EAGER: Extending the Productive Lifetime of Scientific Computing Equipment

对部署在大学和国家实验室的科学计算基础设施来说，硬件采购和运行对环境的影响日益严重。虽然人们对更好的系统运行和生命周期模型非常感兴趣，但也存在生态系统方面的挑战，包括缺乏经过验证的途径和最佳实践。零碳计算项目将召集科学计算基础设施社区的领导者，并将他们与该领域领先的生态系统创新者联系起来。该项目的目标是创造“最佳做法”，促进新的生命周期路径的诞生和发展，既减少电子垃圾的影响，又减少研究科学计算的碳足迹。该项目还将致力于创建延长生命周期和更广泛生态系统的经济模型，重点放在经济激励和对科学计算的碳足迹的潜在影响上。该项目将增加国家科学界的计算能力，并大幅减少电力碳足迹。零碳计算项目将通过利用美国电网和世界各地日益增长的过剩可再生能源，为计算创新创造新的机会。这种快速增长的过剩既提供了低成本的电力，也提供了低成本的操作，即使对于老化的计算设备也不会增加计算的碳足迹。该项目还将通过一系列讲习班和其他方法召集科学计算界，以了解挑战并交流拟议解决方案的潜在益处。这些社区活动产生的材料将用于更广泛的科学计算社区和云计算社区的更广泛扩展。此外，该项目将创建延长生命周期和更广泛的生态系统的经济模型，重点关注经济激励、市场均衡和科学计算对碳足迹的潜在影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The growing environmental impacts of hardware acquisition and operation are significant concerns for scientific computing infrastructure deployed at universities and national laboratories. While significant interest in better models for systems operation and lifecycle exist, there are ecosystem challenges including lack of proven pathways and best practices. The Zero Carbon Compute project will convene leaders in the scientific computing infrastructure community, and connect them with leading ecosystem innovators in this space. The goal of the project is to create "best practices" that will catalyze the birth and growth of new lifecycle paths that both reduce the e-waste impact and carbon footprint of research scientific computing. The project will also work to create economic models of the extended lifecycles and broader ecosystem, focusing on economic incentives and the potential impact on the carbon footprint of scientific computing. The project will both increase computing capacity for the national scientific community and create radical reductions in power carbon footprint. The Zero Carbon Compute project will create new opportunities for computing innovation by leveraging the growing excess renewable power in US power grids and around the world. This rapidly growing excess provides both low-cost power and low-cost operation, even for aging computing equipment without increasing the carbon footprint of computing. The project will also convene the scientific computing community through a series of workshops and other methods to understand challenges and communicate the potential benefits of the proposed solutions. Materials generated from these community engagements will be used for wider outreach to the broader scientific computing community, and the cloud computing community. In addition, the project will create economic models of the extended lifecycles and broader ecosystem, focusing on economic incentives, market equilibria, and the potential impact on carbon footprint of scientific computing.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.