[clug] Re CO2 footprint of Searches: Storm in A Tea Cup or Deep Green Issue?

[Wesley Bruce]

Its not that big a problem. Several people have been across the problem
for years and new super efficient servers, etc are being built and
deployed. Like everything the process is slowed down by the current bust
{read Ron Pauls 'End the FED' on that one}. 

The Rocky Mountains Institute has built a super lean server.
http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid535.php

Other projects include. Putting the server beside a powerstation so the
waste heat from the powerstation can drive the coolers directly. Russia,
Greenland and Nunavut are building passive cooled systems in the high
arctic. 
Putting the server farm in a swimming pool complex has also worked in
Europe. There the computers heat the pool, the Pool is cooled passively
by high evaporation in summer. 

I've also looked at Server sky http://server-sky.com/
Its a very cute solution of putting the servers in outer space on
micro-swarm-sats. There they chill down to a few degrees C in the sun,
which powers them, and chill to cryogenic temperatures in the earths
shadow. If server sky works its truly global giving super data and
storage to both first world and the third world equally. Its an open
source project.  
Some boffins are working on computers that run hot using a variant of
the old valve circuits at the micro scale in vacuum. These need to be
heated to work and by combining them with systems that need to dump the
same waste heat they compliment each other. 
I've also heard of some NASA boffins that are designing electronics that
run just fine at 800 C, they want to send robots to Venus that last
longer than six minutes on the surface. Some computers like it hot.

I may not know much about linux but energy is my game.
 


> Apropos the search for a Green Laptop.
> Mentioned on Lateline this week.
> 
> "0.2g" per (google) search.
> 
> BBC
> <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7823387.stm>
> 
> Google
> <http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/powering-google-search.html>
> 
> TechNewsWorld - 7g or 0.2g. 35KJ (10Wh) or 1KJ (0.3Wh) per search?
> <http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Harvard-Prof-Sets-Record-Straight-on-Internet-Carbon-Study-65794.html>
> 
> Harvard University physicist Alex Wissner-Gross,
> "who manages the Web site CO2stats.com"
> <http://www.co2stats.com/>
> 
> 
> 
> I would've thought that server side was only a small part of the
> equation... Backbones, transoceanic fibre, routers/switches, ISP's,
> billing systems, ADSL, DSLAM's and your little old Desktop or Laptop
> chugging away filling "black balloons" (according to the Adverts)
> 
> IIRC, datacentres account for some very significant percentage of
> power
> used in Silicon Valley... [facts, anyone?]
> 
> Average household electricity consumption is ~18kWh/day (67MJ/day).
> In 2020 projected IT equipment use 3.2% residential electricity.
> 
> Environment Australia:
> "ENERGY USE IN THE AUSTRALIAN RESIDENTIAL SECTOR 1986 ? 2020"
> <http://www.environment.gov.au/settlements/energyefficiency/buildings/publications/energyuse.html>
> 
> 
> 
> And what we know for sure:
> 
>   Linux produces less CO2 :-)
> 
> 
> 
> Hug the Planet, get a Penguin on your Desktop!
>