If the assumptions made through this post are correct – please do reach out if you have something to add, contributions would be most welcome – we are entirely justified in promoting the next version of carbon-aware computing.
For argument’s sake let’s call it grid-aware computing for now. This would be the version that addresses the realities of what is impactful and what isn’t given the real-world constraints of managing electricity grids and existing with tight global carbon budgets.
The next proposed iteration of carbon-aware computing that helps developers address the impact of computing shift in ways that make actual net reductions to the emissions associated with local and global electricity grids. The key approaches are:
- Run compute when demand is low, using curtailed green electricity in stable grids.
- Run compute on additive electricity.
- Demand-shape computing electricity use so it stays within agreed resource use boundaries.
This blog has, above all, identified that the version of “carbon aware computing” as currently presented, promoted, and increasingly marketed by more and more Big Tech companies, is not actually a solution to the environmental impact of computing. But in fact is mostly ineffective and full of unacknowledged risks.
Embracing this paradigm without question risks a very subtle and dangerous new wave of greenwashing. Whenever you read: we have made X carbon aware, or timed Y to when the grid is greenest - assume that will make little to no positive difference. And if it really scales it’s likely to damage both the climate and grid stability/access.
What we think the above discussion indicates above all is there’s no magic bullet. The unsustainability of computing is not addressed by a single headline intervention or set of coding standards.
We have done our best to outline a more sophisticated approach, building on what’s already come before us and what lies ahead. Our hope is we can capture the current desire to make software more carbon-aware but make it more effective, drastically reducing its risks, and expand it to significantly increase the likelihood of meaningful climate benefits from tech interventions. This is what we’ve named “grid-aware computing”.
So let us by all means embrace, experiment and innovate with ways 1 and 2 of grid-aware computing. It is potentially useful and impactful. But let’s not translate the application of these patterns into the automatic assumption that as an industry we’re prioritising the right work.
We cannot allow ourselves to become distracted from the central, constant question in way 3: is your compute’s net electricity demand reducing?
Continue the story: What can you do to help?