5 ms·
RBC calculates that running a 40MW data center on diesel would require 12,000 liters of diesel fuel per hour Holy crap
by RamRodification 4y ago
RBC calculates that running a 40MW data center on diesel would require 12,000 liters of diesel fuel per hour
Holy crap
- bob1029 4y agoI hope figures like this make developers think twice about about throwing yet another layer of abstraction on to the pile. How many VMs does an average business actually require, assuming the software wasn't written like total ass?
- tut-urut-utut 4y agoIt can't happen unless software buyers were ready to pay for more development time. That abstraction layer and total-ass quality is frequently the only way to meet the deadline and budget. If people were ready to pay some upfront costs, it would be possible to lower long-term costs, but that's CAPEX vs OPEX decision that is not in the hands of the software developers.
- FartyMcFarter 4y agoIf one is aware of the basics of performance optimization, you can often find low hanging fruit even in Python. Basic profiling can often find bottlenecks that are easy to fix, usually just a result of a simple oversight. No one is asking for every piece of software to be rewritten in Assembly whilst taking advantage of every possible algorithmic improvement.
- yetihehe 4y ago> Basic profiling can often find bottlenecks that are easy to fix, usually just a result of a simple oversight. But it requires already scarce developers to spend even more time on one task. Those same developers which aready have two missed deadlines in their task queue. What should be done is always nice, but typically doesn't match reality.
- ATsch 4y agoI feel like not running a datacenter on backup diesel generators is going to have a slightly bigger impact than cutting back a few VMs
- VBprogrammer 4y agoHow so? Large diesel generators are respectably efficient at perhaps 40%. Not as efficient as a CCGT plant at 60% but also not in a different order of magnitude.
- avianlyric 4y agoBecause a 20% drop in efficiency is substantial, and because the alternative to diesel generators isn’t just CCGT. You could also use solar, wind, nuclear, tidal etc etc Carbon output of a diesel generator is horrific compared to just about any form of large scale energy production.
- b112 4y agoTo be fair, I've seen devs use 1000s of times, even millions of times the resources required.
- bob1029 4y agoIt usually all goes wrong the moment someone is granted permission to use a 2nd computer to solve some problem.
- adrianN 4y agoIf you're allowed to use a second computer, you need at least 4 to match the performance you previously had on the single machine. http://www.frankmcsherry.org/assets/COST.pdf http://www.frankmcsherry.org/assets/COST.pdf
- jsiaajdsdaa 4y agoHow much time is spent in milliseconds crunching data aka doing work, vs sitting around waiting to work?
- FartyMcFarter 4y agoCPUs use much less power while idle - if there are too many idle CPUs, that's either because the datacenter is not efficiently managed (e.g. machines are always on regardless of load), or because the standby capacity is needed at short notice.
- jsiaajdsdaa 4y agoWhich sounds like something a search engine/big company like Yandex would need, this rendering performance a little less relevant since the CPUs aren't pegged at 100% all the time
- jeroenhd 4y agoNo, but you see, we need a distributed Kubernetes cluster because that would totallypad out my resume, uh, I mean, make development easier!
- onesafari 4y agoAnd dynamically typed languages.
- hengheng 4y agoEstimating 10W per core at full load, 4M CPU cores can get a lot done too.
- dredmorbius 4y agoChecking that out: You have: 40 MWh You want: tonoil * 3.4393809 / 0.29075 You have: 1 tonoil You want: barreloil * 6.8419323 / 0.14615754 You have: 6.84 barrel You want: liter * 1087.4731 / 0.00091956298 So, roughly 1,100 litres of oil per 40 MWh(thermal). The generator is likely ~30% efficient at converting heat to eletricity, so bump that up to 3,700 litres/hour. Even allowing for other inefficiencies, 12,000 litre/hr seems high to me. Though as a practical measure it may be correct. It's within a factor of 4 of the actual demand though. (Calculations using GNU units.)
- RamRodification 4y agoAren't you missing x3.4393809 on those ~1100 litres?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dredmorbius 4y agoBingo, that's the error, thanks. Corrected: You have: 40 MWh You want: tonoil * 3.4393809 / 0.29075 You have: 3.439 tonoil You want: barreloil * 23.529405 / 0.042500012 You have: 23.529 barrel You want: liter * 3740.8121 / 0.00026732164 You have: 3740/30% You want: Definition: 12466.667 Or a bit above 12,000 litres. Article was correct.
- m55au 4y agoNo need to complicate things with obscure units. You have: 40 MW/30% / (10722.2 W*hr/L) You want: L/hr 40 MW/30% / (10722.2 W*hr/L) = 12435.259 L/hr
- dredmorbius 4y agoGNU Units has builtins for some standard energy equivalent units, specifically "tonoil" and "barreloil". "litreoil" doesn't seem to be included by default (though it can be added via a local configuration file). literoil = 1 barreloil * liter/barrel And the calculation gives me ...10.69 kWh/L The barreloil value is for crude, diesel may have a slightly higher net energy density. But we're good to 3 sig figs. I could have bypassed the tonoil step and calculated thermal energy in barreloil directly though saving another conversion. Otherwise I'd have to remember energy density/L of diesel fuel. I've added the definitions for litre, pound, and kg oil and can now run: $ units --terse '40 MWh/30%' literoil 12470.969 The fun part though, at least for me, is showing how to do conversions with GNU units, and the equivalences which become apparent doing so.
- markonen 4y agoOne of the Finnish news stories stated that as of now, the municipality is receiving only one fifth of the normal amount of waste heat they use for district heating. That sounds like they have shut a lot of things down to cope with the loss of power.
- newaccount2021 4y ago
- pjc50 4y agoIf we take an estimate of 20GW from https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index (huge variance!), and multiply that up, we can estimate that bitcoin is consuming the equivalent of six million liters of diesel every hour. (It's not going to be diesel, it's mostly a mix of coal and natgas depending on where it happens, but that gives you an idea of the size)
- bombcar 4y agoThe Emma Mærsk is powered by a Wärtsilä-Sulzer 14RTFLEX96-C engine, the world's largest single diesel unit, weighing 2,300 tonnes and capable of 81 MW (109,000 hp) when burning 14,000 litres (3,600 US gal) of heavy fuel oil per hour. So bitcoin is equivalent to 425 Emma Mærsks going full bore continually. That'd be 6.3 million TEU - which interesting means that for those big ships, a liter of fuel moves one TEU for one hour.
- pjc50 4y ago> a liter of fuel moves one TEU for one hour. That's a great little number, and actually feels very efficient!
- bombcar 4y agoIt’s the second most efficient method of shipping behind barge (and technically sailboat). Trains come in third, but they use more fuel.
- Steltek 4y agoDon't forget about hybrid freighters :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotor_ship#/media/File:Norsepower_rotor_sails_modern_version_of_flettner_rotor.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotor_ship#/media/File:Norsepo...
- DiggyJohnson 4y agoTUE = Twenty-foot equivalent unit - exact unit of measurement derived from the dimensions of a 20 ft. shipping container.
- Gravityloss 4y agoIt's like a medium sized container ship.