• Question: Does your work hurt the enviornment?

    Asked by 759enek48 to Stephen on 13 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Stephen Rhatigan

      Stephen Rhatigan answered on 13 Nov 2017:

      All my work involves computer simulations which run on supercomputers located around Ireland and Europe. It takes considerable energy to run these supercomputers and to be honest I’m not sure how that energy is produced. If it is produced by the burning of fossil fuels then my work does harm the environment.
      You also have to consider the manufacture of the supercomputer itself.
      As the energy from renewable sources feed into the grid more and more the impact of my type of work (which uses computing power) will grow less and less.
      And more and more places around the world are approaching the goal of using 100% renewable energy:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy#Places_with_around_100.25_renewable_electricity

Comments