Junkyard Computing: Repurposing Discarded Smartphones to Minimize Carbon

Switzer, Jennifer; Marcano, Gabriel; Kastner, Ryan; Pannuto, Pat

doi:10.1145/3575693.3575710

Cited by 23 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Given the tradeoffs above, a simple combined optimization metric is the sum of embodied and operational carbon, i.e., the total carbon footprint. Indeed, recent work has used such combined metrics [10,18], and a recent proposal for a Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) metric is essentially the average of software's embodied and operational carbon [5].…”

Section: Pitfall #4: Combining Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Further, the longer the supply chain, the larger the embodied energy, and thus the larger the bias. Given the relationship between operational carbon, embodied carbon, and economic complexity, it is difficult to understand the macro effects of optimizing even a simple metric that additively combines operational and embodied carbon, much less more complex combinations [6,18]. In general, due to their different scales, embodied and operational carbon should be viewed as mathematically incompatible.…”

Section: Pitfall #4: Combining Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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On the Promise and Pitfalls of Optimizing Embodied Carbon

Bashir

Irwin

Shenoy

2023

Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Sustainable Computer Systems

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To halt further climate change, computing, along with the rest of society, must reduce, and eventually eliminate, its carbon emissions. Recently, many researchers have focused on estimating and optimizing computing's embodied carbon, i.e., from manufacturing computing infrastructure, in addition to its operational carbon, i.e., from executing computations, primarily because the former is much larger than the latter but has received less research attention. Focusing attention on embodied carbon is important because it can incentivize i) operators to increase their infrastructure's efficiency and lifetime and ii) downstream suppliers to reduce their own operational carbon, which represents upstream companies' embodied carbon. Yet, as we discuss, focusing attention on embodied carbon may also introduce harmful incentives, e.g., by significantly overstating real carbon reductions and complicating the incentives for directly optimizing operational carbon. This position paper's purpose is to mitigate such harmful incentives by highlighting both the promise and potential pitfalls of optimizing embodied carbon. CCS CONCEPTS• Hardware → Impact on the environment; • General and reference → Metrics; • Social and professional topics → Sustainability.

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Section: Pitfall #4: Combining Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Pitfall #4: Combining Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%