Summary and Schedule
This lesson introduces environmental sustainability principles in the context of high performance computing (HPC) systems. Understanding the scale of emissions from different sources is critical to being able to make changes to work in a more environmentally sustainable way. This lesson will give you the ability to understand emissions arising from use of HPC system and how to quantify them. We will use practical examples and real data from an existing HPC facility to illustrate the concepts.
We use the UK National Supercomputing Service, ARCHER2 as an example throughout this lesson but the principles and learning should be applicable to any HPC system.
Callout
This workshop is based on and builds on the material in the Green Software Practitioner course developed by the Green Software Foundation.
Target audience
This lesson is aimed at all stakeholders in HPC use (e.g. researchers, RSEs, funders). No knowledge of environmental sustainability principles is assumed.
Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites for this lesson.
| Setup Instructions | Download files required for the lesson | |
| Duration: 00h 00m | 1. Introduction |
What is green software use and what does it mean for me as a user of
HPC? What research activities produce carbon emissions? |
| Duration: 00h 35m | 2. Carbon Efficiency |
What is the difference between global warming and climate
change? What is the difference between climate and weather? What are greenhouse gases (GHGs)? What does the term carbon equivalence (CO2e) mean? How is climate change monitored and reported? |
| Duration: 01h 00m | 3. Energy Efficiency | TBC |
| Duration: 01h 25m | 4. Carbon Awareness |
How does electricity generation affect GHG emissions? What is carbon instensity of electricity generation and how does it vary geographically and temporally? What techniques can I use to make my use of HPC greener and influence transition to low-carbon electricity generation? |
| Duration: 01h 50m | 5. Hardware Efficiency |
What is embodied carbon on HPC systems? How can embodied carbon efficiency be improved on HPC systems? What can I do to improve the embodied carbon efficiency of my use of HPC systems? |
| Duration: 02h 15m | 6. Measurement |
How are emissions measured and classified under the GHG
protocol? How do I use the GHG protocol to estimate emissions from my use of HPC? |
| Duration: 02h 45m | 7. Climate Commitments |
What methodologies are available to reduce carbon emissions and how do
they differ? What is the difference between “net zero” and “carbon neutral” climate commitments? How can organisations match renewable energy availability to demand? |
| Duration: 03h 05m | Finish |
The actual schedule may vary slightly depending on the topics and exercises chosen by the instructor.
TODO