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The internet eats up less energy than you might think

nytimes.com

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Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#21

Post by beckman466 »

I see today’s internet as it is discussed in this article and in public discourse in general (with blockchain and all) as a massive black box dragon that has grown completely out of control and is now literally devouring the world. [1]

Another radically cooperative alternative is starting to emerge: fully agent centric networks, where modular and transparent app logic/functions validate and share the information that is important to a specific network of peers. Combine that with the exciting work of Mikorizal and Sensorica, which turn the model of Enterprise Resource Planning upside down (or as they describe it: “merging REA [the Resources Event Agent accounting method] with some ideas from Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) , Work Flow Management (WFM) and Constraint-Based Scheduling (CBS) systems” [2]), to create ‘Network Resource Planning’ systems and ‘Open Value Networks‘.

In other words: they are re-rooting economic networks for the digital age in a way that “enable[s the] internetworking among many different software projects for resource planning and accounting within fractal networks of people and groups.“ By focusing on protocols instead of platforms, a more balanced and horizontal web of trust and transparency can emerge.

The most exciting projects in the dWeb for me, that I mentioned above, are: http://valueflo.ws + holo-REA and holochain.

[1] https://www.kosmosjournal.org/article/seeing-wetiko-on-capit...

[2] http://www.jeffsutherland.org/oopsla97/haugen.html

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#22

Post by unilynx »

adflux wrote: post #5
jillesvangurp wrote: post #3

Something that the article does not mention is that most of the large cloud providers are committed to 100% renewables when it comes to their energy usage. E.g. Google has been working on this for ages and most / all (?) of their data centers are running on clean energy. Most of the non sustainable energy consumption happens on the consumer side where most of us are dependent on grids that are also shifting to more s…

Same for Microsoft, I think they intend to be carbon negative by 2025. And still there's people in the Netherlands complaining that datacentres use up too much of the green energy available in the Netherlands. Truly backwards way of thinking

The biggest problem is them using up billions of government subsidies which were supposed to be used to decarbonise existing energy needs, not attract new ones.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#23

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

ppf wrote: post #8

This article is very light on details. I'm also not sure what the difference between "traditional data centres"and "cloud data centres" is. It also completely ignores (as does everyone else) the 700lb gorilla in the room - the embedded energy content of all of the computing equipment, from the video camera used to film content, to the networking equipment and data centre servers, to the final device used to consume t…

> I'm also not sure what the difference between "traditional data centres"and "cloud data centres" is.

Vendor lock-in is the only difference.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#24

Post by gelert »

beckman466 wrote: post #10
ppf wrote: post #8

This article is very light on details. I'm also not sure what the difference between "traditional data centres"and "cloud data centres" is. It also completely ignores (as does everyone else) the 700lb gorilla in the room - the embedded energy content of all of the computing equipment, from the video camera used to film content, to the networking equipment and data centre servers, to the final device used to consume t…

> It also completely ignores (as does everyone else) the 700lb gorilla in the room - the embedded energy content of all of the computing equipment Yes, I’d love to read more about that. i wonder if anyone here has a link to some research that looks at the full-er picture.

This is a good link to start exploring the issue:

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/06/embodied-energy-of...

Low tech magazine has a very definite agenda but I've found their writing really informative and I think they do a good job in raising how enormous an issue this really is.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#25

Post by brongondwana »

southerntofu wrote: post #16
jillesvangurp wrote: post #3

Something that the article does not mention is that most of the large cloud providers are committed to 100% renewables when it comes to their energy usage. E.g. Google has been working on this for ages and most / all (?) of their data centers are running on clean energy. Most of the non sustainable energy consumption happens on the consumer side where most of us are dependent on grids that are also shifting to more s…

Is the datacenter disconnected from the electric grid? Does it not have huge tanks of petrol to run backup generators? Was the datacenter built from locally-sourced materials? Those are the easy questions. What "renewable" energy does it run and how was it produced? What's the carbox/fossil profile of those energy sources? How long do they need to run, and in what conditions, in order to offset this initial fossil en…

The transport of messages across the country or even the globe is, like shipping things around the world in a big boat, surprisingly cheap compared to the cost of the endpoints.

You can get a lot of containers on a boat and a lot of bits down an optical fibre. The cost of the crypto on the other hand, that adds up a bit.

