fiber to the home with resale of electrical and gas power (ESCOs)

– http://www.newamerica.net/files/HomesWithTails_wu_slater.pdf– Pilots in Cleveland, Switzerland, Ottawa, etc

• Customer pays a premium on their gas and electric bill

• Customers encouraged to save money through reduced energy consumption and reduced carbon output

• Customer NOT penalized if they reduce energy consumption– May end up paying substantially less then they do now for gas + electricity +

broadband + telephone + cable

• Network operator gets guaranteed revenue based on energy consumption rather than fickle triple play

What are carbon offsets?• Many claims of energy savings can only be proven through rigorous process of

carbon offsets (ISO 14064)

• Companies or individuals buy carbon offsets from projects that remove or reduce carbon– Planting trees, building hydro dams, installing energy efficient processes, etc

• Two types of markets– Regulated markets – Alberta, BC , Europe and New England– Voluntary markets – Air Canada, Chicago, etc– Carbon buying and selling is done through registries or exchanges

• Pacific Carbon Trust, Montreal Carbon exchange, REGI

Carbon offsets to fund research & networks

• Conference Board report of Canada recommends that research be funded from carbon offsets– The Economic and Employment Impacts of Climate-Related Technology

Investments http://www.conferenceboard.ca/documents.aspx?did=3586

• OECD also recommends that green research be funded through carbon offsets• Alberta GHG program allows emitters to invest in research that reduces GHG

– According to Conference Board of Canada this results in best bang for the buck

– Estimate will result in $11.8 Billion in benefits to Canada• Need to open dialogue with RGGI about funding research and networks from

offsets– Last year RGGI spent $650m on GHG reduction programs

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Proposed new funding scenario for R&E networks and cost reduction for universities

• Many universities are proposing to go carbon neutral and/or mandated to reduce their energy and carbon footprint

• Purchase of high quality offsets difficult and costly– Better to find energy and carbon savings internally

• Computers, networks and data centers account for 30-50% of energy consumption on campus

• Video conferencing, eLearning, zero carbon data centers, clouds, grids collaborative cyber-infrastructure, etc should reduce energy consumption

• New revenue opportunities for R&E networks in helping universities reduce their energy costs http://bit.ly/dqvN70

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• Most R&E networks charge a membership fee or base fee based on size of institution, research dollars or number of students

• Instead propose to charge membership or base fee based on institution’s energy consumption

– E.g. 1% of total Kwh for the past year

• R&E network agrees to provide a variety of services at no charge including• “X” miles of dedicated wavelengths• “Y” Mbps of Internet bandwidth• “Z” hours of video- conference• “W” time on a commercial compute cloud or central storage• “V” allocation on Optiputer or 4K vide conference• etc

• Institution is encouraged to reduce energy consumption and there is penalty in services if they do so

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New R&E network funding scenario“Cap and Reward”

Building a R&E “5G” wireless network

• Enabling Innovation with next generation wireless 5G Internet + clouds - technical details http://bit.ly/c3iZsZ3:18 PM Apr 25th

• National R&E wireless network for students and researchers • Existing 3G and 4G networks cannot handle data load• Need to offload data at nearest node or tower at university campus• New Wifi standards 802.11u allow for data handoff from 3G networks• WiFi nodes can be powered by renewable sources such as roof top solar

panel over 400Hz power systems or ethernet power• Most applications will run in the cloud

Impact of 5G networks

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• The PC is out of the loop• The phone and iPad is a sensor platform• Processing is done in real time in the cloud

– Allowing processing that can’t be done on the device– Big data analysis

• Building new virtual networks on the back of existing commercial 3G networks

• Reinventing a major industry• More on revenue opportunities for R&E and open access

networks - building next generation "5G" wireless network http://bit.ly/dck1kR

Source: Tim OReilly

Do your carbon inventory NOW!!

