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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Completed Research
Forum: The Clean Energy Project - Phase 2 Forum
Thread: Clean Energy Project - Is it worth it? |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 37
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radi8600
Cruncher Joined: Feb 22, 2011 Post Count: 1 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Hello everyone!
First of all I would like to congratulate everyone who donates computer power to World Community Grid and any other similar projects. I also would like apologize for the long post, but I think this is very interesting and valid question. It would be really great if someone analyze this issue. Here is a thought… Let’s say, I volunteer for the project “The Clean Energy Project - Phase 2”. Is it more helpful to load my PC at 100%, computing for this project and making it consume more energy, than just working on it at lower load (everyday use) and consuming much less energy (this way it would be more green, right in power consumption sense)? Let me be more specific by providing some numbers. Let’s say I use my laptop. In everyday tasks it consumes around 35W (instantaneous power consumption). When loaded at 100% CPU usage, the power consumptions reaches 90W (the CPU is Core i7 720QM). So, do these 90W instantaneous power consumption plus the contribution to the project contribute more than the environmental-friendly 35W instantaneous consumption without donating computational power to the project? I also believe, that this analysis would give different outcome depending on the country since different countries use different sources of energy (as well as the ratio between renewable and non-renewable energy is different from country to country). Thanks in advance! Best regards, Radoslav |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Think about this, under the assumption that all computers are equal around the planet: Would it take less energy if at the end of the month 20,000 computers were completing the same number of results taking the tjook tjook approach as 5,000 going full throttle by TGV? [ignore the aerodynamics]. If we get this project finished years earlier, the end game is also that years earlier we can reduce our fat carbon footprint.
--//-- P.S. I'll ask the admins to move this out to the CEP2 forum, since that is the Green Energy project. The C&S has a special meaning. |
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Richard Mitnick
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Feb 28, 2007 Post Count: 583 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I applaud Sekerob's quietly stated last sentence, "If we get this project finished years earlier, the end game is also that years earlier we can reduce our fat carbon footprint."
----------------------------------------The real point is, while these guys have the under developed countries as their main focus, they are working on an organic, grow it, methodology for Clean Energy which when (not if) perfected will help every country. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hi everybody,
this is indeed a very interesting discussion - we actually had a similar one a while back. There are a number of reasonable positions one can have on this issue. Assuming the project is successful and leads to a viable technology for abundant renewable energy, all the electricity spent right now can be seen as an investment which is returned with dividend - ideally, the higher the investment, the sooner the success, the better the return. But even without this investment argument, using distributed volunteer computing makes sense: we would pursue this study in any case, but it would take much longer, it would require a comparable amount of electricity, but in addition we would have to invest in dedicated hardware (which is not only expensive but requires resources and energy to build) and then have to take care of special power and cooling issues that arise when you centralize computers. In the WCG, the hardware investment has already been made by you - we merely help to fully utilize it. Distributed computing has also much less issues with cooling or the power grid stability. Finally, the WCG is an excellent tool for outreach to the public and we are very happy how invested our crunchers are in the scientific enterprise that CEP represents. Best wishes Your Harvard CEP team BTW: Most of our personal computers and laptops run CEP2 full throttle whenever they are idle. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
The real energy investment is the capital expended to create a computer. Adding a slight amount to do something useful with that investment is just good sense. About half a generation ago, I was surprised to learn that the energy expended to create energy-saving options for a computer exceeded the energy that would be saved. (
 At least back then.) I have never forgotten that lesson. You have to include capital investment as well as operating expenses when deciding whether crunching projects like this offers a decent return. Many computers amortize total energy expended over nothing but internet access. We are spending a little more - but look at all that we are amortizing our investment over.Lawrence |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Given that cheap, readily available clean energy has five easily identifiable primary benefits - reduction of environmental loading with GHGs, the freeing of funds otherwise spent on energy for use in buying food, medicine, funding other research, etc., the preservation of hydrocarbons for use in lubricants, solvents, polymers, medicine, fertilizer, etc., the removal of carbonaceous forms of energy as a reason for war, and the elimination of carbon-centric industries as a primary corrupter of governments (although the latter two might be considered to be the same thing) - I say "Yes, it is worth it. Crunch harder."
