Image by Neeta Satam. Loktak Lake, located in Manipur, India, 2017. Source
- Ethereum is transitioning from proof of work to proof of stake imminently
- The graphics cards that were used to mine would become available at a discount
- Mining is most affordable where electricity is cheap, with good internet access, in a jurisdiction that’s favourable to blockchain technology
What if used former ETH mining computational capacity to operate computation nodes at sea powered by solar? Low cost graphics cards, electricity, internet access, international waters, ideally near the equator for maximum solar exposure...
Availability of graphics cards: âś…
Because of the Ethereum merge, or “ETH2.0”, the cost of graphics cards has been dropping (as well as the profitability of mining ETH) and many of them are coming onto the market. In January 19, Business Insider stated that ETH has several hundred thousands of ETH miners, each owning one to several “rigs”.
Solar power at sea: âś…
Singapore, which is closed to the equator, is one of many nations investing in floating solar.
Compute at sea: âś…
Lowering Leona Philpot, Microsoft's first underwater serverpod, into the water.
Microsoft demonstrated that it can make sense - in some special cases - to operate a server underwater.
Satya Nadella: The cloud is going to move underwater. Low latencies and easy deployment make underwater servers convenient and effective.
Internet access at sea: âś…
Is Starlink ready for boaters? Not really. But it’s getting better.
Several other networks are relevant to boaters.
Availability of space, and light at sea: âś…
Fig: Global Solar Radiation
Cloud Computing Demand Forecast: âś…
More than computing... Increase biodiversity, clean water, sequester carbon: âś…
More on https://oceanimagineer.org/
The Ocean Imagineer is a floating oyster farm and solar hydrogen production plant pilot project.
- Renewable energy: use solar panels on the roof to produce green hydrogen on board, near consumption sites such as shipping ports and airports.
- Biodiversity: increase biodiversity with oysters and other marine organisms.
- Carbon Sequestration: oyster sequester carbon.
- Water cleaning: oyster are effective filter feeders.
- IOT Sensors, Data and Blockchain compute node : The platform can collect environmental data, serve as a citizen and open science platform, compute and serve as an IOT wireless node.
So, this is just a quick napkin concept note, but it seems that there is a window of opportunity to respond to cloud computing demand in new and affordable ways. 1. Cloud Computing Demand Forecast: âś… 2. Availability of graphics cards: âś… 3. Solar power at sea: âś… 4. Compute at sea: âś… 5. Internet access at sea: âś… 6. Availability of space, and light at sea: âś…
To me, it is quite attractive to imagine a world where low-cost computers, can be connected to a network of supercomputers, with a low environmental, and financial cost. Imagine a trustless compute network processing large and complex AI datasets... Increasing access to computational capacity in a responsible manner is a crucial topic. Of course, one can argue that “we don’t need more sensors and connected devices”, and that no matter how much more decentralised public access computational capacity comes online, private computational capacity will continue to grow. What I am saying is “if we are going to have more computational capacity, let’s do it in the greenest way possible”.
Using
- Recycled graphics cards
- powering them with solar
- at sea, cooling them effectively
- and making that cloud computing available globally at low environmental and financial cost
Someone has done this already? Please let me know! I want to document and share such efforts...