Carbon Explorer: A Holistic Approach for Designing Carbon Aware Datacenters
Technology companies have been leading the way to a renewable energy transformation, by investing in renewable energy sources to reduce the carbon footprint of their datacenters. In addition to helping build new solar and wind farms, companies make power purchase agreements or purchase carbon offsets, rather than relying on renewable energy every hour of the day, every day of the week (24/7). Relying on renewable energy 24/7 is challenging due to the intermittent nature of wind and solar energy. Inherent variations in solar and wind energy production causes excess or lack of supply at different times. To cope with the fluctuations of renewable energy generation, multiple solutions must be applied. These include: capacity sizing with a mix of solar and wind power, energy storage options, and carbon aware workload scheduling. However, depending on the region and datacenter workload characteristics, the carbon-optimal solution varies. Existing work in this space does not give a holistic view of the trade-offs of each solution and often ignore the embodied carbon cost of the solutions. In this work, we provide a framework, Carbon Explorer, to analyze the multi-dimensional solution space by taking into account operational and embodided footprint of the solutions to help make datacenters operate on renewable energy 24/7. The solutions we analyze include capacity sizing with a mix of solar and wind power, battery storage, and carbon aware workload scheduling, which entails shifting the workloads from times when there is lack of renewable supply to times with abundant supply.
Impacts importés des datacenters : l’angle mort des analyses territoriales des impacts du numérique
En août 2020, le Ministère de la Transition écologique et le Ministère de l'Économie, des Finances et de la Relance ont confié à l’ADEME et l’Arcep une mission commune visant à mesurer l’empreinte environnementale du numérique en France et à identifier des leviers d’actions et des bonnes pratiques pour la réduire. Les deux organisations ont remis en janvier 2022 les deux premiers volets consacrés à la mesure de l’ensemble de cette empreinte en 2020. Nous tentons d'apporter un complément à cette étude sur le volet des datacenters.
Der CO2-Fußabdruck unseres digitalen Lebensstils/ The carbon footprint of our digital lifestyles [deu/eng] - Öko-Institut e.V.: Blog
Wieviel CO2-Emissionen verursacht eine Google-Anfrage? Jens Gröger stellt diese beliebte Journalistinnen- und Journalisten-Frage in einen größeren Kontext und berechnet beispielhaft den CO2-Fußabdruck unseres digitalen Lebensstils.
New research suggests that operational and embodied carbon is mathematically incompatible · Green-Software-Foundation · Discussion #56
Hello everyone, I recently read the following conference paper which has led me to question the SCI's validity1. I obviously can't redistribute the paper here because of the license/copyrig...
Obsolescence Paths: living with aging devices
Frequent renewal of digital devices accounts for a large share of their environmental impact because of fabrication environmental costs. This renewal is often attributed to sociocultural phenomena (e.g. presentation of self or persuasive marketing) and to broken hardware (e.g. shattered screens or degraded batteries). We investigate a complementary aspect: how people live with devices as they are gradually becoming obsolete. We present a qualitative interview-based study with 18 participants on the role of software factors on the feeling of smartphone obsolescence. We identify three types of factors pushing for device renewal: upgrade issues, storage issues, and malfunctions. We find that these issues accumulate over time until a threshold is passed leading to renewal: we define this process as an obsolescence path. This threshold is often tied to contextual and social concerns. We also outline the various strategies people use to prolong the life of the almost obsolete devices. Our results show that hardware and software obsolescence are tied, and should be considered together as they trace obsolescence paths. Based on these observations, we identify design opportunities to extend the lifespan of devices.
Good practices in digital service ecodesign for software developers
This booklet is a complement to the 3 booklets of good practices related to software development proposed by the network of actors of software development within the french Education and Research: DevLOG.
This project is dedicated to good practices in terms of eco-design of digital services that allow to apprehend, understand and reduce the environmental impact of digital technology.
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After explaining the general context in the first sheet, a second sheet ("But Why?") highlights the need to integrate an environmental dimension into our digital service designs, and consequently into our software developments. The third sheet ("When?") reminds us of the stages in the life cycle of a digital service and introduces the good practice sheets that correspond to the different stages: "Before", "During" and "After", bearing in mind that development is often iterative, and the boundaries between the different stages are permeable.
At the end of the booklet, you will find a specific sheet on eco-design practices for scientific computing, as well as sheets on development on mobile platforms, for the web and on hardware accelerators.
An Introduction to E-waste Policy
This self-paced course aims to support national stakeholders in developing national Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) policy and regulation. In addition to an introduction and overview, the course consists of the following four modules: 1) Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), 2) Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), 3) Financial Management, and 4) Government Stakeholder Groups and Interests.
Study: Enough rare earth minerals to fuel green energy shift
The world has enough rare earth minerals and other critical raw materials to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy to produce electricity and limit global warming, according to a new study that counters concerns about the supply of such minerals.