• You can not earn credits until you do an inventory and calculate baseline emissions

• RGGI aims for carbon to be $100 per ton in coming years (Currently $12-20/ton)

• At $100/t of CO2 the cost of GHG emission could be as much $10 - $50 million per year for university in the next decade

– A lot depends on details of Obama’s cap and trade

• Conversely university could earn $10 - $50 million per year if a university is zero carbon

– No revenue potential if university is carbon neutral

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NYSERDA & RGGI incentives• Over $100 Million Available to Improve Productivity and Your Bottom Line• The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA) Industrial and

Process Efficiency (IPE) program offers performance based incentives to help data center owners and operators offset the cost of investments in energy efficiency and IT productivity projects in their data centers.

• Incentive Caps• 50% Project Cost• $5 million/facility/year• Examples of energy savings projects that may be implemented through these programs include,

but are not limited to:– Air Flow Management– Applications Management– Cooling– Next Generation Servers– Use of Waste Heat– Server Load Prioritization and Optimization– UPS System Upgrades– Storage Consolidation

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Final remarks

• The problem we face is NOT energy consumption, but carbon emissions

• Think carbon, not energy

• We must start addressing climate change now – not in 2050 or 2020

• 80% reduction in CO2 emissions will fundamentally change everything we do including universities and networks

• Huge potential for innovation for ICT sector because 30% of energy must come from renewable sources

Cyber-infrastructure in a Carbon Constrained World

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0960.pdf

Let’s Keep The Conversation Going

Blogspot

Bill St. Arnaud

http://green-broadband.blogspot.com

Twitter

http://twitter.com/BillStArnaud

E-mail list

Bill.St.Arnaud@gmail.com

Additional Information• Cloud helps universities reduce costs by 74% - more clouds reduce energy costs http://bit.ly/c5mT58• Cloud Computing results in up to 50% savings for government (not counting energy savings)

http://bit.ly/cPsT03• Cloud computing breakthru! CENIC & PNWGP have connected 10G lightpaths to Amazon compute &

storage, OOI CI early user http://bit.ly/aG0a06• EEE Green House Gas standards for 5G networks and Green ICThttp://bit.ly/bqYNyN• CO2 emissions from US datacenters greater than all CO2 emissions from Netherlands or Argentina

http://bit.ly/cW6jEY• Amazon joins Top500 supercomputer list with its Cluster Compute service ... http://bit.ly/99zipE• Internet2 and NOAA announce partnership to build NWave, an advanced climate research network to

support 80TB of... http://fb.me/v7CVDeFe• What A Price on Carbon Would Cost Data Center Operatorshttp://bit.ly/9AOZzH• Moving beyond cyber-infrastructure - greening and moving HPC into the cloud http://bit.ly/bNGrXy• Industry and universities must prepare for next Y2K - "CO2K"http://bit.ly/9UMpMo• Speed Bumps Ahead for Electric-Vehicle Charging - time to get off the grid and out of the box

http://bit.ly/aWXrx311:41 AM Apr 29th via web• Double WOW!! OECD recommends that basic research in ICT should be supported through carbon offset

mechanismshttp://bit.ly/a8VhNk• Green Investment Opportunity for small business - on the move electric car charging http://bit.ly/aaMZND

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• Enabling Innovation with next generation wireless 5G Internet + clouds - technical details http://bit.ly/c3iZsZ3:18 PM Apr 25th via web

• Enabling innovation for small business through clouds and R&E networks http://bit.ly/bn28KD• Will Clouds make University Computing Services obsolete?http://bit.ly/bauNiI• Investment strategies for Smart Grids/ Meters using the Internethttp://bit.ly/cx2d28• Coal fuels much of Internet 'cloud,' Greenpeace sayshttp://bit.ly/bkeSec10:42 AM Mar 30th via web• Why Cloud Computing Leaders Need to Demand Clean Powerhttp://bit.ly/9jw6Nd10:25 AM Mar 30th via

web• 85% of research computing can be done using cloudshttp://bit.ly/cC1eQ7• The Rise of Research-driven Cloud Computing http://bit.ly/bA9YjL• More on building a 5G wireless mobile R&E green networkhttp://bit.ly/a5zQFL• 100 Great Twitter Feeds to Follow Green Tech http://bit.ly/bD7EBX• More on revenue opportunities for R&E and open access networks - building next generation "5G"

wireless network http://bit.ly/dck1kR• New revenue opportunites for R&E networks in helping universities reduce their energy

costs http://bit.ly/dqvN70

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