Here's my quick back-of-the-napkin estimate: Given that the winning teams seemed to be running clusters of around 20-30 systems full-bore for >24 hours, the po

Here's my quick back-of-the-napkin estimate: Given that the winning teams seemed to be running clusters of around 20-30 systems full-bore for >24 hours, the power draw would be something like 500 watts * 20 systems * 24 hours, giving us something on the order of 240 kWHr consumed per team. (Some teams may have consumed far less, but the successful ones seemed to be running many CPU or GPU cores on relatively high-spec servers.) According to the DoE[1], the average CO2 emissions for power generation nationwide is 1.3 pounds per kWHr. Given that, we're get about 312 pounds of carbon per team. A single cross-country airline flight can produce several thousand pounds of carbon, so all told, the contest probably has a small carbon footprint than a major business sales meeting or small tech conference. 1 - http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2report.html http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2...