The Week in Green Software: Wooden Data Centers
11/21/24 • 55 min
This Week in Green Software, host Chris Adams and Asim Hussain, Executive Director of the GSF discuss the latest developments in sustainable software, exploring topics like Microsoft's innovative use of cross-laminated timber in data centers to reduce embodied carbon, the environmental challenges of generative AI hardware, and the groundbreaking Real Time Cloud dataset. They delve into the impact of new international energy efficiency directives, the interplay between geopolitics and sustainability, and surprising developments in China's approach to sustainable technology. Packed with insights, this episode offers an in-depth look at the intersection of technology and climate action.
Learn more about our people:Find out more about the GSF:News:
Learn more about our people:Find out more about the GSF:News:
- Microsoft tests hybrid timber datacenters to cut emissions • The Register [04:37]
- Microsoft Employs Wood Products to Help Decarbonize New Data Center Construction [09:50]
- Karl Rabe – WoodenDataCenter | LinkedIn [12:03]
- E-waste challenges of generative artificial intelligence | Nature [15:02]
- E-waste Challenges of Generative Artificial Intelligence | NetworkDEE
- What now? Trump, data centers, and the next four years [38:53]
- Nuclear? Perhaps! | Volts | Fanfare
- 数据中心绿色低碳发展专项行动计划 [48:08]
- Small datacenters face the axe under China's new energy policy [51:51]
- Listening notes: zero carbon cement on the Volts podcast [10:39]
- We are closing in on zero-carbon cement - by David Roberts [11:01]
- Wooden DataCenter | YouTube
- Dalston Works | Waugh Thistleton Architects
- REVEALED: Google's GINORMOUS £650m London Choc Factory • The Register [12:37]
- The AI datacenter, Nvidia's integrated AI factory vs Broadcom's open fabric [21:21]
- Computational Power and AI - AI Now Institute [22:37]
- Chip Production’s Ecological Footprint: Mapping Climate and Environmental Impact
- $2 H100s: How the GPU Rental Bubble Burst [25:12]
- GitHub - Green-Software-Foundation/real-time-cloud [26:28]
- Happy E.E.D. day to those who celebrate - Green Web Foundation [33:16]
- Tweet from David Fishman | X [47:39]
- Tweet from David Fishman | X [47:45]
- Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
- Follow an...
This Week in Green Software, host Chris Adams and Asim Hussain, Executive Director of the GSF discuss the latest developments in sustainable software, exploring topics like Microsoft's innovative use of cross-laminated timber in data centers to reduce embodied carbon, the environmental challenges of generative AI hardware, and the groundbreaking Real Time Cloud dataset. They delve into the impact of new international energy efficiency directives, the interplay between geopolitics and sustainability, and surprising developments in China's approach to sustainable technology. Packed with insights, this episode offers an in-depth look at the intersection of technology and climate action.
Learn more about our people:Find out more about the GSF:News:
Learn more about our people:Find out more about the GSF:News:
- Microsoft tests hybrid timber datacenters to cut emissions • The Register [04:37]
- Microsoft Employs Wood Products to Help Decarbonize New Data Center Construction [09:50]
- Karl Rabe – WoodenDataCenter | LinkedIn [12:03]
- E-waste challenges of generative artificial intelligence | Nature [15:02]
- E-waste Challenges of Generative Artificial Intelligence | NetworkDEE
- What now? Trump, data centers, and the next four years [38:53]
- Nuclear? Perhaps! | Volts | Fanfare
- 数据中心绿色低碳发展专项行动计划 [48:08]
- Small datacenters face the axe under China's new energy policy [51:51]
- Listening notes: zero carbon cement on the Volts podcast [10:39]
- We are closing in on zero-carbon cement - by David Roberts [11:01]
- Wooden DataCenter | YouTube
- Dalston Works | Waugh Thistleton Architects
- REVEALED: Google's GINORMOUS £650m London Choc Factory • The Register [12:37]
- The AI datacenter, Nvidia's integrated AI factory vs Broadcom's open fabric [21:21]
- Computational Power and AI - AI Now Institute [22:37]
- Chip Production’s Ecological Footprint: Mapping Climate and Environmental Impact
- $2 H100s: How the GPU Rental Bubble Burst [25:12]
- GitHub - Green-Software-Foundation/real-time-cloud [26:28]
- Happy E.E.D. day to those who celebrate - Green Web Foundation [33:16]
- Tweet from David Fishman | X [47:39]
- Tweet from David Fishman | X [47:45]
- Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
- Follow an...
