Low-Tech Magazine is hosted on a solar-powered web server. It has a battery backup, but it will go off-line during longer periods of bad weather. So there’s a page detailing both the battery level and the weather forecast in Barcelona.
I enjoy imaging the physical location of the website! From the About page:
Because it uses so little energy, this website can be run on a mini-computer with the processing power of a mobile phone. It needs 1 to 2.5 watts of power, which is supplied by a small, off-grid solar PV system on the balcony of the author’s home.
(Photos are black and white and dithered, which further reduces energy; only default fonts are used; there have been sensible, low-energy tech decisions on the back-end.)
Another! Solar Protocol (which cites Low-Tech Magazine in its library).
Solar Protocol is a web platform hosted across a network of solar-powered servers set up in different locations around the world. A solar-powered server is a computer that is powered by a solar panel and a small battery. Each server can only offer intermittent connectivity that is dependent on available sunshine, the length of day and local weather conditions. When connected as a network, the servers coordinate to serve a website from whichever of them is enjoying the most sunshine at the time.
One of the collaborators on Solar Protocol is the artist Tega Brain who gave a wonderful and mind-expanding talk at The Conference in Sweden last week.
It’s a presentation of her own work, a critique of “systems thinking,” and a probe into both AI and climate.
Watch the video here: The environment is not a system by Tega Brain (40 mins + Q&A). Highly recommended.
Solar Protocol is provocative, for me, because the big tech companies will of course already be behaving like this, shuffling compute around to where energy is cheapest. (And it’s why Meta has server farms in the Arctic circle, to take advantage of cheap cooling.)
BUT: for the rest of us? It’s interesting to imagine what underlying tech would be required to allow for any website to operate like this.
SOME IDEAS:
Could energy accounting be built into internet protocols?
Like: could a database query return, along with the results and the query time, the joules burnt to produce the answer?
Could that query additionally report the location of its server, and a data centre report the precise energy mix (% from grid; % from battery; % from local renewables etc) supplied to that server at the time?
Can an API aggregate the energy spent for all its underlying queries, in the return object including the total joules – which would also have to include a calculation based on the CPU time to service the API call? And an amortised slice of the embedded carbon of the data centre?
Ultimately: could a webpage include, in its HTTP response headers, all of this data added up, every page returned to your browser with its joules shown numerically right there in the tab?
Or as carbon footprint? Because that’s the goal, I think: a live view of the carbon I’ve burnt today with my app swiping and web browsing, in exactly the same way as I can tap the battery icon in my menu bar on my laptop and see a list of Apps Using Significant Energy.
AWS, Google Cloud, etc: do this please?
THERE ARE PEOPLE WORKING ON THIS!
And people to learn from: Branch magazine, now 4 issues in.
A couple of favourite articles…
However in Switzerland, this idea of carbon awareness is being built into the internet protocols themselves with SCION. …
This same flexibility also means that it’s possible to choose routes based on how green the path to a destination is too - avoiding regions when the cost of energy is high, and the power is dirty, or where there’s a scarcity of green energy available.
Aha! A protocol to watch.
This article has some practical pointers for web engineers:
In order to meet the growing demands for reporting and transparency, developers need a way to measure the carbon emissions associated with the apps, sites, and software they build. On the server side, we’re seeing more providers build carbon reporting into their platforms. However, on the application side, it’s largely up to developers themselves to implement solutions. That’s where libraries like CO2.js come in handy, providing a set of research-based, standard calculations that enable developers to quickly add carbon awareness to their products and projects.
Good news on the cloud computing front, then.
CO2.js has some intriguing implications:
In the same way that web developers might set a performance budget for their site, a carbon budget could also be used. If a website or app exceeds a threshold for carbon intensity, then an alert can be raised or a new deployment can be blocked.
(The library comes from Branch sponsors, the Green Web Foundation.)
Action is the point, right? Acts not facts. We measure for
transparency: we can see what’s going on
behaviour change: given data, we might make different decisions.
So measure at the server and protocol level first, and then allow service developers to change their behaviour… and, eventually, expose the data to end users?
More practical tips: see This website is killing the planet (Steve Messer, 2020) which has a bunch of tools and how-tos in the Further Reading section.
ALSO:
Not the same but with the same vibe:
Should I Bake .com (single-serving website). Currently: We recommend baking when more than a third of Britain’s electricity is coming from wind, solar and hydro power – right now, between 19:00-19:30, it’s 24%.
Wonderfully there is a multi-day baking forecast which shows me that I shouldn’t bake until, ah, Saturday.
Relies on this new-to-me Carbon Intensity API:
The Carbon Intensity API uses state-of-the-art Machine Learning and sophisticated power system modelling to forecast the carbon intensity and generation mix 96+ hours ahead for each region in Great Britain.
Our OpenAPI allows consumers and smart devices to schedule and minimise CO2 emissions at a local level.
Brilliant.
Build this into my tumble drier!
Seriously. Samsung, Electrolux, etc etc: if current carbon intensity is higher than average, make it so I have to hold down the Start button for like 2 minutes or something.
Make me work for it! Make me solve a puzzle before running my appliances when emissions are above average. Hey I’ve even got a name for that imaginary feature: Carbon CAPTCHA.
(I should be able to get something working at home with smart plugs and a Raspberry Pi… hmm…)
This is a temporary scenario!
