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The internet eats up less energy than you might think

nytimes.com

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Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#51

Post by ufo »

zamadatix wrote: post #47
floatboth wrote: post #43

> Even the predicted environmental impact of Bitcoin, which does require lots of computing firepower, has been considerably exaggerated by some researchers. Exaggerated or not, what's aggravating is that Bitcoin is literally secured by the consumption of power through wasting it on hashing. To process the same amount of transactions per second in a non-trustless (trustful?) system, you'd need, like, a few Raspberry P…

I'm not a fan of Bitcoin at all but that argument could be used for anything - "what's aggravating is that cars are literally moved by the consumption of power through wasting it on combustion in the engine", "what's aggravating is that computers are literally operated by the consumption of power to waste it on browsing HN", "what's aggravating is that TV images are literally sent by the consumption of power through…

Not at all! Bitcoin is not just inefficient, it is purposefully inefficient on a colossal scale. By design, all the energy is turned into waste heat.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#52

Post by extra88 »

dougSF70 wrote: post #40

I think it still eats up a ton (technical term) of unnecessary energy as we have moved from owning physical objects to digital copies of the same thing. For example music, video, etc. Before 2000 you only needed electricity to play content not store it. This question is : did the production of a vinyl record / cd use more electricity than a lifetime of storage of its modern day digital equivalent? Given the absence o…

> did the production of a vinyl record / cd use more electricity than a lifetime of storage of its modern day digital equivalent?

Replace “electricity” with “energy” and yes, the manufacturing and distribution of physical media likely does exceed that required for digital only over a lifetime. The details vary, storing and playing files on your phone is more efficient than doing so from a magnetic drive in a desktop computer and more than streaming it over the Internet on every play.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#53

Post by zamadatix »

ufo wrote: post #51
zamadatix wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a fan of Bitcoin at all but that argument could be used for anything - "what's aggravating is that cars are literally moved by the consumption of power through wasting it on combustion in the engine", "what's aggravating is that computers are literally operated by the consumption of power to waste it on browsing HN", "what's aggravating is that TV images are literally sent by the consumption of power through…

Not at all! Bitcoin is not just inefficient, it is purposefully inefficient on a colossal scale. By design, all the energy is turned into waste heat.

"Waste heat is heat that is produced by a machine, or other process that uses energy, as a byproduct of doing work."

You can't have "all waste heat" as that would require doing no work which would result in... no waste heat.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#54

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

News sites love interesting headlines, researchers and university PR departments love being in the news, often much more than they value truth.

The easiest way to get impressive research on power consumption is to use old per-unit consumption numbers to extrapolate power consumption based on today's usage (e.g. if transferring 1 GB of data took 1 kWh many years ago, just multiply "GB transferred today" with 1 kWh and claim that's what the Internet/zoom calls/... use)

For example: Every GB of data uses 5 kWh [in 2021 according to https://www.aceee.org/files/proceedings/2012/data/papers/019...], so using 122 EB/month [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_traffic#Global_Intern...] = 1 464 000 000 000 GB/year = 1.5 PWh in 2017, which would be almost 7% of total power consumption.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#55

Post by zbrozek »

zamadatix wrote: post #53
ufo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all! Bitcoin is not just inefficient, it is purposefully inefficient on a colossal scale. By design, all the energy is turned into waste heat.

"Waste heat is heat that is produced by a machine, or other process that uses energy, as a byproduct of doing work." You can't have "all waste heat" as that would require doing no work which would result in... no waste heat.

In those other processes the designers aim for efficiency - more useful product per entropy. In bitcoin it's exactly the opposite. That makes it unpalatable.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#56

Post by zamadatix »

zbrozek wrote: post #55
zamadatix wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Waste heat is heat that is produced by a machine, or other process that uses energy, as a byproduct of doing work." You can't have "all waste heat" as that would require doing no work which would result in... no waste heat.

In those other processes the designers aim for efficiency - more useful product per entropy. In bitcoin it's exactly the opposite. That makes it unpalatable.

It is inefficient and unpalatable compared to traditional trust absolutely, even to some other crypto methods that try to achieve similar goals. Like I said I'm not really a fan of Bitcoin (or crypto to be honest).

That being said Bitcoin doesn't aim for less product per entropy. That would literally mean you get more reward for doing the same work in the same time but less efficiently which isn't true. That doesn't mean everyone always uses the most efficient hashing method, just like not every car uses the same engine because it has the best efficiency, it just means the aim isn't towards making less product per entropy. The product may not be aligned with what you want (e.g. "very efficient way to trust a transaction") but that's back to calling the energy usage all "just for waste" because you don't personally value the output the same way as someone else (which is true of every use of energy).

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#57

Post by walshemj »

ashtonkem wrote: post #33
maccard wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree eith everything you've said, but with one caveat - the resale market for cars and consumer electronics is completely different. Everyone I know has a drawer full of old laptops/chargers/phones that were purchased new and are only destined for landfill. Meanwhile, cars get reused long after their first owner gets rid of them even if they replace them every two years.

It’s certainly much easier to keep a used car running for a decade than it is to keep a used phone running, that’s for sure. And there’s a market specifically designed to support that too. I think the most realistic choice here is to not upgrade phones every 1-2 years, but stretch it to 3. The recent trend of Apple to not include all the accessories in the box is probably a net good, given how many chargers almost co…

my motog lasted 6-7 years just replaced it with the latest G9

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#58

Post by clarkmoody »

floatboth wrote: post #43

> Even the predicted environmental impact of Bitcoin, which does require lots of computing firepower, has been considerably exaggerated by some researchers. Exaggerated or not, what's aggravating is that Bitcoin is literally secured by the consumption of power through wasting it on hashing. To process the same amount of transactions per second in a non-trustless (trustful?) system, you'd need, like, a few Raspberry P…

Bitcoin miners use hashpower not only to find the next block but to secure the entire chain to that point. So each block secures over 650 million transactions right now, and that number only increases.

Your word "waste" implies a value judgement, and thus you have departed the realm of scientific inquiry.

The transactions-per-second energy argument is completely fallacious and often made in bad faith. It makes no sense whatsoever. Comparing Bitcoin (a settlement system) to some other credit-based payment system is not a genuine comparison.

Ignoring the Lightning Network in any discussion of Bitcoin shows a distinct lack of subject-matter awareness.

If you dig into the power grid system today, you'll find that a huge amount of power generated by the world's energy producers goes unused. The Bitcoin network uses far less energy than the amount lost during normal generation, yet I see no hand-wringing about this colossal "waste" boiling the oceans.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#59

Post by clarkmoody »

zbrozek wrote: post #55
zamadatix wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Waste heat is heat that is produced by a machine, or other process that uses energy, as a byproduct of doing work." You can't have "all waste heat" as that would require doing no work which would result in... no waste heat.

In those other processes the designers aim for efficiency - more useful product per entropy. In bitcoin it's exactly the opposite. That makes it unpalatable.

Bitcoin mining strives for as much efficiency as any other electronic process: ASIC chips are hitting the smallest process size available. Miners are extremely sensitive to electricity cost, so they must be efficient there. They do not compete with households for power.

If Bitcoin mining were aiming to consume the most energy possible, then the hashing would be done by hand on pencil and paper.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#60

Post by [deleted] »

floatboth wrote: post #43

> Even the predicted environmental impact of Bitcoin, which does require lots of computing firepower, has been considerably exaggerated by some researchers. Exaggerated or not, what's aggravating is that Bitcoin is literally secured by the consumption of power through wasting it on hashing. To process the same amount of transactions per second in a non-trustless (trustful?) system, you'd need, like, a few Raspberry P…

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