Maybe this is what finally could push companies towards making lighter and more efficient websites? At least an estimate of a webpages watt usage (server and client side).
Holy cow, that is a lot. 1-3 grams of CO2 per single load of a page? Makes me feel guilty about even clicking the article.
Let's assume each page load is ~1mbit, and it's being served from 1000km away. 1mbit may be low, but most of it will presumably be content delivered by a CDN which is far closer than 1000km.
The reference design (which I work on) for 400G DWDM systems are ~100W for 2 transceivers + EDFA + switches, for a standard 80km link. Assuming we hop every 80km (which should be conservative here), we get 3mJ for the energy through the network. The previous generation is probably 10x worse, so ~30mJ.
Let's add the endpoint too; Wifi router + cable modem (12W or rather 3W marginal power since it's running anyway/ 200mbit) = 15mJ
And finally for the server. I'd hope the server could do 1k requests per second, and that should amortize against backends, etc (2k RPS, but frontend + DB backend server, maybe), maybe 150W for the server, so 150mJ.
This gives us 200mJ for a page load. Using California's current (1:28am) emissions for power generation of 0.274 mT/MWh (it's 1/3rd of this during the day), this yields 15ug/request.
Where do the remaining 5 orders of magnitude come from? What am I missing? If TCO/production energy of the server was included, that couldn't more than double it (capex in a datacenter < opex, and if 100% of the server cost was for energy, we could double, but this is wildly conservative)
By comparison, average UK cars put out 124.5g for every km driven.
It's not nothing, but it's not a lot either. It probably is worth evaluating the electrical efficiency of the tech industry as a whole, both in terms of highly executed code hotspots and entire pieces of business of questionable utility (ad javascript, cryptocurrency proof-of-waste), but individual web pages are the plastic straws of the industry compared to the giant flare stacks of real problems.
In comparison, leaving a 300W computer setup on for 10 hours each day with coal power is 3KWh or 2.5kg of CO2.
It involves counting carbon from journalists' travel etc. So a full tally (which is good but isn't just about literal pages loaded)
I also wonder how much JS + adverts have to offer as part of that carbon load.
It seemed like every paragraph started with for sure you have been in the waves so you know they are waves
I am not against lighter websites. But it's not gonna happen unless we start pricing carbon.
I hope this becomes more prevalent at least for paid services.
Of course, nowadays the tech is probably so far behind that the cost of the necessary innovations to “catch up” sails to modern powering methods is completely prohibitive; I guess the environment will continue to take one for the team...
We did, modern sail boats are much faster than they used to be and can almost sail against the wind (~30° from the wind direction). Fastest sail boats can cross the Atlantic in few days now. (speed record: 3days15h [1])
Take a look at the clipper route https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_route. To ship goods across the world by sail in any reasonable amount of time, you have to sail way down in the southern ocean, where the winds and seas are incredibly rough and dangerous, and many many people have died horribly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Forties.
We stopped using sails, because people were tired of sailors taking one for the team.
Things have greatly improved with the wide adoption of the Bermuda Rig allowing you to efficiently set a course on all points of sail; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermuda_rig
There's many challenges for sailing commercial freight but I don't think this would be as much of an issue these days.
Also, the material science involved in creating laminated sailcloth is very close to state-of-the-art.
Of course, racing yachts go fast because they weigh very little.
Also, Kitesails [1] have been proposed many times over the last few decades, but I've not heard of anyone using one commercially.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingsail
[1] https://cleantechnica.com/2018/09/11/airbus-seawing-kite-sai...
I've seen articles here and there about adding them to tankers to increase fuel efficiency.
Sails just don't provide all that much motive force, and they're far too unreliable (wind dies down, it doesn't matter how much sail you have.)
Maybe the GP was thinking more along the lines of general 'green' tech -- wind turbines, solar panels, etc? It would certainly be cool to see more of those to supplement existing propulsion systems on ships, and that would help reduce the amount of fuel burned for shipping, which uses some of the dirtiest fractions of petroleum.
Have a look at the America's cup races. Eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y325JWyRslE
The first thing that hits you is the hull isn't in the water. The next thing is the sail boats in a modest breeze are giving the powered boats a run for their money speed wise. One thing that is not so obvious is the sails are now more aerofoils.
Back in the day, boats that had no hulls were a mad mans dream. Now we call them kite surfers. Some exotic ones have keel hanging from a bit of rope.
As far as I know, humanity was still improving sailing tech till the steam engine dominated it. I guess my point is that it’s impossible to tell where we could’ve been now without actually having those years of iteration & innovation; the steam engine quickly and abruptly stymied all developments on that front.
- Motorised rotation of the sails to capture the wind.
- Automated tacking.
You mean something like this? https://www.top-yachtdesign.com/oceanwings-by-vplp/
Assuming the boat can harness 10% of the wave's energy, wave power in the Philippines is more like 10kW per meter of wave length captured on average so that equates to ~1kW per metre of wave. Let's assume this boat can capture roughly 10m of wave then that is an average power generation of ~10kW or ~ 10hp. A boat of this size will probably have 500+ hp engines so a boost of 10hp won't have a huge amount of impact.
> Waves gathered from the vessel's outriggers will drive the double action hydraulic pumps which will generate power for the ship.
It sounds like the "outriggers" are the two outer hulls of the trimaran.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Trimaran_(Philippine_sh...
M g h
g = 10 m / s^2;
M = 1 g / cm^3 = 10^6 g / m^3 = 10^3 kg / m^3;
H = 1 m
MGH ~ 10^4 Joules per meter
If a wave comes every 10 seconds —> 10^3 joules / sec, not far from what this person quoted. We need to add to this the kinetic energy, which might double it. Playing with the other parameters we can get close to what the parent quoted.
There’s ways to trick and gain forward speed from waves, by basically picking a wave that’s high enough and continually sliding down on the front - Surfers for example. But that only works if your object is substantially smaller than the wave in question - which is sort of impossible for ships.
A boat can start surfing once the waterline fits on one face of a wave, so <1/2 wavelength. So a 70m tug just needs a 200m long wave. Mind you, those waves could be 30m tall and breaking over you :-O. So not impossible, but I'm not eager to try it.
https://www.passagemaker.com/lifestyle/freaks-of-nature-rogu...
The wave-glider is much more practical.
But it looks like this boat isn't using a foil, but rather hydraulic pump based electrical generators inside the boat. The article is short on details on how the design works. They do link to two other foil based propulsion boats though:
https://www.popsci.com/gear-gadgets/article/2008-02/wave-run...
https://newatlas.com/autonaut-autonomous-unmanned-surface-ve...
It's not clear from this article how the trimaran works, but you can see in the photos that there is a gap at the top of the outboard hulls. So I suspect it's the relative motion between the outboard hulls and the inboard one which is converted to hydraulic power - makes sense, it will be a short movement with a huge force behind it. That is then fed to a generator, electrical storage and propulsion unit.
That seems like it would introduce drag and greatly limit speed.
Would probably need to be part of a hybrid powerplant though, but if you could get even 10-20% efficiency it might pay for itself in shipping where the boats are in service for a long time usually.
Long range shipping, like air travel, is a major hole in low-carbon strategies right now. Biodiesel or fuel-from-excess-solar/wind might be the only other option.
Or thorium powerplants for ships.
I know scale models don't meet up with realistic waves when on a pond but it would be nice to see this working. As it is the story is not there yet!
It was an interesting but scary experience, probably won't be doing it again. The island was decent.
