11 ms·

Never noticed News.YC's CO2Stats before. How do they compute this stuff anyway?

27 points by pius 18y ago

alexwg 18y ago
Great question! We measure quite a variety of signals, including but not limited to client locations (e.g., is traffic coming from coal-burning areas?), visit lengths, server locations, transfer sizes, transfer times, and window sizes. These signals are fed into a "hand-built" database that allows us to compute aggregate carbon footprints.
- pius 18y ago
  Very interesting . . . best of luck with the venture!
  - alexwg 18y ago
    Thanks!
- mwerty 18y ago
  I'm curious: Why do you keep sending posts to your server every few minutes?
  - alexwg 18y ago
    The CO2Stats calculation includes the contribution of client electricity use. In order to more accurately measure the time clients spend on a given CO2Stats-powered page, it's necessary to have the client infrequently check in.
    - dcurtis 18y ago
      Do you include the CO2 stats overhead (the pinging, etc) in your calculations for neutralizing?
      - alexwg 18y ago
        Absolutely!
        goldsmith 18y ago
        I thought I heard the idea for CO2stats somewhere before... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence Oh yeah, that's it.
        jrockway 18y ago
        It's not quite as bad as that. It's better to burn coal and buy a few trees than it is to just burn the coal, right? While I don't think that carbon offsetting is going to solve any long-term problems, it is nice to plant some trees and have a bit more money poured into renewable energy research. We're not going to see real change until we are out of coal and oil. Hopefully that will happen soon. (Yes, it will be painful. But the sooner the pain starts, the sooner it will be over with.)
        corentin 18y ago
        You should cut your both arms then, so you won't have to suffer losing them should you become involved in an accident.
        jrockway 18y ago
        That is a different situation. It's not likely that I will ever lose my limbs. It is likely that we will run out of oil and coal some day, since we use a lot and there isn't a lot left.
        Protophore 18y ago
        I think you may be mistaken on ther enot being a lot of coal left: "According to the widely accepted view, at current production levels proven coal reserves will last 155 years (this according to the World Coal Institute). The US Department of Energy (USDoE) projects annual global coal consumption to grow 2.5 per cent a year through 2030, by which time world consumption will be nearly double that of today." From: http://www.energybulletin.net/node/29919 http://www.energybulletin.net/node/29919 The article goes on to say that we probably don't have 155 years of coal reserves, but it should still last for some time now, unless the rate of usage sky rockets.
    - mwerty 18y ago
      Thanks. One more regarding certificates: My guess is that a certificate subsidizes the cost of more expensive clean energy so that it equals the cost of non-renewable energy. Is this right? Either way, very interesting business model. Best of luck!
      - alexwg 18y ago
        Thanks, Mwerty! That's right, RECs function subsidize the difference between renewable/non-renewable sources.
- axod 18y ago
  So if a geo-ip lookup on my location (Which is extremely inaccurate) says I live near a coal station, you assume that I use that power and not power from some other source?
  - eru 18y ago
    I guess they are just taking the average power mix of your country/state.
patrickg-zill 18y ago
Smoke, mirrors, reading of dead chicken entrails... You know, the usual PT Barnum stuff to impress the rubes. Interesting paragraph from their site: "CO2Stats reserves the right to cap REC purchases in case of excessive use, as its own discretion." That is, you could pay them $100 a month and they may or may not purchase offsets to cover your 5 million page views.
- alexwg 18y ago
  Thanks for your comment! In fact, every time our customers' footprints have gone over their monthly cost, we've paid for the full corresponding number of RECs. That clause is there to protect against gross abuse. For example, if a site consistently receives 20M hits per month (a custom tier) and signs up for a 5M hit per month package, we reserve the right to manage only the first 5M.
  - lliiffee 18y ago
    Ah, so the clause is specifically meant to exclude the case that a website buys RECs for less than they actually use? That's perfectly reasonable, but I have to admit when I read the bit above, I didn't interpret it that way. You might want to think about tweaking the language to make it harder for skeptics to dismiss you.
- pg 18y ago