Previous Episode
Shaping Web Sustainability with the W3C
In this episode of Environment Variables, host Chris Adams dives into the evolving landscape of sustainable web development with Alexander Dawson and Tzviya Siegman from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Dawson and Siegman discuss the W3C’s efforts to develop Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG), a comprehensive set of evidence-based practices aimed at reducing the environmental impact of web technologies. They explore the creation and potential impact of these guidelines, especially as global interest grows in embedding sustainable practices within web standards. The episode also covers the challenges of driving adoption across public and private sectors, the role of testability in sustainability guidelines, and future directions for standards that minimize digital carbon footprints. This engaging conversation provides listeners with insights into how W3C’s sustainability initiatives could shape the future of the web.
Learn more about our people:
- The Week in Green Software: Greening Web Standards at the W3C w/ Alex Dawson and Anne Faubry [04:20]
- Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) 1.0 [04:56]
- GRI [16:36]
- RDF-star Working Group [19:26]
- General policy framework for the ecodesign of digital services version 2024 [21:34]
- Sustainable Web Design Community Group [31:04]
- Sustainable Web | Interest Groups | Discover W3C groups | W3C [31:06]
- The 2024 Web Almanac [33:40]
- Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
- Follow and rate on Spotify
- Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!
TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Alexander Dawson: We have tried to, even at the point of being a community group,
treated this as seriously as possible and made sure what we've created to be as evidence led as possible.
Chris Adams: Hello, and welcome to Environment Variables, brought to you by the Green Software Foundation. In each episode, we discuss the latest news and events surrounding green software. On our show, you can expect candid conversations with top experts in their field who have a passion for how to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of software. I'm your host, Chris Adams. Hello, and welcome to Environment Variables, where we bring you the latest news and insights from the world of sustainable software development. I'm your host, Chris Adams. Green software covers a lot of different kinds of software. And today, we're checking in on the work of a group of fellow travelers in the world of web development, and more specifically, the World Wide Web Consortium. If you're not familiar with the World Wide Web Consortium, the W3C, it's effectively the place where people who build the web define how the web works. And where standards like HTML works, how CSS works, and how they're made accessible, and so on. And long before the Green Software Foundation existed, there was the W3C Sustainable Web Design Community Group, chaired by Tim Frick at the agency Mighty Bytes, who was also the author of the O'Reilly book, Designing fo...
Next Episode
The Week in Green Software: Powering AI on Atomic Energy
TWiGS host Anne Currie is joined by Stefana Sopco, Marketing Manager at PortXchange and a passionate climate activist, for an insightful discussion on the intersection of AI, sustainability, and the maritime industry's decarbonization journey. Stefana shares how PortXchange leverages green technology to help ports achieve net-zero emissions through innovations like just-in-time arrival and emissions tracking. They also dive into the challenges posed by AI's growing energy demand and explore nuclear power as a potential ally in the climate fight. Throughout the conversation, Stefana emphasizes the importance of mindful technology use and the urgency of adopting sustainable solutions.
Learn more about our people:
- The role of power in unlocking the European AI revolution [11:17]
- AI Power Demand Might Actually Turn Out to Be Good for Climate [27:55]
- Opinion: The Irony of Powering AI on Atomic Energy [44:34]
- Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
- Follow and rate on Spotify
- Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!
TRANSCRIOT BELOW:
Stefana: Is ChatGPT going to decarbonize the maritime sector? No freaking way!
I haven't heard of anyone saying how they plan to use ChatGPT to decarbonize or to help ports account for their emissions.
Chris Adams: Hello, and welcome to Environment Variables, brought to you by the Green Software Foundation. In each episode, we discuss the latest news and events surrounding green software. On our show, you can expect candid conversations with top experts in their field who have a passion for how to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of software.
I'm your host, Chris Adams.
Anne: Hello and welcome to The Week in Green Software, where we bring you the latest news and updates from the world of sustAInable software development. I'm your host today, Anne Currie. And today we're going to be joined by Stefana Sopco, Marketing Manager at PortXchange, a leader in driving ports towards a net zero future.
Stefana's work centers on using digital solutions to reduce emissions in the shipping industry. So a bit, a little bit different from our normal guests who are mostly directly programmers or very programmer related. So Stefana's vision extends beyond ports to broader decarbonization goals across the tech industry and the maritime industry.
She's also passionate about D&I, diversity and inclusion. And hopefully we'll talk a little bit about that today as well. So in this episode, we're going to talk about three articles that are all about AI, and the effects AI and the demand for AI is having on grids, particularly in Europe. We'll be talking a little bit about the power requirements of AI and the, grid capacity requirements.
And we'll be talking a little bit about whether or not it's always going to be a bad thing, or will actually could potentially be a very good thing for grids. And I'm quite a positive person. I think that there are massive advantages that come from the extension of the grid to support AI. So that'll be an interesting thing to talk about.
I'm also really interested in talking to Stefana about this because a lot of the issues around AI are effectively logistical issues. And logistics is something that we don't think ...
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