5 ms·

I sometimes wonder if these @Home projects are actually a net good. Due to the lower energy efficiency of old hardware, or just the higher overhead from running

I sometimes wonder if these @Home projects are actually a net good. Due to the lower energy efficiency of old hardware, or just the higher overhead from running multiple less power full machines, it might be a lot cheaper and more environmentally friendly if these users would directly donate the money that they are spending on their electricity bill.

Rexxar 6y ago
It's probably financially ok if you run it in winter when you have to heat your home.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  If you're heating using electricity then it's financially equivalent. It's actually beneficial to be able to use that energy for an additional purpose (mine crypto or this) than to just burn it.
  - lgessler 6y ago
    That depends on what you mean by electricity--heat pumps can achieve >100% efficiency since they move around heat instead of creating it.
    - saalweachter 6y ago
      I believe with heat pumps (at least ground sourced heat pumps) you can get something like 3-5 units of heat per unit of electricity. (Compared to 11-15 EERs for cooling.)
      - osamagirl69 6y ago
        Efficiency of heat pumps are roughly the same for heating and cooling (the only difference is which side you measure from -- the hot side gets the electrical power input counted in its power). The reason EER is so high is that they used absurd units for the heat flow (BTU/h = 0.3W) so you need to divide EER by 3.4 to get the actual efficiency in unit per unit.
      - elil17 6y ago
        Most people don't have heat pumps
magicalhippo 6y ago
The LHC@Home was initially launched[1] to simulate the LHC detector and optimize machine parameters before the LHC went live. It received little to no funding for years, however without LHC@Home a lot of the work would very likely not have been done on existing supercomputers[2]: "Some 1.5x10^5 users with more than 3x10^5 PCs have been active LHC@Home volunteers since its launch. This has provided significant computing power for accelerator physics studies, for which there was no equivalent capacity available in the regular CERN computing clusters. Volunteers contributing to SixTrack have delivered a sustained processing capacity of more than 45 TeraFlops." The project has been a huge success and the studies done using it, such as this one[3], has helped to extract much more physics than anticipated[4]. So at least there are some @Home projects that have a very real impact. [1]: https://lhcathome.web.cern.ch/about/history https://lhcathome.web.cern.ch/about/history [2]: http://cds.cern.ch/record/2301793?ln=en http://cds.cern.ch/record/2301793?ln=en [3]: http://cds.cern.ch/record/972345?ln=en http://cds.cern.ch/record/972345?ln=en [4]: https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/lhc-ended-2016-proton-collisions-exceeded-all-records-now-proton-lead-collisions.868396/post-5563856 https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/lhc-ended-2016-proton-...
duckerude 6y ago
This page argues Folding@Home isn't: https://www.gwern.net/Charity-is-not-about-helping https://www.gwern.net/Charity-is-not-about-helping

Rexxar 6y ago

It's probably financially ok if you run it in winter when you have to heat your home.

Nextgrid 6y ago
If you're heating using electricity then it's financially equivalent. It's actually beneficial to be able to use that energy for an additional purpose (mine crypto or this) than to just burn it.
- lgessler 6y ago
  That depends on what you mean by electricity--heat pumps can achieve >100% efficiency since they move around heat instead of creating it.
  - saalweachter 6y ago
    I believe with heat pumps (at least ground sourced heat pumps) you can get something like 3-5 units of heat per unit of electricity. (Compared to 11-15 EERs for cooling.)
    - osamagirl69 6y ago
      Efficiency of heat pumps are roughly the same for heating and cooling (the only difference is which side you measure from -- the hot side gets the electrical power input counted in its power). The reason EER is so high is that they used absurd units for the heat flow (BTU/h = 0.3W) so you need to divide EER by 3.4 to get the actual efficiency in unit per unit.
    - elil17 6y ago
      Most people don't have heat pumps

magicalhippo 6y ago

The LHC@Home was initially launched[1] to simulate the LHC detector and optimize machine parameters before the LHC went live. It received little to no funding for years, however without LHC@Home a lot of the work would very likely not have been done on existing supercomputers[2]: "Some 1.5x10^5 users with more than 3x10^5 PCs have been active LHC@Home volunteers since its launch. This has provided significant computing power for accelerator physics studies, for which there was no equivalent capacity available in the regular CERN computing clusters. Volunteers contributing to SixTrack have delivered a sustained processing capacity of more than 45 TeraFlops." The project has been a huge success and the studies done using it, such as this one[3], has helped to extract much more physics than anticipated[4]. So at least there are some @Home projects that have a very real impact. [1]: https://lhcathome.web.cern.ch/about/history https://lhcathome.web.cern.ch/about/history [2]: http://cds.cern.ch/record/2301793?ln=en http://cds.cern.ch/record/2301793?ln=en [3]: http://cds.cern.ch/record/972345?ln=en http://cds.cern.ch/record/972345?ln=en [4]: https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/lhc-ended-2016-proton-collisions-exceeded-all-records-now-proton-lead-collisions.868396/post-5563856 https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/lhc-ended-2016-proton-...

duckerude 6y ago

This page argues Folding@Home isn't: https://www.gwern.net/Charity-is-not-about-helping https://www.gwern.net/Charity-is-not-about-helping