  No measurement of this type is ever going to be perfect. Do you think, because of that, that it's not even worth trying?
  - axod 18y ago
    I can see why CO2stats may be successful, phrases like "purchases renewable energy to neutralize it, so your visitors feel good about staying longer." are quite compelling for some people... Ah this website uses a ton of power. CO2 is evil. CO2Stats "neutralizes" it so that it's all fine. Wouldn't it be a better idea to help companies reduce their power usage, rather than "buying renewable energy" to offset it? Or encouraging them to install their own renewable energy sources. If I murder 2 people, and offset it by having 2 children, is that fine? :/ (As long as I display a button on my T-Shirt saying I'm "Person neutral")?. Given the wild inaccuracy of geo-ip lookups and the million other factors at play, I don't see any value in guessing at numbers here...
goldsmith 18y ago
I guess mirroring the OP, I like this concept behind C02Stats, but I am very curious as to how this is precisely calculated (or even roughly estimated.) Do CO2Stats know the power grid the servers are on? How do they account for the disparity in power usage behind different systems (a mainframe != laptop)? Without having detailed knowledge of a building, how could they possibly know about air conditioning costs or other secondary electricity use (lights, etc)?
- eru 18y ago
  Averages?
colvt 18y ago
Hey CO2Stats - A couple questions for you: How do you account for different monitor sizes, types and brands and poor wasteful electricity in older buildings? Thanks!
- fluidrazor 18y ago
  There is no way they could account for the types and brands of the monitor, the efficiency of the individual computers, etc. They also cannot make an accurate assumption about where the power is coming from because there is such a thing as an electric grid, which draws power from a variety of sources. Furthermore, the calculations to determine what goes in to processing a page have to be almost comical. For example, if it was Google, one search request can take thousands of machines, not to mention all the crawling required to produce those pages. Good luck getting that information. There are so many holes that need to be filled here that their calculations cannot even be remotely accurate. CO2Stats is bogus. I hope they don't charge anybody, because that would be fraud. Perhaps they should publish their algorithm, to provide a little transparency and openness.
  - Alex3917 18y ago
    You ever notice that whenever you walk into a 7/11 at 2am there's always at least one carton of orange juice there waiting for you, even if you've never been there before? I think you're missing the forest for the trees, so to speak.
    - fluidrazor 18y ago
      I understand what they are trying to do. But the sheer inaccuracy of what they provide clearly negates the supposed benefits. Would you donate to a charity that mismanaged or wasted most of your money, if only just because donating to charities is good? Or wouldn't that mismanagement negate most of what is good about donating to that particular charity. I'm sure the people behind CO2Stats are not stupid. So they must be aware of the shortcomings and limitations of their service. Yet they continue to run the service anyways, calling it accurate. That is dishonest. (and no, questioning CO2Stats does not make me a conspiracy theorist)
nuclear_eclipse 18y ago
Inspect the data that their "complex heuristics"-based widget sends back about the client. I'm positive that you'll be pleasantly surprised at the breadth of information.... or, it sends nearly nothing. And nothing of relevance to actual consumption. But c'mon, CO2Stats is totally legit, guys... really...
cstejerean 18y ago
Interesting concept. What I don't understand is why as someone running a website I should offset the CO2 from my data center, my client's homes and the networks between them.
- mhb 18y ago
  For the same reason that Amazon has free shipping?
axod 18y ago
Math.random() I don't think the numbers matter. It's just a badge to say "We're green" isn't it? Seems like it's leveraging off the current "CO2 is evil" fad.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
furiouslol 18y ago
Instead of a seal that nobody cares for (hack-proof, privacy seals are OK, but green-certified seal?), why don't they enter the carbon credits market? This seems like a misuse of technology. Use this technology to help companies trade carbon credits. A few bulge bracket banks are already in this game. They buy carbon credits from African cooperatives cheaply and sell them at a healthy profit to factories who need these credits. And they are making millions from it. What are you waiting for guys?