----------------------------------------[Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Feb 25, 2012 2:52:14 PM] |
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nasher
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Dec 2, 2005 Post Count: 1423 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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yes it is a question for us is it better to crunch CEP2 or save energy...
----------------------------------------In my opinion crunch 1) if we get new technology faster and cheaper then we will be able to if i could afford to equip my house with solar cells enough to zero my energy usage i would... i don't have the money. there are tons of ways to minimize your carbon footprint but most people wont because its too much trouble.... at the current cost of a solar system it takes 10-20 years to pay it self off... right now i can not afford that investment but i can spend a small power investment to make the cells cheaper in the future. ..... Another way to think about it... if this project is even marginally successful it will still prove to others that distributed computing can go something... and each new project to distributed computing of any sort that is successful shows another use for computers in there idle time. ------ as for the I want to clean up my carbon footprint radi8600 .... using your example Let me be more specific by providing some numbers. Let’s say I use my laptop. In everyday tasks it consumes around 35W (instantaneous power consumption). When loaded at 100% CPU usage, the power consumptions reaches 90W (the CPU is Core i7 720QM). so you are using 3x the power... if you are worried about that calculate how much it would cost to replace the power with solar grid-tie system and asume you get horable light in your area so 3 hours/day effective you would need 720W grid tie system to offset that with current prices thats about 2600 ----- $2600 The Astronergy Micro-inverter 720-watt Gridtie System is one of the best solar power starter kits you'll find in today's fast changing market. That’s because the solar panels are made by Astronergy Solar, a reputable manufacturer that's vertically integrated, and are paired with microinverters by Enphase Energy, a company at the forefront of inverter technology and growing at lightning speed. The Astronergy Micro-inverter 720-watt Gridtie System comes with three 240-watt solar panels by Astronergy and three Enphase M190 Microinverters. ---- oh but this qualifies for the 30% federal tax credit as well as many local ones as well... the hope of this project is to get that price a lot cheaper so more people can afford solar...  |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Good discussion, everybody!
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Hypernova
Master Cruncher Audaces Fortuna Juvat ! Vaud - Switzerland Joined: Dec 16, 2008 Post Count: 1908 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Regarding the amortization issue WCG is king for hardware that we use at our homes. (I do not speak about running cost but amortization of the initial investment).
----------------------------------------Suppose I have set up a top rig for crunching that costs 2'000 US$. Top hexacore cpu, super fast ram, SSD, top motherboard, super-cooler, all running at 4.5 Ghz etc. etc. fine. This rig runs nonstop 24/7 for years and exclusively for WCG. This means that the CPU runs at around 99% of its capacity all the time. Each year is 8'760 hours. Say four years lifetime that is 35'040 hours, a little less in fact for some maintenance. It brings the investment to about 5 cents/hour. It is important to mention that this hourly cost is for a "full" use of CPU capability. Never a home rig is better amortized than such a unit described above.  [Edit 2 times, last edit by Hypernova at Mar 7, 2012 7:00:27 PM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Does that count in the cost of the electricity Hypernova? Prices per kw hour vary greatly across the world. You start running that thing peak time in some places it can start to cost you 25 cents per kw hour. Let's be modest and say with the whole kit and kaboodle 200 watts being used. For 4 years thats around another 1750 dollars. Now add in the heat load. Is this computer being run in a room that needs air conditioning? If so, that 200 watts is essentially heat energy being thrown into the room, which needs to be removed by your AC unit. That costs money too.
Yes this is a good cause but if we are going to be throwing around numbers, lets include all of them. Aaron |
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