Author: chris
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I had no idea Nigeria had so much off grid energy
While doing some research for a coming episode of the Environment Variables, I ended up looking up information about Nigeria’s power grid – I knew grid coverage was patchy, but I had no idea, there was so much off site generation. Look at the map below, from the IEA page! Most of the time these…
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Half formed idea: energy gravity and an energy gradient
I’m sharing this idea in half-baked form, because increasingly, when I think about electricity grid, I want to visualise it in this way to help understand the differences between various ways a power grid can be structured. If you think of energy has a gradient in the Z-axis where resources (as in generation) are peaks,…
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How to have a Net Zero target whilst causing as much carbon pollution as possible
I was on a call for Carbon Tracker webinar call about a coming report, and a the subject of the most damaging way to do Net Zero came up. One speaker mentioned a a scenario that really stuck with me – he outlined a way you lets you say you have a Net zero target…
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How clean does electricity need to get for the European ICT sector to half its emissions by 2030?
This post from John Booth from Carbon 3 about the recent coming European Energy efficiency directive, got me thinking about what kinds of changes are needed sector wise to meet their own targets by 2030. Here’s the good quote he draws attention to in his post: ‘The ICT sector is another important sector which receives…
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A provocative, but fascinating way to think about climate impact in a services or consulting business
In 2008, after graduating from university, I saw a talk by Ed Gillespie at the Hub (now the impact Hub) in Angel Islington, London. It really stayed with me, and one result of me coming to that lunchtime talk was that I met someone Jamie Andrews, who was working on an idea called Loco2, a…
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Comparing what is spent on share buybacks vs the cost of decarbonising the grid
When doing some research this week, I came across what I think is a pretty eye opening stat. Tech firms spent twice as much money buying up their own shares in the last 18 months, as it would cost to buy out and shutdown every coal fired coal plant on earth, and replace them with…
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Options to make software greener without changing the code, and how to remember them
I’ve been doing some research into carbon aware computing, and I’m trying to find a memorable way to talk about the choices available to you when you want to deploy computing resources in a responsible way, but can not change the underlying code of the application. This post summarises a couple of recent papers, and…
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Trying a thing – a weekly Tab / Brain Dump
I obsessively make notes in my laptop, but I stil l haven’t found a sensible way to share them. so I’m sharing this post here, in the hope that it’ll force me to clarify my thoughts as I read stuff, and eventually get to some state a bit like being able to follow the Memex…
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Hyperscale datacentre loads as the densest loads on the energy grid – still true?
I recently asked this question on a private mailing list focussed around ICT for sustainability, but having a public url helps when asking more widely. I run a podcast focussed on the environmental impact of ICTs, and I have a question that might be relevant for other studying here. Hyperscale datacentre loads as very dense…
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Paper notes: Computational parasites and hydropower: A political ecology of Bitcoin mining on the Columbia River
I just finished reading this paper on a lazy Sunday morning, and this post is a bit of an experiment in trying to capture the stuff I learn and make it easier to come back to in future. Why is this paper interesting? This paper does a fantastic job of exploring the politics behind cryptocurrencies,…