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How cloud computing impacts the environment

thecloud.christmas

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Re: How cloud computing impacts the environment

#41

Post by ImminentFate »

Aeolun wrote: post #40
nicolaslem wrote: post #5

Disclaimer: former OVH employee > Although many cloud providers have pledged to decarbonize their data centers, none have ditched fossil fuels entirely Most datacenters in France are located close to nuclear power plants and only run on fossil fuels in case of a prolonged power outage. To me this is as carbon neutral as it gets.

Isn’t nuclear a fossil fuel as well? While not quite the same thing, I don’t think we can manufacture uranium (or whatever the reactor uses to run), more than once?

As of 2009, estimates were that we have between 200-400 years of nuclear fuel remaining at current consumption rates.

If we can efficiently extract uranium from saltwater, that value jumps to 60,000 years.

If instead we switch all reactors over to breeder types instead of the current light-water reactors, our 200-400 year estimate then becomes more like 30,000 years

Re: How cloud computing impacts the environment

#42

Post by shrubble »

Since we don't know for sure what the capacity utilization of say AWS is, we do not know if they are running physical servers which are lightly loaded or not.

It might be that AWS runs a tight ship or it might be that they have entire aisles of servers spun up but which run for only 1 hour per day.

Re: How cloud computing impacts the environment

#43

Post by omgtehlion »

mahic wrote: post #29
omgtehlion wrote: post #19

proposed solutions: > Increased energy efficiency on component level > Increased energy efficiency on data center level Why no “Increased efficiency on software level”? Is it simpler to throw hardware (and money, energy, carbon emissions) at the problem than find better solutions?

Disclaimer: I'm the author of the piece. If you read the very last paragraph, I actually propose increased efficiency on software level as a way to lower energy consumption. The two other (component and data center level) are things us as developers usually have little or no control over, they were merely used to illustrate that the industry as a whole is working on the problem, and that you as a developer actually c…

Thanks for clarification and for the article! First time I only skimmed over headings and missed that part.

Re: How cloud computing impacts the environment

#44

Post by Beltiras »

ImminentFate wrote: post #41
Aeolun wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t nuclear a fossil fuel as well? While not quite the same thing, I don’t think we can manufacture uranium (or whatever the reactor uses to run), more than once?

As of 2009, estimates were that we have between 200-400 years of nuclear fuel remaining at current consumption rates. If we can efficiently extract uranium from saltwater, that value jumps to 60,000 years. If instead we switch all reactors over to breeder types instead of the current light-water reactors, our 200-400 year estimate then becomes more like 30,000 years

Replace Uranium with Thorium and you get another increase in high-energy lifespan for humans by tens of thousands.

Re: How cloud computing impacts the environment

#45

Post by aratauto »

Aeolun wrote: post #40
nicolaslem wrote: post #5

Disclaimer: former OVH employee > Although many cloud providers have pledged to decarbonize their data centers, none have ditched fossil fuels entirely Most datacenters in France are located close to nuclear power plants and only run on fossil fuels in case of a prolonged power outage. To me this is as carbon neutral as it gets.

Isn’t nuclear a fossil fuel as well? While not quite the same thing, I don’t think we can manufacture uranium (or whatever the reactor uses to run), more than once?

"Fossil" means "remains of plants or animals", but in the context of environmental aspect of fuels the key aspect is emission of CO2. Nuclear is neither of that. On the other hand it is non-renewable like fossil fuels.

In the longer term (hundreds of years), humanity should be worried exhausting non-renewable resources, but in a shorter perspective the climate change is a bigger concern.

Re: How cloud computing impacts the environment

#46

Post by jerf »

Aeolun wrote: post #40
nicolaslem wrote: post #5

Disclaimer: former OVH employee > Although many cloud providers have pledged to decarbonize their data centers, none have ditched fossil fuels entirely Most datacenters in France are located close to nuclear power plants and only run on fossil fuels in case of a prolonged power outage. To me this is as carbon neutral as it gets.

Isn’t nuclear a fossil fuel as well? While not quite the same thing, I don’t think we can manufacture uranium (or whatever the reactor uses to run), more than once?

In the limit, energy is not a renewable resource, thanks to entropy. In that sense all energy is a "fossil fuel" left over from the Big Bang. However any Kardeshev type I civilization (located on one planet) will be satisfied with nuclear fission's power output for a time frame beyond our ability to predict into the future; that is, if we here in 2019 try to arrogantly predict that "there's a power crisis coming in 500 years!", it is very unlikely that 2519 is going to hail us as forward-thinking smart people, because the odds of something critical changing between now and then approach 100% [1]. Let alone several thousand years from now.

These predictions also generally include a healthy amount of assuming growth of energy in the future, too, not just projecting today's use indefinitely (although not necessarily predicting exponential growth either).

This also ignores what I would consider fairly good odds of non-terrestrial sources we may find on that time frame. Plus I'm still holding out hope that one of our fusion approaches will eventually pay off. (Dyson spheres are nice & all but there's still something to be said for being able to generate power in concentrated manners where you want it, rather than having to collect it at scale from an uncontrolled reactor.)

[1] For the fashionably misanthropic among us who may feel that statement may contain too much optimism, "total civilization collapse" would be such a "critical change".

Re: How cloud computing impacts the environment

#47

Post by seriesf »

A lot of people seem to cling to this number, 3-5 year lifecycle for servers. But, much to the disappointment of software developers, machines in large clouds are often in service for 8-10 years. When you build your own computers there’s nobody to tell you that the warranty has ended, so you just leave them in the rack as long as they are TCO-positive.

Re: How cloud computing impacts the environment

#48

Post by alex_young »

nicolaslem wrote: post #5

Disclaimer: former OVH employee > Although many cloud providers have pledged to decarbonize their data centers, none have ditched fossil fuels entirely Most datacenters in France are located close to nuclear power plants and only run on fossil fuels in case of a prolonged power outage. To me this is as carbon neutral as it gets.

If you run your workloads in AWS us-west-2 or GCP us-west1 you're running on hydroelectric energy produced at the Columbia River.

These regions are also really inexpensive due to this fact.

Re: How cloud computing impacts the environment

#49

Post by Mikeb85 »

cookie_monsta wrote: post #21
nicolaslem wrote: post #5

Disclaimer: former OVH employee > Although many cloud providers have pledged to decarbonize their data centers, none have ditched fossil fuels entirely Most datacenters in France are located close to nuclear power plants and only run on fossil fuels in case of a prolonged power outage. To me this is as carbon neutral as it gets.

I don't mean to nitpick, but wouldn't "as carbon neutral as it gets" be zero reliance on fossil fuels, even for backup?

Zero reliance isn't currently feasible unless you're ok with constant outages. If you're connected to the grid you're using electricity from fossil fuel at some point.
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