
Data centers can slash CO2 emissions 88% or more (2013) - todsacerdoti
https://energy.stanford.edu/news/data-centers-can-slash-co2-emissions-88-or-more
======
mrpopo
> Data centers consume about 1.5 percent of the world’s electricity and are
> responsible for about 0.5 percent of carbon emissions. And the Internet
> overall is reducing greenhouse gas emissions because it distributes goods
> digitally that once were delivered physically, like books, music,
> publications and mail.

The number from the first sentence is misleading. The internet consumes about
4 percent of the world's electricity[0], data centers are just one part of it.
Citation needed for the second sentence. Americans own about 25 electronic
devices per household[1], and that wouldn't be the case without internet. We
now stream music from YouTube all day long instead of putting one CD on
repeat. A kindle costs 170kgCO2e to manufacture, whereas a second-hand book
close to 0. The carbon footprint associated with the digital revolution is not
clear cut because of all those behaviour changes.

IF we used new technology only to gain efficiency, and not to consume more
without energy gains, this would hold true. But society is not doing that.

[0] [https://theshiftproject.org/en/article/unsustainable-use-
onl...](https://theshiftproject.org/en/article/unsustainable-use-online-
video/) [1]
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2013/01/02/24-electroni...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2013/01/02/24-electronic-
products-per-household-got-recycling/#460c920c2c2e)

~~~
vikramkr
A second hand kindle is also close to zero emissions. Why compare a new kindle
to a used book? A kindle is more a replacement for a bookshelf, and each book
within has trivially low emissions

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
>A second hand kindle is also close to zero emissions.

Some (many?) buyers gets the latest Kindle only because they can resell the
old one at a good price to second-hand buyers. Can we hold first buyers
responsible for all the emissions when others partake in the product life that
require new products to be created in the first place?

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perfunctory
Yet another argument to price carbon emissions. It will not only _not_ destroy
the economy, it will unleash innovation and propel us into the bright future.

(And create fun, intellectually challenging jobs for us engineers)

~~~
barney54
I'm not sure how pricing carbon dioxide emission will change datacenter
operations given that Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple all have
serious carbon dioxide reduction targets and all already by as much co2-free
electricity as they consume.

~~~
perfunctory
> all have serious carbon dioxide reduction targets

They will drop their targets the moment the competition intensifies and
threatens their profits. Voluntary commitments do not work. We have learned it
the hard way over the last 30 years. Paris accord is a primary example of
that.

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finnthehuman
The greenest instruction is the one you don't run in the first place. Remember
that the next time your reason to be lazy about perf optimization is "just
throw more hardware at it."

~~~
jeffbee
It's not linear like that. If the machine is on and the core is running you
can dispatch instructions into it at zero cost.

~~~
abstractbarista
Is that true? I thought cores slept until they were needed. Or didn't clock as
high if instruction load wasn't there to match.

There is of course always some nominal minimum power consumption for a server
to be on. But every instruction requires some additional amount of electron
flow to execute.

~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
Datacenter grade stuff won't sleep as conservatively as a desktop grade CPU.

~~~
lucb1e
You can configure it to do that, though. I don't run my hardware in a
datacenter (I prefer hosting from home for various reasons) but my server's
CPU is set to use the powersave governor.

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userbinator
I wonder how much improving the efficiency of software would help --- a lot of
"modern" development stacks use significantly more resources to do the same
thing the older ones did, seemingly negating improvements in hardware
efficiency.

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melling
Coal is used to generate 40% of electricity in the world.

We’re still building them globally to help give electricity to 7 billion
people.

All these little ideas to save a fractional percent is like the drunk looking
for his keys under the light.

Decade after decade of using coal like this is a much bigger problem.

~~~
driverdan
It's not either or. Both can be done in parallel.

~~~
melling
We’ve spent the past 2 decades increasing the use of coal globally.

All those CO2 emissions have now cost us much more time than saving 1% in 2030

Many companies like Apple and Google are using green energy for their data
centers.

Solving the electricity problem in general, solves a much bigger problem.

