There’s been a lot written over the past couple of years about the electricity used to mine Bitcoin, the most prominent of many cryptocurrencies. I can best summarize the credibility and tone of that coverage with the following headline from Newsweek: Bitcoin Mining On Track To Consume All Of
Read moreIn September 2017 I posted on our analysis of the trends in the electricity intensity of network data flows, which was placed online in August 2017. The journal finally put the article in a printed edition in August 2018 and I wanted to re-up this post (with minor updates) to
Read moreGoogle just released this white paper, which is the next logical evolution in clean energy for data centers (also see the related blog post). When companies claim their data centers use 100% clean electricity, they do that using an annual balancing act, which sometimes isn’t clear to people not
Read moreAll oil is not created equal when it comes to carbon intensity of production. That’s the message from our latest article, just released in Science today. This work is part of a broader project to assess the full life-cycle emissions impacts of oil production, refining, distribution, and consumption, summarized
Read moreIt’s been a great award season for Turning Numbers into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving (3rd Edition). I’m particularly proud of this book because it encapsulates what I’ve learned about being an effective researcher and communicator over the past few decades, and it’s had
Read moreTurning Numbers into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving (3rd Edition) just won Silver awards in the Business Non-Fiction and Professional/Technical Non-Fiction categories in the Global eBook Awards for 2018. To see the list of Global eBook Award winners, go here. Turning Numbers into Knowledge, 3rd ed: http:
Read moreInside Climate did a nice job summarizing the past 70 years of climate denial by fossil fuel interests, including links to key historical references. Read it here. They also made this visual, which is helpful. The best historical treatment of climate denial is still Oreskes, Naomi, and Eric M. Conway.
Read moreAwhile back we stopped at Duarte’s Tavern in Pescadero, CA, which was founded roughly a century ago (I think the building predates the restaurant). They still had a couple of non-functional gas lamps on the wall, with wicks and everything. I took a couple of photos, which I show
Read moreYesterday (May 31, 2018) I talked at the Foothill College Solutions conference about climate solutions, summarizing what I’ve learned in three decades of studying how to solve the climate problem. Here’s the main message: We need to reduce emissions as much as possible, as fast as possible, starting
Read moreTurning Numbers into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving (3rd edition) just won a Silver Medal in the 2018 eLit eBook awards, in the Business/Career/Sales category. See the full list of award winners here. See also the previously announced awards for TNIK (3rd edition) by the Next
Read moreTurning Numbers into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving (3rd Edition) just won Next Generation Indie Book Awards in the Business and E-Book Non Fiction categories for 2018. To see the list of Indie Book Award winners, go here. Turning Numbers into Knowledge also got honorable mentions in the
Read moreThis is an update to the list originally posted on January 10, 2018. Technical Estimates March, 2015. A Cost of Production Model for Bitcoin. The New School for Social Research. March 29, 2016. Bitcoin Could Consume as Much Electricity as Denmark by 2020. MOTHERBOARD. June 28, 2016. The Fair Cost
Read moreBecause of recent interest in the electricity use of Bitcoin mining, I asked my colleague Zach Schmidt to create a reasonably comprehensive list of articles and reports on this topic. As we update this list we’ll create new blog posts so that the latest version is usually at the
Read more“It was in that moment that I realized that if our children look back to how we failed them, it will not have been for lack of scientific understanding or even technological prowess; it will have been due, fundamentally, to cowardice. A profound cowardice among those who actually do have
Read moreThe biggest current problem with data centers nowadays is poor capacity utilization (Shehabi et al. 2016). The most widely-cited example is that of comatose servers, in which 20-30% of servers in typical enterprise data centers are using electricity but doing nothing useful (Koomey and Taylor 2015). Beyond comatose servers, many
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