"Green" power (was: Re: [NCLUG] PC for Linux (Ubuntu))

[Sean Reifschneider]

>Conservation starts with everybody in a way that makes sense.

Ah, the abstinence argument for the future...

Conservation clearly is good for some things, primarily finite or
over-farmed resources.  But electricity is not the whales...

Conservation isn't something that's obviously good.  Because if you go into
something with the mentality that you have to make the most of the
resources you have easily available, it may make you completely miss
other opportunities that completely change the game.  This is a very real
problem which I think is becoming quite obvious these days with what I see
as a critical lack of alternative energy options.

In other words, getting people to convert over to compact fluorescent
lights to stretch out our coal supply is bullshit when the alternative is
reasonably funding alternative energy sources like solar.  For example, the
first compact fluorescent manufacturing facility cost was $25 million
dollars (in the early '70s money), but it was only recently that they put
together the $50M challenge to double the efficiency of solar cells.

It seems to me that it's only been the last couple of years that people
have really been taking the idea of getting out of that rat-race seriously,
but all along SUV-loads of money has been spent on getting more out of
limited resources like oil and coal.

So, in that way simply conservation can be harmful.

But it's not that simple either.  Because then you've got to answer the
question of whether you believe spending resources on things to improve the
future is worth it.  Is the power that we all are spending on F at H worth it
to further research?  Personally, I feel that that research is far more
important to the future than not spending some small amount of coal,
because the researchers are the ones most likely to get us off the rat-race
and do the huge, literally life-changing work that our children's children
will rely on.

The saying is "I can see further because I stand on the shoulders of
giants", not "because my forefathers gave me this little rock".

You're also forgetting that at least half the year we need heating around
here, and a computer that is running F at H is almost 100% efficient at
converting electricity into heat.  That's heat that your furnace doesn't
need to generate.  So half the year it probably doesn't make sense even
from a conservation standpoint.

As far as your point about "power hungry 64-bit CPUs", almost every CPU you
get today is a 64-bit CPU.  Even the Atom CPU at 4W TDP will run an 64-bit
OS.  The reason you need to run 64-bit is not for more performance or more
power consumption, but simply that the F at H client will not run in SMP mode
on Linux when running in 32-bit mode.  So, if you have a multi-core CPU you
either need to run multiple copies of the client, or install the 64-bit OS.

And don't forget that many of the new CPUs are fairly energy efficient.  If
you're running a P3 or P4 without F at H, you might actually be saving power
by buying a new stomping box and running F at H on it.  Though, obviously,
you're using more power than if you bought the new box and didn't.

Personally, my view is that research is more important than conservation.

So, good going Hacking Society F at H team for getting into the top 500 teams
of all time:

   http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=58381

We welcome anyone who wants to join.  Because sometimes size DOES matter...
Ask any researcher with a small supercomputer.  :-P

Sean
-- 
 Blaming the software quality on the tool is like saying "I can't pick up
 chicks because my car isn't cool enough."  -- Sean Reifschneider, 1998
Sean Reifschneider, Member of Technical Staff <jafo at tummy.com>
tummy.com, ltd. - Linux Consulting since 1995: Ask me about High Availability