thegreenwebfoundation / co2.js

An npm module for accessing the green web API, and estimating the carbon emissions from using digital services
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See if adding AYUPM (As Yet Unnamed Power Model) to CO2.js is feasible #218

Open mrchrisadams opened 1 week ago

mrchrisadams commented 1 week ago

One of the ongoing discussions in digital sustainability refers to whether network transfer is a good proxy for online activity that would result in emissions.

A new paper by David Mytton, Dag Lundén, Jens Malmodin, called Network energy use not directly proportional to data volume: The power model approach for more reliable network energy consumption calculations explores this in more detail.

This issue is a placeholder for future investigation about how feasible implementing the model might for us inside CO2.js.

This issue isn't really for discussing the research, just how it might be implemented if it was added. I think the W3C mailing list might be a better place for wider discussion about the paper. I'll add a link to a thread there when the email shows up in the public archive.

Here's the link to the thread discussing the paper in the w3c susty web list.

Model name

AYUPM As Yet Unnamed Power Model - the paper does not give a specific and catchy name, so I'm using this acronym until we might get a steer from them,

Documentation

Provide a link/s to documentation explaining the model and how it is implemented.

None yet, sorry.

Research Provide links to the underlying research that the model is built upon.

From the abstract:

It is commonly assumed that data volume and network energy consumption are directly proportional, a notion perpetuated by numerous studies and media coverage. This paper challenges this assumption, offering a comprehensive examination of network operations to explain why the relationship between energy consumption and data volume is nonlinear. The power model approach is explored as an alternative methodology for calculating network energy consumption providing a more reliable representation of network energy use. The power model demonstrates that simple energy intensity calculations, expressed as kilowatt hours per gigabyte of data, are insufficient for accurately estimating real-world network energy consumption.

[Open Access paper: Network energy use not directly proportional to data volume: The power model approach for more reliable network energy consumption calculations]()https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jiec.13512

Suitability Give some context and information about what this model is most suitable for measuring. (Example: websites, video streaming, file storage etc.)

Usage

No use yet (the model is very new).

There is some discussion here in Green Metrics Tool: https://github.com/green-coding-solutions/green-metrics-tool/issues/707