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Does that use a lot of energy?

hannahritchie.github.io

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Re: Does that use a lot of energy?

#51

Post by jfengel »

dylan604 wrote: post #42
MerrimanInd wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When one gets in the weeds on EVs or ICE cars two things become shockingly clear: internal combustion is hilariously inefficient YET gasoline is hilariously energy dense. Most people's intuition is wrong on both of these points but then they cancel each other out. Edit: another important point is that the "cost" to acquire gasoline is only the very end of the process. The energy has already been gathered, stored, and…

Train locomotives have used diesel powered generators that then powers electric motors. Would this be less efficient than battery powered EVs? Or better asked, what would be the most efficient use of gasoline?

When it comes to the environment the most efficient use is to leave it in the ground.

Hybrids work for trains because they are so large and don't need big swings of acceleration or to climb steep grades. They can run the diesel generators at maximum efficiency.

Battery power would be better, because you can build even larger power plants running at higher heats and not have to haul them with you, but the costs of sufficient battery is too large, so far. That is changing.

Re: Does that use a lot of energy?

#52

Post by spencerflem »

alphazard wrote: post #20
spencerflem wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How am I as an individual supposed to get externalities priced in? And given that right now they are clearly not, what’s your plan until then?

Which specific externalities are you concerned about? Do they affect you directly?

Climate change and pollution, and yes they do.

Re: Does that use a lot of energy?

#53

Post by spencerflem »

burnished wrote: post #25
spencerflem wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s new capacity! They’re not even saying they shouldn’t do it or that they’re not useful or not worth it but you Cannot logically say both “these things do not use a lot of power” and “we need to build more power plants to handle these things”

Yeah you can, though to be fair its referred to as jevons paradox because it is counterintuitive.

I’m not saying it’s inefficient. I’m saying cloud computing uses a lot of power.

Re: Does that use a lot of energy?

#54

Post by nightski »

medi8r wrote: post #23

Glad it has AI. AI has nothing on cars. Save a car trip a week even if electric is way more than 10k queries.

1 chatgpt query is a little misleading though. Let's see an 8 hour full bore claude code agent session. Or maybe running 3 agents for several hours a day.

Re: Does that use a lot of energy?

#55

Post by djhworld »

I think stuff like this really crystalises how people misunderstand how much energy stuff uses.

My parents for example sweat the small stuff and go around the house turning LED driven lights off to "save electricity" even though it would barely make a dent in their bill.

Granted, they come from a time of incadescants burning 60-100w at a time so I can see why that habit might be deeply ingrained.

Re: Does that use a lot of energy?

#56

Post by skybrian »

I see it has a ChatGPT median query, but for those of us using coding agents this isn't so relevant.

Here's a post that makes an estimate:

https://www.simonpcouch.com/blog/2026-01-20-cc-impact/

> So, if I wanted to analogize the energy usage of my use of coding agents, it’s something like running the dishwasher an extra time each day, keeping an extra refrigerator, or skipping one drive to the grocery store in favor of biking there. To me, this is very different than, in Benjamin Todd’s words, “a terrible reason to avoid” this level of AI use. These are the sorts of things that would make me think twice.

Re: Does that use a lot of energy?

#57

Post by spencerflem »

jeffbee wrote: post #15
spencerflem wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s new capacity! They’re not even saying they shouldn’t do it or that they’re not useful or not worth it but you Cannot logically say both “these things do not use a lot of power” and “we need to build more power plants to handle these things”

It isn't all new capacity. The popular discourse hardly ever mentions it but AI is a small fraction of why we need new datacenters and the bulk of the demand is driven by general IT needs, particularly consolidation of small, grossly wasteful corporate data racks into vastly more efficient cloud services. Edited to answer: The question has also been addressed by the same author as the article: USA spent a quarter cen…

If so, why do they need to build new power plants for it?

Re: Does that use a lot of energy?

#58

Post by quotemstr »

sixo wrote: post #32
quotemstr wrote: post #2

I like the comparison concept. It's like that "order of magnitudes every programmer should know" list, but applied to anyone who cares about energy. That said, and hot take: people shouldn't worry about energy independent of what they pay for it. The whole point of a price is to fold a complicated manifold of scarcity-allocation into a set of scalars anyone can rank against each other. Appealing to people's sense of…

Your dismissal of moral concerns is not convincing. Imagine a world where the only energy you do is use was generated by a stationary bike you had to ride yourself. You would, generally speaking, use that energy differently than energy you would pay for--you would generally reserve your effort for worthwhile things, and would be averse to farming energy yourself just to power frivolity or vice. How you determine what…

Of course I'd use energy differently if it cost more. If I had to generate energy by pedaling a bike, I'd consider it costly indeed. So what? Energy doesn't cost as much as it would if I had to manually generate it, and who are you to say allocation decisions made under that regiment are good and ones made under ours are bad?

Wouldn't your argument also compel us to use steel as if it were gold? Salt as if it were saffron?

Re: Does that use a lot of energy?

#59

Post by jeffbee »

rsolva wrote: post #47
dr_dshiv wrote: post #30

One hour of Claude code— well, I’d guess it would be comparable to an hour of driving an electric car. How to know?

It is not only about raw power consumption. Comparing driving an electric car with using AI only in kW hides a major point: Hyperscale datacenters are massively centralised, which brings it's own problems; a lot of energy is used for cooling, and water consumptions is enormous. Charging electric cars at home is distributed and does not suffer from the same problems as the centralised hyperscalers do. Also, running AI…

This is an incredible sequence of assertions, every single one of which is very incorrect.

"A lot of energy used for cooling": hyperscale data centers use the least cooling per unit of compute capacity, 2-3x less than small data centers and 10-100x less than a home computer.

"Water consumption is enormous": America withdraws roughly 300 billion gallons of fresh water daily, of which IT loads are expected to grow to 35-50 billion gallons annually by 2028. Data center water demands are less than a rounding error.

"distributed and does not suffer from the same problems": technically correct I guess but distributed consumption has its own problems that are arguably more severe than centralized power consumption.

Re: Does that use a lot of energy?

#60

Post by alnwlsn »

I attached a generator with some supercaps and an inverter to a stationary bicycle a few years ago, and even though I mostly use it as a way to feel less guilty watching Youtube videos, it does give me a quite literal feel for some of the items on the lower end of the scale.

- Anything even even halfway approaching a toaster or something with a heater in it is essentially impossible (yes, I know about that one video).

- A vacuum cleaner can be run for about 30 seconds every couple minutes.

- LED lights are really good, you can charge up the caps for a minute and then get some minutes of light without pedaling.

- Maybe I could keep pace with a fridge, but not for a whole day.

- I can do a 3D printer with the heated bed turned off, but you have to keep pedaling for the entire print duration, so you probably wouldn't want to do a 4 hour print. I have a benchy made on 100% human power.

- A laptop and a medium sized floor fan is what I typically run most days.

- A modern laptop alone, with the battery removed and playing a video is "too easy", as is a few LED bulbs or a CFL. An incandescent isn't difficult but why would you?

- A cellphone you could probably run in your sleep

Also gives a good perspective on how much better power plants are at this than me. All I've made in 4 years could be made by my local one in about 10 seconds, and cost a few dollars.

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