Or at least, until I can get solar at home, which appears to be pretty much impossible rn in the UK due to volume of interest.
BECAUSE: solar means energy freedom.
Clive Thompson:
I’ve stopped worrying about electricity use, both economically and ethically.
I no longer walk around finger-wagging at my family members. Want to blast the AC? Crank away. It’s coming from the sun, and I can’t use all that electricity even if I try.
The emotional shift: I went from a feeling of scarcity to a sense of abundance.
Can’t wait.
ANYWAY, what I really want is a new web browser with a built-in carbon accounting odometer for all our Twitter doomscrolling (accrued in CO2E kg per inch).
I want you to feel a sense of relief when you type a common query into Google and the data comes back from the cache, dodging the expensive database lookups.
Ask something weird and get a cache miss? YOUR COMPUTER SHOULD ELECTROCUTE YOU.
Not too much, let’s be clear, just a little zap, a bit like an elastic band twanging on the tip of your finger. Multitouch screens that can give you an electric shock would have all kinds of uses for behaviour change I reckon.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it by email or on social media. Here’s the link. Thanks, —Matt.
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Low-Tech Magazine is hosted on a solar-powered web server. It has a battery backup, but it So there’s a page detailing both the battery level and the weather forecast in Barcelona.
I enjoy imaging the physical location of the website! From the About page:
(Photos are black and white and dithered, which further reduces energy; only default fonts are used; there have been sensible, low-energy tech decisions on the back-end.)
Another! Solar Protocol (which cites Low-Tech Magazine in its library).
One of the collaborators on Solar Protocol is the artist Tega Brain who gave a wonderful and mind-expanding talk at The Conference in Sweden last week.
It’s a presentation of her own work, a critique of “systems thinking,” and a probe into both AI and climate.
Watch the video here: The environment is not a system by Tega Brain (40 mins + Q&A). Highly recommended.
Solar Protocol is provocative, for me, because the big tech companies will of course already be behaving like this, shuffling compute around to where energy is cheapest. (And it’s why Meta has server farms in the Arctic circle, to take advantage of cheap cooling.)
BUT: for the rest of us? It’s interesting to imagine what underlying tech would be required to allow for any website to operate like this.
SOME IDEAS:
Could energy accounting be built into internet protocols?
Like: could a database query return, along with the results and the query time, the joules burnt to produce the answer?
Could that query additionally report the location of its server, and a data centre report the precise energy mix (% from grid; % from battery; % from local renewables etc) supplied to that server at the time?
Can an API aggregate the energy spent for all its underlying queries, in the return object including the total joules – which would also have to include a calculation based on the CPU time to service the API call? And an amortised slice of the embedded carbon of the data centre?
Ultimately: could a webpage include, in its HTTP response headers, all of this data added up, every page returned to your browser with its joules shown numerically right there in the tab?
Or as carbon footprint? Because that’s the goal, I think: a live view of the carbon I’ve burnt today with my app swiping and web browsing, in exactly the same way as I can tap the battery icon in my menu bar on my laptop and see a list of Apps Using Significant Energy.
AWS, Google Cloud, etc: do this please?
THERE ARE PEOPLE WORKING ON THIS!
And people to learn from: Branch magazine, now 4 issues in.
A couple of favourite articles…
Aha! A protocol to watch.
This article has some practical pointers for web engineers:
Good news on the cloud computing front, then.
CO2.js has some intriguing implications:
(The library comes from Branch sponsors, the Green Web Foundation.)
Action is the point, right? Acts not facts. We measure for
So measure at the server and protocol level first, and then allow service developers to change their behaviour… and, eventually, expose the data to end users?
More practical tips: see This website is killing the planet (Steve Messer, 2020) which has a bunch of tools and how-tos in the Further Reading section.
ALSO:
Not the same but with the same vibe:
Should I Bake .com (single-serving website). Currently:
Wonderfully there is a multi-day baking forecast which shows me that I shouldn’t bake until, ah, Saturday.
Relies on this new-to-me Carbon Intensity API:
Brilliant.
Build this into my tumble drier!
Seriously. Samsung, Electrolux, etc etc: if current carbon intensity is higher than average, make it so I have to hold down the Start button for like 2 minutes or something.
Make me work for it! Make me solve a puzzle before running my appliances when emissions are above average. Hey I’ve even got a name for that imaginary feature: Carbon CAPTCHA.
(I should be able to get something working at home with smart plugs and a Raspberry Pi… hmm…)
This is a temporary scenario!
Or at least, until I can get solar at home, which appears to be pretty much impossible rn in the UK due to volume of interest.
BECAUSE: solar means energy freedom.
Clive Thompson:
The emotional shift:
Can’t wait.
ANYWAY, what I really want is a new web browser with a built-in carbon accounting odometer for all our Twitter doomscrolling (accrued in CO2E kg per inch).
I want you to feel a sense of relief when you type a common query into Google and the data comes back from the cache, dodging the expensive database lookups.
Ask something weird and get a cache miss? YOUR COMPUTER SHOULD ELECTROCUTE YOU.
Not too much, let’s be clear, just a little zap, a bit like an elastic band twanging on the tip of your finger. Multitouch screens that can give you an electric shock would have all kinds of uses for behaviour change I reckon.