27 points by pius 18y ago

Great question! We measure quite a variety of signals, including but not limited to client locations (e.g., is traffic coming from coal-burning areas?), visit lengths, server locations, transfer sizes, transfer times, and window sizes. These signals are fed into a "hand-built" database that allows us to compute aggregate carbon footprints.

pius 18y ago
Very interesting . . . best of luck with the venture!
- alexwg 18y ago
  Thanks!
mwerty 18y ago
I'm curious: Why do you keep sending posts to your server every few minutes?
- alexwg 18y ago
  The CO2Stats calculation includes the contribution of client electricity use. In order to more accurately measure the time clients spend on a given CO2Stats-powered page, it's necessary to have the client infrequently check in.
  - dcurtis 18y ago
    Do you include the CO2 stats overhead (the pinging, etc) in your calculations for neutralizing?
    - alexwg 18y ago
      Absolutely!
      - goldsmith 18y ago
        I thought I heard the idea for CO2stats somewhere before... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence Oh yeah, that's it.
        jrockway 18y ago
        It's not quite as bad as that. It's better to burn coal and buy a few trees than it is to just burn the coal, right? While I don't think that carbon offsetting is going to solve any long-term problems, it is nice to plant some trees and have a bit more money poured into renewable energy research. We're not going to see real change until we are out of coal and oil. Hopefully that will happen soon. (Yes, it will be painful. But the sooner the pain starts, the sooner it will be over with.)
        corentin 18y ago
        You should cut your both arms then, so you won't have to suffer losing them should you become involved in an accident.
        jrockway 18y ago
        That is a different situation. It's not likely that I will ever lose my limbs. It is likely that we will run out of oil and coal some day, since we use a lot and there isn't a lot left.
        Protophore 18y ago
        I think you may be mistaken on ther enot being a lot of coal left: "According to the widely accepted view, at current production levels proven coal reserves will last 155 years (this according to the World Coal Institute). The US Department of Energy (USDoE) projects annual global coal consumption to grow 2.5 per cent a year through 2030, by which time world consumption will be nearly double that of today." From: http://www.energybulletin.net/node/29919 http://www.energybulletin.net/node/29919 The article goes on to say that we probably don't have 155 years of coal reserves, but it should still last for some time now, unless the rate of usage sky rockets.
  - mwerty 18y ago
    Thanks. One more regarding certificates: My guess is that a certificate subsidizes the cost of more expensive clean energy so that it equals the cost of non-renewable energy. Is this right? Either way, very interesting business model. Best of luck!
    - alexwg 18y ago
      Thanks, Mwerty! That's right, RECs function subsidize the difference between renewable/non-renewable sources.
axod 18y ago
So if a geo-ip lookup on my location (Which is extremely inaccurate) says I live near a coal station, you assume that I use that power and not power from some other source?
- eru 18y ago
  I guess they are just taking the average power mix of your country/state.

patrickg-zill 18y ago

Smoke, mirrors, reading of dead chicken entrails... You know, the usual PT Barnum stuff to impress the rubes. Interesting paragraph from their site: "CO2Stats reserves the right to cap REC purchases in case of excessive use, as its own discretion." That is, you could pay them $100 a month and they may or may not purchase offsets to cover your 5 million page views.

