Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and wind blows

Re:Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and ... by samatman on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @06:32PM (#22950936)

I respect lowtechmagazine's experiment: it's designed to make you think, and it succeeds.

But CPUs have an incredibly high embodied energy, we should aim for full utilization of servers, regardless of the source of that energy.

If it's three CPUs with carbon-neutral electricity, or one CPU with electricity from coal, the latter is the responsible choice.

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Re:Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and ... by fuzzybear3965 on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @07:06PM (#22951170)

Did you mean the reverse? I.e. "If it's one CPU with carbon-neutral electricity, or three CPUs with electricity from coal, the latter is the responsible choice."

If no, then why. I can explain my confusion if needed.

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Re:Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and ... by samatman on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @07:16PM (#22951222)

I don't mean the reverse, I mean that running one CPU 24 hours a day instead of 3 CPUs 8 hours a day is better, even if the 3 CPUs have carbon-neutral energy and the 1 CPU does not.

To be fair, these are artificial choices, and that's not even what lowtech was doing (they have a battery). I was responding to the post about the CDNs that stop working at night.

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