#Tag
"Minimal Computing" by the Digital Humanities Climate Coalition
https://sas-dhrh.github.io/dhcc-toolkit/toolkit/minimal-computing.html
"Minimal Computing" by the Digital Humanities Climate Coalition
https://sas-dhrh.github.io/dhcc-toolkit/toolkit/minimal-computing.html
I wrote a paper that I am proud of:
"Modelling Scenarios for Carbon-aware Geographic Load Shifting of Compute Workloads"
It evaluates the scope for emission reductions of moving work between data centres in high-emission regions and low-emission regions.
tl;dr: the potential emission savings are no more than a few percent.
I have submitted it to a journal, it's under review but you can read the preprint here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.07043
The idea of is that moving work from a a region with fossil fuel generation to one with renewables will reduce emissions.
This is of course correct. But it depends a lot on
- how much work you can move
- how much of the time you can move it
- what the difference in carbon intensity is between the high-CO2 and low-CO2 region
- what the contribution of the embodied carbon of the data centre is.
When you take all those factors into account, it turns out the gain is so small that investing effort into this is purely a distraction from the bigger problem of the growth in data centre capacity.
(The paper I'm working on now tries to quantifies what that growth means in terms of global emissions. )
The idea of is that moving work from a a region with fossil fuel generation to one with renewables will reduce emissions.
This is of course correct. But it depends a lot on
- how much work you can move
- how much of the time you can move it
- what the difference in carbon intensity is between the high-CO2 and low-CO2 region
- what the contribution of the embodied carbon of the data centre is.
I wrote a paper that I am proud of:
"Modelling Scenarios for Carbon-aware Geographic Load Shifting of Compute Workloads"
It evaluates the scope for emission reductions of moving work between data centres in high-emission regions and low-emission regions.
tl;dr: the potential emission savings are no more than a few percent.
I have submitted it to a journal, it's under review but you can read the preprint here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.07043
@grimalkina perhaps @wim_v12e is in the right ballpark?
More generally, maybe check out #frugalComputing
The paper by @maswan and myself
"Life Cycle Analysis for Emissions of Scientific Computing Centres"
has been published!
We develop a detailed model for the LCA of (HPC) data centres, including embodied carbon, server replacement and expansion. It is also applicable to other data centres. We also share the source code.
It shows how important embodied carbon becomes when the grid has more renewables.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjc/s10052-025-14650-8
The paper by @maswan and myself
"Life Cycle Analysis for Emissions of Scientific Computing Centres"
has been published!
We develop a detailed model for the LCA of (HPC) data centres, including embodied carbon, server replacement and expansion. It is also applicable to other data centres. We also share the source code.
It shows how important embodied carbon becomes when the grid has more renewables.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjc/s10052-025-14650-8
The purpose of Google's paper on energy and water consumption of their LLMs is to absolve individual users of their responsibility for the overall emissions and water usage. That way, they hope adoption will rise or at least not drop. The need the adoption to justify continued huge investments in data centres. And the damage of this investment is done even if the AI bubble would burst tomorrow.
https://limited.systems/articles/the-real-problem-with-AI/
https://limited.systems/articles/the-insatiable-hunger-of-openai/
The purpose of Google's paper on energy and water consumption of their LLMs is to absolve individual users of their responsibility for the overall emissions and water usage. That way, they hope adoption will rise or at least not drop. The need the adoption to justify continued huge investments in data centres. And the damage of this investment is done even if the AI bubble would burst tomorrow.
https://limited.systems/articles/the-real-problem-with-AI/
https://limited.systems/articles/the-insatiable-hunger-of-openai/
How the AI hype is pushing up emissions -- even if it never delivers.
https://wimvanderbauwhede.codeberg.page/articles/the-real-problem-with-AI/
My paper with @maswan
"Life Cycle Analysis for Emissions of Scientific Computing Centres"
has been accepted fro publication in European Physical Journal C !
We develop a detailed model for the LCA of (HPC) data centres, including embodied carbon, server replacement and expansion. It is also applicable to other data centres. We also share the source code.
It shows how important embodied carbon becomes when the grid has more renewables.
My paper with @maswan
"Life Cycle Analysis for Emissions of Scientific Computing Centres"
has been accepted fro publication in European Physical Journal C !
We develop a detailed model for the LCA of (HPC) data centres, including embodied carbon, server replacement and expansion. It is also applicable to other data centres. We also share the source code.
It shows how important embodied carbon becomes when the grid has more renewables.
A space for Bonfire maintainers and contributors to communicate