alexwg 18y ago
Thanks for your comment! In fact, every time our customers' footprints have gone over their monthly cost, we've paid for the full corresponding number of RECs. That clause is there to protect against gross abuse. For example, if a site consistently receives 20M hits per month (a custom tier) and signs up for a 5M hit per month package, we reserve the right to manage only the first 5M.
- lliiffee 18y ago
  Ah, so the clause is specifically meant to exclude the case that a website buys RECs for less than they actually use? That's perfectly reasonable, but I have to admit when I read the bit above, I didn't interpret it that way. You might want to think about tweaking the language to make it harder for skeptics to dismiss you.
pg 18y ago
No measurement of this type is ever going to be perfect. Do you think, because of that, that it's not even worth trying?
- axod 18y ago
  I can see why CO2stats may be successful, phrases like "purchases renewable energy to neutralize it, so your visitors feel good about staying longer." are quite compelling for some people... Ah this website uses a ton of power. CO2 is evil. CO2Stats "neutralizes" it so that it's all fine. Wouldn't it be a better idea to help companies reduce their power usage, rather than "buying renewable energy" to offset it? Or encouraging them to install their own renewable energy sources. If I murder 2 people, and offset it by having 2 children, is that fine? :/ (As long as I display a button on my T-Shirt saying I'm "Person neutral")?. Given the wild inaccuracy of geo-ip lookups and the million other factors at play, I don't see any value in guessing at numbers here...

goldsmith 18y ago

I guess mirroring the OP, I like this concept behind C02Stats, but I am very curious as to how this is precisely calculated (or even roughly estimated.) Do CO2Stats know the power grid the servers are on? How do they account for the disparity in power usage behind different systems (a mainframe != laptop)? Without having detailed knowledge of a building, how could they possibly know about air conditioning costs or other secondary electricity use (lights, etc)?

eru 18y ago
Averages?

colvt 18y ago

Hey CO2Stats - A couple questions for you: How do you account for different monitor sizes, types and brands and poor wasteful electricity in older buildings? Thanks!

fluidrazor 18y ago
There is no way they could account for the types and brands of the monitor, the efficiency of the individual computers, etc. They also cannot make an accurate assumption about where the power is coming from because there is such a thing as an electric grid, which draws power from a variety of sources. Furthermore, the calculations to determine what goes in to processing a page have to be almost comical. For example, if it was Google, one search request can take thousands of machines, not to mention all the crawling required to produce those pages. Good luck getting that information. There are so many holes that need to be filled here that their calculations cannot even be remotely accurate. CO2Stats is bogus. I hope they don't charge anybody, because that would be fraud. Perhaps they should publish their algorithm, to provide a little transparency and openness.
- Alex3917 18y ago
  You ever notice that whenever you walk into a 7/11 at 2am there's always at least one carton of orange juice there waiting for you, even if you've never been there before? I think you're missing the forest for the trees, so to speak.
  - fluidrazor 18y ago
    I understand what they are trying to do. But the sheer inaccuracy of what they provide clearly negates the supposed benefits. Would you donate to a charity that mismanaged or wasted most of your money, if only just because donating to charities is good? Or wouldn't that mismanagement negate most of what is good about donating to that particular charity. I'm sure the people behind CO2Stats are not stupid. So they must be aware of the shortcomings and limitations of their service. Yet they continue to run the service anyways, calling it accurate. That is dishonest. (and no, questioning CO2Stats does not make me a conspiracy theorist)

nuclear_eclipse 18y ago

Inspect the data that their "complex heuristics"-based widget sends back about the client. I'm positive that you'll be pleasantly surprised at the breadth of information.... or, it sends nearly nothing. And nothing of relevance to actual consumption. But c'mon, CO2Stats is totally legit, guys... really...

cstejerean 18y ago

Interesting concept. What I don't understand is why as someone running a website I should offset the CO2 from my data center, my client's homes and the networks between them.

mhb 18y ago
For the same reason that Amazon has free shipping?

axod 18y ago

Math.random() I don't think the numbers matter. It's just a badge to say "We're green" isn't it? Seems like it's leveraging off the current "CO2 is evil" fad.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

furiouslol 18y ago

Instead of a seal that nobody cares for (hack-proof, privacy seals are OK, but green-certified seal?), why don't they enter the carbon credits market? This seems like a misuse of technology. Use this technology to help companies trade carbon credits. A few bulge bracket banks are already in this game. They buy carbon credits from African cooperatives cheaply and sell them at a healthy profit to factories who need these credits. And they are making millions from it. What are you waiting for guys?