Great collab with Google! They've been probably the most serious corporate wrt getting all-renewable offsets for their operations... this is helping them reach the next milestone where the renewable offsets are time-matched. Great example of being serious about this stuff rather than just greenwashing.
It sounds like this project is for their own operations. Have you guys thought about how to offer this closer to a turnkey cloudops SASS / API? What kinds of abstractions would you present to developers building non-time-critical compute loads?
Could be a great differentiator for GCP vs. AWS (I have heard of some companies choosing GCP over AWS due to Google's green energy cloud). And for you guys, the only thing better than Google being a customer is all of Google's customers being your customers.
Also, how can we avoid the potential for unintended consequences where this tech makes Google "greener" while GCP users become less green?
If a data center has (roughly, to a first-order approximation) fixed compute capacity at any point in time, and we assume that any capacity not being used by Google themselves is made available to GCP, then wouldn't Google reserving the "green" hours for themselves drive the remaining "dirty" hours onto the GCP spot markets?
Is there a cloud market design that addresses this tension between maximizing utilization and having desirable or 'premium' compute hours?
That looks like a good opportunity for an (at least tangentinally related) big shout-out to your great electricityMap (https://www.electricitymap.org/map) website!
I wish there would be more countries covered (in particular Switzerland), but I guess you depend on the live data being provided in these countries.
Unfortunately, the crux is data availability and reliability from system/transmission operators. For example, there is no online data available for the Northern Territory of Australia, so you can't build a parser for it. Some data providers have frequent data outages for different regions (ENTSOE), as there is no SLA or contractual obligation for providing data reliably.
If you're aware of a region that has live data available and is not yet live on electricitymap.org, please consider contributing a parser [1]! If you live in a region without live data, please consider politely requesting such data be made available through utility and system operator contacts, or explore requiring such data be made available by law (if public policy is your thing).
Hey Martin, this is super cool! Congrats on the collab!
Would you mind commenting on what your tech stack is like? Looking at your github repo it seems like you're combining a lot of data sources. Can you comment on your approach?
Also, considering this collaboration, are you running on GCP?
Hello,
Olivier here (CEO Tomorrow)
Indeed we're running on GCP, using a mixture of Python and Node. In terms of the approach, I suggest checking out our blog (https://www.tmrow.com/blog) and this talk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAelZb2ZYwI) which might provide a bit of clarity.
The main point of the documentary is that the EROEI of the "green economy" turns out to cost more than using fossil fuels directly. In short, the green economy didn't give common people an alternative, it simply gave business people a new tool to mask their intentions while idealistic politicians genuflect to the lie. The lies trickle down through the career pipe line and people go along with unquestioned assumptions out of fear of losing their jobs.
I personally think the documentary doesn't go far enough about the cultural aspect. I'm speaking specifically of the social norms of conformity, sociopathy and narcissism in the decision making classes. We have fucked future generations for short term gains and the only hope the tech community can come up with is to pretend that we will build rockets to go to Mars. When the kids of the billionaires pushing this horseshit get preventable cancers or tangled up in a class war - maybe then things will change (albeit I doubt it). Until then, it's all bean bags, idiocy, shiny tech toys and fluff. Enjoy it while it last. The magic bullet of nuclear fusion doesn't seem to be likely and the social organization to leverage what we have in a responsible manner doesn't either. We will keep doing what we are doing until nature bitch slaps us and we have to change. Hopefully I'm wrong. I want to be.
floatrock|5 years ago
It sounds like this project is for their own operations. Have you guys thought about how to offer this closer to a turnkey cloudops SASS / API? What kinds of abstractions would you present to developers building non-time-critical compute loads?
Could be a great differentiator for GCP vs. AWS (I have heard of some companies choosing GCP over AWS due to Google's green energy cloud). And for you guys, the only thing better than Google being a customer is all of Google's customers being your customers.
floatrock|5 years ago
If a data center has (roughly, to a first-order approximation) fixed compute capacity at any point in time, and we assume that any capacity not being used by Google themselves is made available to GCP, then wouldn't Google reserving the "green" hours for themselves drive the remaining "dirty" hours onto the GCP spot markets?
Is there a cloud market design that addresses this tension between maximizing utilization and having desirable or 'premium' compute hours?
martincollignon|5 years ago
ar0|5 years ago
I wish there would be more countries covered (in particular Switzerland), but I guess you depend on the live data being provided in these countries.
toomuchtodo|5 years ago
Unfortunately, the crux is data availability and reliability from system/transmission operators. For example, there is no online data available for the Northern Territory of Australia, so you can't build a parser for it. Some data providers have frequent data outages for different regions (ENTSOE), as there is no SLA or contractual obligation for providing data reliably.
If you're aware of a region that has live data available and is not yet live on electricitymap.org, please consider contributing a parser [1]! If you live in a region without live data, please consider politely requesting such data be made available through utility and system operator contacts, or explore requiring such data be made available by law (if public policy is your thing).
[1] https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap-contrib#adding-a-n...
unknown|5 years ago
[deleted]
ZeroCool2u|5 years ago
Would you mind commenting on what your tech stack is like? Looking at your github repo it seems like you're combining a lot of data sources. Can you comment on your approach? Also, considering this collaboration, are you running on GCP?
corradio|5 years ago
Also, feel free to join our Slack at https://slack.tmrow.com to ask your questions!
mempko|5 years ago
wturner|5 years ago
I personally think the documentary doesn't go far enough about the cultural aspect. I'm speaking specifically of the social norms of conformity, sociopathy and narcissism in the decision making classes. We have fucked future generations for short term gains and the only hope the tech community can come up with is to pretend that we will build rockets to go to Mars. When the kids of the billionaires pushing this horseshit get preventable cancers or tangled up in a class war - maybe then things will change (albeit I doubt it). Until then, it's all bean bags, idiocy, shiny tech toys and fluff. Enjoy it while it last. The magic bullet of nuclear fusion doesn't seem to be likely and the social organization to leverage what we have in a responsible manner doesn't either. We will keep doing what we are doing until nature bitch slaps us and we have to change. Hopefully I'm wrong. I want to be.