5 ms·

This is actually great: imagine a CDN in various geographical locations all of which work off sunlight in their own time zone (and turn off with no sunlight).

This is actually great: imagine a CDN in various geographical locations all of which work off sunlight in their own time zone (and turn off with no sunlight). This way you can have 24/7 fully green content delivery to consumers. Although that being said we could just try to cover the earth with as many generators everywhere and then fully connect the grids.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
> Although that being said we could just try to cover the earth with as many generators everywhere and then fully connect the grids. This is the easier route: you do this by having as many businesses as possible purchase renewables PPAs, where they're specifically contracting for renewable energy. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/as-corporate-renewable-buying-surges-new-deals-pressure-utilities-to-impro/547485/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/as-corporate-renewable-buyi...
samatman 7y ago
I respect lowtechmagazine's experiment: it's designed to make you think, and it succeeds. But CPUs have an incredibly high embodied energy, we should aim for full utilization of servers, regardless of the source of that energy. If it's three CPUs with carbon-neutral electricity, or one CPU with electricity from coal, the latter is the responsible choice.
- fuzzybear3965 7y ago
  Did you mean the reverse? I.e. "If it's one CPU with carbon-neutral electricity, or three CPUs with electricity from coal, the latter is the responsible choice." If no, then why. I can explain my confusion if needed.
  - samatman 7y ago
    I don't mean the reverse, I mean that running one CPU 24 hours a day instead of 3 CPUs 8 hours a day is better, even if the 3 CPUs have carbon-neutral energy and the 1 CPU does not. To be fair, these are artificial choices, and that's not even what lowtech was doing (they have a battery). I was responding to the post about the CDNs that stop working at night.
qmarchi 7y ago
I mean, technically, that's what Google's solution ends up doing. Their DCs are globally distributed, so their timings on when they'd actually be doing the heavy lifting is shuffled around.

toomuchtodo 7y ago

> Although that being said we could just try to cover the earth with as many generators everywhere and then fully connect the grids. This is the easier route: you do this by having as many businesses as possible purchase renewables PPAs, where they're specifically contracting for renewable energy. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/as-corporate-renewable-buying-surges-new-deals-pressure-utilities-to-impro/547485/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/as-corporate-renewable-buyi...

samatman 7y ago

I respect lowtechmagazine's experiment: it's designed to make you think, and it succeeds. But CPUs have an incredibly high embodied energy, we should aim for full utilization of servers, regardless of the source of that energy. If it's three CPUs with carbon-neutral electricity, or one CPU with electricity from coal, the latter is the responsible choice.

fuzzybear3965 7y ago
Did you mean the reverse? I.e. "If it's one CPU with carbon-neutral electricity, or three CPUs with electricity from coal, the latter is the responsible choice." If no, then why. I can explain my confusion if needed.
- samatman 7y ago
  I don't mean the reverse, I mean that running one CPU 24 hours a day instead of 3 CPUs 8 hours a day is better, even if the 3 CPUs have carbon-neutral energy and the 1 CPU does not. To be fair, these are artificial choices, and that's not even what lowtech was doing (they have a battery). I was responding to the post about the CDNs that stop working at night.

qmarchi 7y ago

I mean, technically, that's what Google's solution ends up doing. Their DCs are globally distributed, so their timings on when they'd actually be doing the heavy lifting is shuffled around.