Also BitTorrent uses a bunch of power on a bunch of endpoint servers which are often less efficient than custom silicon. Tricky to calculate.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#26

Post by hughrr »

southerntofu wrote: post #20
ppf wrote: post #8

This article is very light on details. I'm also not sure what the difference between "traditional data centres"and "cloud data centres" is. It also completely ignores (as does everyone else) the 700lb gorilla in the room - the embedded energy content of all of the computing equipment, from the video camera used to film content, to the networking equipment and data centre servers, to the final device used to consume t…

> "traditional data centres"and "cloud data centres" There is no difference hardware-wise. The difference is our cloud overlords have been promoting "on-demand scaling" as a proof "serverless hosting" is superior to traditional ways because it's greener and "we can shutdown machines when there's no demands". Which is arguably true, but so short-sighted it hurts to think journalists will fall into this trap. > to the…

Actually I think it’s more that density is higher with the cloud.

Although eu-west-1c ran out of nodes the other day so YMMV anyway.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#27

Post by chimprich »

joecool1029 wrote: post #7
jillesvangurp wrote: post #3

Something that the article does not mention is that most of the large cloud providers are committed to 100% renewables when it comes to their energy usage. E.g. Google has been working on this for ages and most / all (?) of their data centers are running on clean energy. Most of the non sustainable energy consumption happens on the consumer side where most of us are dependent on grids that are also shifting to more s…

I think it's probably important to point out that while Google may purchase 100% of their energy usage from renewable sources, this does not actually mean the datacenters run on renewable sources: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/renewable/ I bring this up as renewables are currently supplemental and don't replace base load. Hydro storage isn't available/practical for all regions, nuclear has been deemed too…

> this does not actually mean the datacenters run on renewable sources

Yes, this is a problem.

Let's say the grid uses 100 imaginary units of power per year. 50% is currently produced through solar and wind.

Company A buys 50 units and company B buys 50 units a year, until company A gets a crisis of conscience and decides to go green. They manage to get a deal whereby they pay for a certificate that says that their 50 units is produced through renewables. Great.

Company B, however, has customers who care less about green stuff so they just buy energy from the grid and "their" electricity is now just produced from fossil fuels.

In this case has anything really changed? It's probably a good thing that Google is buying renewable energy: I expect it raises demand for renewables in some way and it's good politically for companies to compete for green credentials. But it doesn't seem to do that much.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#28

Post by ashtonkem »

ppf wrote: post #8

This article is very light on details. I'm also not sure what the difference between "traditional data centres"and "cloud data centres" is. It also completely ignores (as does everyone else) the 700lb gorilla in the room - the embedded energy content of all of the computing equipment, from the video camera used to film content, to the networking equipment and data centre servers, to the final device used to consume t…

Apple themselves claims that roughly 80% of the emissions of an iPhone comes from production; with the remainder being transit, use, and end of life recycling. As far as electronics are concerned, the best thing you can do is defer upgrading as long as possible.

Interestingly enough, the same is true for cars. It’s often better to just keep using an older car until it dies from a CO2 perspective (sometimes older cars emit other pollutants that makes this more complicated). Depending on the exact mix of electricity production in your area, it can sometimes be greener to use a used gasoline car than a new EV, although that is changing as energy production shifts towards renewable sources.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#29

Post by maccard »

ashtonkem wrote: post #28
ppf wrote: post #8

This article is very light on details. I'm also not sure what the difference between "traditional data centres"and "cloud data centres" is. It also completely ignores (as does everyone else) the 700lb gorilla in the room - the embedded energy content of all of the computing equipment, from the video camera used to film content, to the networking equipment and data centre servers, to the final device used to consume t…

Apple themselves claims that roughly 80% of the emissions of an iPhone comes from production; with the remainder being transit, use, and end of life recycling. As far as electronics are concerned, the best thing you can do is defer upgrading as long as possible. Interestingly enough, the same is true for cars. It’s often better to just keep using an older car until it dies from a CO2 perspective (sometimes older cars…

Agree eith everything you've said, but with one caveat - the resale market for cars and consumer electronics is completely different. Everyone I know has a drawer full of old laptops/chargers/phones that were purchased new and are only destined for landfill. Meanwhile, cars get reused long after their first owner gets rid of them even if they replace them every two years.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#30

Post by CyberRabbi »

Government should start legislating that non-renewable energy companies must gradually raise their prices to a level such that demand is decreased to a sustainable level. That would be an easy thing for them to do and the outcome is a must if it’s for the survival of the planet. Does anyone know why this policy has not been implemented?
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