------
somurzakov
How much water do these datacenters consumer for cooling purposes? Especially
in dry and water-scarce areas like AZ/CA

~~~
jeffbee
You will note that none of the big league data center operators have a serious
facility in California, where as you have implied energy and water are both
expensive.

------
kebman
Recent news from Norway claims that data centres could increase the power
consumption of the country by 20%. Part of the interest is due to the clean
energy and heavy reliance on hydropower in Norway, plus the cold weather
conditions in the North which makes cooling somewhat easier and cheaper.^[1]
At the same time parliamentary politician Lars Haltbrekken (SV)^[2] demands
that such development assumes good utilization of residual heat.^[3]

As far as my own political sources claim, there is however little interest in
cryptocurrency farms. To that end there is indeed rather some aversion to it,
especially from the Conservative Right. On the other hand, if the Norwegian
power grid is expanded for this interest, like it seems to be, I think also
crypto farms would be interested as well.

[1]: Norwegian language source: [https://www.digi.no/artikler/star-i-ko-for-a-
koble-seg-pa-da...](https://www.digi.no/artikler/star-i-ko-for-a-koble-seg-pa-
datasentre-oker-norges-kraftbehov-med-20-prosent/496006)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Left_Party_(Norway)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Left_Party_\(Norway\))

[3]: Norwegian language source: [https://www.nrk.no/vestland/datasentera-kan-
auka-landets-kra...](https://www.nrk.no/vestland/datasentera-kan-auka-landets-
kraftbehov-med-20-prosent-1.15088668)

------
LatteLazy
Data centres account for about 0.3% of US emissions (less in most countries).
So unless you can cut at least 200 times more co2 in other places as well, why
bother?

~~~
thewhitetulip
I am not a fan of such comments, they always want either a perfect solution or
no solution at all.

There was this guy who debated with me online about using solar panels because
'they are not efficient enough' and another one who debated planting trees.

It is a step by step process. We will not magically cure up the ecology in one
day in one swoosh. It'll take small efforts from various aspects.

~~~
LatteLazy
So far, we're making less than no progress because global net co2 emissions
continue to rise. Do you agree?

~~~
toomuchtodo
I do not agree with this. Renewables and EV uptake is accelerating at an
unprecedented pace, we just haven't hit the tipping point yet.

We're definitely not moving fast enough, but we're still moving pretty fast on
the economic proposition of renewables and electrified transportation alone.

~~~
LatteLazy
So do you believe that global net co2 emissions are not currently growing? Or
that we are making progress despite them growing?

~~~
toomuchtodo
The latter.

~~~
LatteLazy
Then I'd have to ask how you measure progress? Are you referring to a
moral/social sense of improving?

Right now, We're not just emitting co2, we're emitting more this year than
last year.

And the amount more is rising as well.

Any actual measure of co2E emissions shows this problem is bad, its getting
worse and its getting worse faster over time.

~~~
rapnie
It surely doesn't help that we have leaders that continue to promote fossil
fuels or unsustainable exploitation of rainforests, etc. Also unhelpful is
rampant capitalism where environmental costs are not part of the equation when
making profits.

But in this same system we are nearing a tipping point where renewables are
the better choice for the bottom line. And that is progress.

~~~
LatteLazy
I am quite sympathic to your predictions, I both hope and semi expect some big
changes in the next decade. But I have to be strict: this is the potential for
progress, not actual progress. And I think it's probably already too late, it
might be too late now even to avert the worst of climate change. Adding
another decade to restructure socially and get non-western non-democratic
countries into the same mold is a huge delay at a very late stage.

We will see.

~~~
thewhitetulip
Also, according to a BBC article, Western countries' population is going to
drop when we hit 2100. It'll be interesting to see if that turns out to be
true, I mean, it is a 80yr into the future prediction.

Japan's population is expected to be half. Spain and others are going in the
same way, China and India are expected to reduce but not by half.

Let's hope that we keep working on this problem.

As EVs rise, I expect this to be a positive turnout. it doesn't matter that 1
EV save a lot of CO2, buses and planes are becoming electric. The more
electrification we do, the more solar and wind we use, the better.

India has few hundred MW solar panel project. Other countries are also
planning them, right? So let's hope that they do work in the intended way..

