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This may sound snarky, but... I really wonder how helpful such projects are. Making the Internet greener is undoubtedly an important goal, but I feel this is p

by hannob 7y ago

This may sound snarky, but... I really wonder how helpful such projects are. Making the Internet greener is undoubtedly an important goal, but I feel this is perpetuating a myth that we're gonna fix the climate crisis with small-scale projects from below. Practically this is doing nothing to provide any relevant fix for the problem. What we should be doing is thinking about how we can fix the problem at scale, e.g. pressuring large IT companies to get real about the green image they like to peddle. (i.e. care more about news like this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22167858 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22167858 )

mpfundstein 7y ago
before you'll be able to run you need to learn to walk u know.... at least this shit is inspiring
nothal 7y ago
I think that seeing things like this should serve more as a point of inspiration, not a full faceted solution.
mc3 7y ago
For real efficiency we'd need renewable feeding the grid, then massive and efficient server racks, with your tiddly website running in a docker container on there somewhere, hopefully this is on an edge node close to the person viewing the site. In other words economies of scale. The nice thing about that is that you don't have to change the tech much, you can still use digital ocean or whatever, but they need to get their power from renewable, which in turn means their grid needs to. The not so nice thing is we are not changing fast enough. I hope pure price pressure from tech advantages will get us from fossils to renewable.
LinuxBender 7y ago
One use case I imagine would be for folks that live off-grid, but still want to have some home automation. Realistically these folks are using large banks of batteries, large solar panels and big inverters, but there is no harm in optimizing the load for long run time when there are periods of low sunlight and wind.
rebuilder 7y ago
I think it's a good way of finding and demonstrating the real-life gotchas of sustainable energy. For example, I don't think most people have a good understanding of the cost-benefit calculations that go into how much renewable energy production capacity we can build while keeping to co2 emission targets, given that new capacity needs to be built with the current energy setup. The "embodied energy" aspect of this article illustrates that.
bacon_waffle 7y ago
One benefit of small projects is that they give people a sense of scale, and a better mental framework for thinking about energy use. Electrical power is something we don't (usually) see or physically interact with, this project gives an idea of what a PV panel or battery that can run a tiny computer looks and feels like.
stevenhuang 7y ago
These small-scale projects directly inspires those linked in your article to act. The more we talk about it and try to make a change--any change--the greater the impetus to make greater changes. Large-scale projects don't magically wink into existence in a vacuum, the conversation needs to happen and the ball first needs to get rolling.
aetherspawn 7y ago
I learnt that server power usage varies a lot on load. Didn’t consider this to be so significant before.
zajio1am 7y ago
To fix problem at scale, there is a simple and elegant solution: revenue-neutral carbon tax - https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/ https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/
chameleon_world 7y ago
You wouldn't have posted this if this project wasn't created. You wouldn't have discussed this with other people. It's hard to fix a big problem when most people don't even understand the problem.

by hannob 7y ago

mpfundstein 7y ago

before you'll be able to run you need to learn to walk u know.... at least this shit is inspiring

nothal 7y ago

I think that seeing things like this should serve more as a point of inspiration, not a full faceted solution.

mc3 7y ago

For real efficiency we'd need renewable feeding the grid, then massive and efficient server racks, with your tiddly website running in a docker container on there somewhere, hopefully this is on an edge node close to the person viewing the site. In other words economies of scale. The nice thing about that is that you don't have to change the tech much, you can still use digital ocean or whatever, but they need to get their power from renewable, which in turn means their grid needs to. The not so nice thing is we are not changing fast enough. I hope pure price pressure from tech advantages will get us from fossils to renewable.

LinuxBender 7y ago

One use case I imagine would be for folks that live off-grid, but still want to have some home automation. Realistically these folks are using large banks of batteries, large solar panels and big inverters, but there is no harm in optimizing the load for long run time when there are periods of low sunlight and wind.

rebuilder 7y ago

I think it's a good way of finding and demonstrating the real-life gotchas of sustainable energy. For example, I don't think most people have a good understanding of the cost-benefit calculations that go into how much renewable energy production capacity we can build while keeping to co2 emission targets, given that new capacity needs to be built with the current energy setup. The "embodied energy" aspect of this article illustrates that.

bacon_waffle 7y ago

One benefit of small projects is that they give people a sense of scale, and a better mental framework for thinking about energy use. Electrical power is something we don't (usually) see or physically interact with, this project gives an idea of what a PV panel or battery that can run a tiny computer looks and feels like.

stevenhuang 7y ago

These small-scale projects directly inspires those linked in your article to act. The more we talk about it and try to make a change--any change--the greater the impetus to make greater changes. Large-scale projects don't magically wink into existence in a vacuum, the conversation needs to happen and the ball first needs to get rolling.

aetherspawn 7y ago

I learnt that server power usage varies a lot on load. Didn’t consider this to be so significant before.

zajio1am 7y ago

To fix problem at scale, there is a simple and elegant solution: revenue-neutral carbon tax - https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/ https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/

chameleon_world 7y ago

You wouldn't have posted this if this project wasn't created. You wouldn't have discussed this with other people. It's hard to fix a big problem when most people don't even understand the problem.