How cloud computing impacts the environment • Hacker News Board

Re: How cloud computing impacts the environment

#61

Post by mahic » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:12 PM UTC

hereme888 wrote: post #34

Data centers are more efficient than people managing that same amount in their own homes or office. Also, "1%....might come from burning coal....if it did....it would result in 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2". "Might"? "If" it did? How is that unreal theory useful to anyone?

Disclaimer: I'm the author of the article.

I'm not sure which part of it you believe is unreal, but I'll try to clarify; - the 1% electricity consumption of total world consumption is real - based on research done by IEA (https://www.iea.org/reports/tracking-buildings/data-centres-...) - The calculation on the effect of generating 200TWh of electricity from burning coal is 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 emission is real - the link in the article points to the estimation - the fact that most of world's energy comes from fossile sources is real. While it's not 100% from coal, 67% is from fossile fuels; https://www.iea.org/reports/electricity-information-2019

And some countries are worse than others. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/10/asia/china-data-center-ca...

Re: How cloud computing impacts the environment

#62

Post by mapleoin » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:26 PM UTC

rb808 wrote: post #37

Darkskiez wrote: post #7

Google at least claiming to buy 100% of their usage from renewable sources, they are pretty open that it doesn't mean that is what feeds their electrons at all times of the day though. Better than most traditional computing / on premises sources though. https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/renewable/

I buy 100% wind power at home, but its pretty much a scam I think. Of course when there isn't any wind I get coal/gas/nuclear generated power. The 99% of people who dont care dont care and its just a way to get some extra charge to some people who try to be green. I keep doing it to try to send some signal but might give up soon.

Don't know where you are, but green energy providers, at least in the UK, either have a relationship with the producer where they buy directly from them, rather than from the grid, or buy specific types of energy from the grid. It IS possible to buy energy from a specific source and energy is traded constantly during the day on the energy exchange.

Bulb for example have more information about where their energy comes from: https://bulb.co.uk/energy/

Re: How cloud computing impacts the environment

#63

Post by mahic » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:34 PM UTC

dangerface wrote: post #38

This is dumb, the environmental impact is the same as any other electrical appliance but we don't ask "What is the environmental impact of life support?" because it doesn't matter. The problem and solution have been clear for over a decade we all know it, we need clean renewable electricity. edit: I guess if you are releasing 12 articles a day they can't all be insightful.

Disclaimer: I'm the author of the article

I'm sorry to hear that you didn't like the article. I believe there is a fundamental difference between data centers and other electrical appliances because data centers consume energy 24/7/365, while electrical appliances do not.

It is a well known fact that electricity consumption from other sources, like heating or cooling buildings is much larger in comparison. Or even data networks and internet traffic in general; https://www.iea.org/reports/tracking-buildings/data-centres-... And there is a lot to do in those fields as well.

Unfortunately, renewables to overtake fossile are far away. Even with the development the last decade, wind and solar still count for only a fraction of world production; https://www.iea.org/reports/electricity-information-2019) Until then, we as developers can actually make a small contribution by offsetting getting the consumption from this particular source higher than it is today, even if number of data centers is exponentially increasing.

Hope you found some of the other articles insightful.

Re: How cloud computing impacts the environment

#64

Post by Aeolun » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 12:14 AM UTC

jerf wrote: post #46

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?

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 5…

Thanks, that (together with other comments) was actually really informative.

Re: How cloud computing impacts the environment

#65

Post by viraptor » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 7:41 AM UTC

Kuinox wrote: post #28

viraptor wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they just located there, or have dedicated connections? If they're just close, but on the standard grid, does the location really matter?

Electricty in France is low carbon.

Yes... But that wasn't the question.

Re: How cloud computing impacts the environment

#66

Post by hereme888 » Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 4:20 AM UTC

mahic wrote: post #61

hereme888 wrote: post #34

Data centers are more efficient than people managing that same amount in their own homes or office. Also, "1%....might come from burning coal....if it did....it would result in 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2". "Might"? "If" it did? How is that unreal theory useful to anyone?

Disclaimer: I'm the author of the article. I'm not sure which part of it you believe is unreal, but I'll try to clarify; - the 1% electricity consumption of total world consumption is real - based on research done by IEA ( https://www.iea.org/reports/tracking-buildings/data-centres-... ) - The calculation on the effect of generating 200TWh of electricity from burning coal is 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 emission is real…

Thanks for clarifying

Re: How cloud computing impacts the environment

#67

Post by dangerface » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

mahic wrote: post #63

dangerface wrote: post #38

This is dumb, the environmental impact is the same as any other electrical appliance but we don't ask "What is the environmental impact of life support?" because it doesn't matter. The problem and solution have been clear for over a decade we all know it, we need clean renewable electricity. edit: I guess if you are releasing 12 articles a day they can't all be insightful.

Disclaimer: I'm the author of the article I'm sorry to hear that you didn't like the article. I believe there is a fundamental difference between data centers and other electrical appliances because data centers consume energy 24/7/365, while electrical appliances do not. It is a well known fact that electricity consumption from other sources, like heating or cooling buildings is much larger in comparison. Or even da…

> because data centers consume energy 24/7/365, while electrical appliances do not.

But life support isn't? It really doesn't matter that its on 24/7, the source of the energy is the problem not where its going.

In my country renewables are 50% of our electricity and growing.

The cost of installing a new windmill will be a lot cheaper than hiring a team of coders to optimise a single piece of code. You also have the benefit of solving the problem instead of the symptom. Again this is very dumb sorry.