Re: Proposal for a new W3C CG: "Web We Can Afford"

> On 21 Jan 2016, at 17:10, alexandre.monnin@web-and-philosophy.org wrote:
> 
> 
> Here is the description of the group:
> 
> Most scientists now seem to agree that we've entered a new epoch dubbed the "Anthropocene", where the environmental consequences of human development have a tremendous impact on Earth's equilibrium. Those effects are already set in motion and will have far-reaching consequences in the coming years despite all the measures we could take to mitigate them (considering we simply do not fail to take action). While trying to avoid some of the consequences of the Anthropocene is an issue that is well-worth striving for, another task would be to reconsider the design of things at the time of the Anthropocene and that includes the Web. For instance, a 2008 study by the University of Dresden stated that if no measure was taken, the energy needed to power the infrastructure of the Web in 2030 would be tantamount to the energy consumed by humanity in 2008.

Is there a link to the study?

> The agendas of the stakeholders who are trying to set the Web forward in motion are mainly focused on adding new technological layers to the existing ones. Yet, the logic behind these developments remains that of tapping into unlimited resources, not limited ones.

It is true that the PCs behind Google running Linux were built for the PC industry and have been well known to be the least energy efficient. Still in this space there is huge opportunity for improvement.

When I was working at Sun Microsystems, we developed the T series of microprocessors that were very efficient in energy 
consumption. Sun argued that the energy saving alone could pay back for these very expensive computers within one year
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC_T-Series <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC_T-Series>

The latest of these now have 32 cores, 256 threads 
https://www.oracle.com/servers/sparc/silicon-expression-of-oracle-strategy.html <https://www.oracle.com/servers/sparc/silicon-expression-of-oracle-strategy.html>

The large cloud providers consume a lot of electricity, but they also have staff to measure that electricity consumed, and the 
money to optimize as much as possible out of it. Those optimizations then find their way into software architectures that
can be more widely used in more distributed networks which can use solar engergy, heat, etc to power the IoT of a home.

> Lots of endeavors are currently focused on reshaping the Web into a "Web we want", a redecentralized open Web fit for an enlightened digital age. Those who advocate such an agenda and those who oppose it generally both share a common assumption: that enlightened or not, the future will be even more digital than the present. Yet, life at the time of the Anthropocene, at least in the coming decades, might not remain as pervasively digital as it is today. Other efforts that see the ongoing battle for the decentralization of the Web as an opportunity to “downscale” it (in particular in Africa) seem to be aware of that. Maybe it's time to take into account other perspectives on the future and concretely act towards building a sustain-able (Tony Fry) Web. In other words, a Web We Can Afford. This group would like to reconcile the development of the Web and an awareness to the environmental issues by appealing to Web architects and designers, eco-designers, activists, philosophers, social scientists, etc., so as to make the issue a public one to begin with, before devising a set of guidelines as a first step towards concrete action.

I think it's interesting. This may actually be a topic for the Web Science group ( see Southampton ) to investigate.

I have a feeling that this is a very holistic type of problem. Because one cannot just look at the electricty consumed one has to look at the efficiencies gained through that consumption. One has to consider exponential improvements in efficiency at all levels, from moving stuff, to capturing and transforming energy, to knwledge sharing, which itself can advance even further the improvements in the other areas.


Henry