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Premature optimization....compared to the energy a single shipping tanker, long-haul truck, car, or even microwave compute energy is microscopic. Might as well

Premature optimization....compared to the energy a single shipping tanker, long-haul truck, car, or even microwave compute energy is microscopic. Might as well worry about how much air you breathe is contributing to global CO2 levels. That said, I think there's also some gains to be had at the top of the stream: tool-builders and with projects. It's all a numbers game. Video games and simulators are an incredible waste of energy at every step of the way. New graphics cards require tons of engineers to design, simulate and that's before the silicon's even been bought. Next is creation, boxing, and shipping. Then RUNNING it. I guarantee that playing the simulator for 5 mins uses more energy than a dozen downloads. But it's all a numbers game. How many people are running high end graphics cards? How many are playing that simulator? etc. All that said, I'm also thinking about this. I wonder how much I could save by, say, switching from JS/Java to Rust. I don't know the answer. I'm mostly musing and it's probably naive or grasping at what little I can do as an individual to help the climate crisis. It's so big, we have to do something, but at the same time, there's nothing we can do? Attempts could have negative consequences? Hell, even typing this on my giant monitor probably spent more energy than I could ever hope to save in my life.

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
At 270 watts, your graphics card is using less energy in a day than it takes to drive your 2k pound car down the street to buy a coffee at Starbucks. A gallon of gas is ~33kWh. A mile is ~1kWh.
- Damogran6 5y ago
  Looking at what it takes to replace a gas fueled generator with solar, it's easy to overlook how much power is in gas. The one upside to permanent solar is that it's always producing when there's enough sun...unlike a generator that needs to be using fuel to make power.
  - dahfizz 5y ago
    Yeah, gasoline is incredibly energy dense. Unfortunately, internal combustion engines are also really inefficient. The Tesla battery pack weighs over 1000lbs, but only carries the same energy as 3 gallons of gas.
    - CyanLite2 5y ago
      You're probably off by an order of magnitude. But your point is valid nonetheless. Average Tesla can do nearly 300 miles per charge. A gallon of gas can do about 30 miles per gallon in a similar sedan.
      - svnt 5y ago
        If you did some more math instead of assuming you were right you would see that their numbers are actually right, and so are yours.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        He is right. Electromotors are way more efficient than ICEs. That is why many of the world's railways run on electricity, at least on the main lines: it costs something to set up all the catenary wires etc., but the operational savings are huge.
      - dahfizz 5y ago
        What am I wrong about? A Tesla gets ~130 mpg equivalent [1]. This means that if you put a gallon of gas worth of electricity into a tesla, the Tesla can go 130 miles. On that same page you can see the Tesla is rated for ~350 miles of range. So the Tesla battery pack carries less energy than 3 gallons of gas. Let's phrase it this way: if you had a 100% efficient generator, you would need less than 3 gallons of gas to fully charge a 1000lb Tesla battery pack. The Tesla could then travel 350 miles with that energy. [1] https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=43401 https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=43401
        onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
        I think it's easier to say: A Tesla long range battery is 82 kWh. A gallon of gas is ~33.7 kWh. So even in a Tesla, 1 mile of driving = 1 hour of gaming = it's not worth talking about gaming as a cause of global warming.
Someone 5y ago
> compared to the energy a single shipping tanker, long-haul truck, car, or even microwave compute energy is microscopic. I don’t think that ever is a good argument. Efficiency improvements likely will come from thousands of small steps, and it’s not a given (but still fairly likely) that the cheapest (in kWh decrease/$ spent) improvements can be made by cutting down on the largest spenders. The good news is that data centers have become much more efficient over time. The bad news is that demand has about kept up for that. Data centers used about 1% of global electricity in 2018 (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba3758 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba3758, https://datacenters.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/Masanet_et_al_Science_2020.full_.pdf https://datacenters.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/Masanet_et_a...)
Damogran6 5y ago
There's some work to improve shipping container ships (https://www.equinor.com/en/magazine/battery-hybrid-supply-ship.html https://www.equinor.com/en/magazine/battery-hybrid-supply-sh...) but to not look at anything else because shipping containers pollute so much is...folly. It's a logical fallacy that keeps the entirety from improving just because the worst one is just _so_bad_. ETA:And it's not like the pollution is evenly distributed...
feoren 5y ago
> compared to the energy a single shipping tanker Isn't a cargo freighter one of the biggest efficiency gains humanity has ever produced? It's hundreds of times more efficient than moving the same weight of goods any other way, except by train (after the rail has been laid). Not to detract from your main argument, but using a cargo ship as an example of an energy hog is really badly missing the point.
- xboxnolifes 5y ago
  Even if it's the most efficient energy improvement in history, it can still be best thing to focus on making more efficient. The best thing to target for improvement is that which has the best output from a function of highest impact and lowest effort. Making cargo ships 0.5% more efficient could still be the lowest effort, highest impact returns on energy (hypothetically, I don't actually know).
- codingdave 5y ago
  It would be better to not ship those goods in the first place. That is one reason for buying local and regional where possible. And as you said - we already have rail laid to get it around countries and continents. There are far more complexities than that, of course. Our economy is global, not every country can be self-sufficient, and dialing back our current logistics is a huge task that few people are ready for. But no, saying "cargo ships are efficient" feels like a limiting perspective on this problem.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Yet thanks to the shipping container our general levels of consumption have never been so high. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago

At 270 watts, your graphics card is using less energy in a day than it takes to drive your 2k pound car down the street to buy a coffee at Starbucks. A gallon of gas is ~33kWh. A mile is ~1kWh.

Damogran6 5y ago
Looking at what it takes to replace a gas fueled generator with solar, it's easy to overlook how much power is in gas. The one upside to permanent solar is that it's always producing when there's enough sun...unlike a generator that needs to be using fuel to make power.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  Yeah, gasoline is incredibly energy dense. Unfortunately, internal combustion engines are also really inefficient. The Tesla battery pack weighs over 1000lbs, but only carries the same energy as 3 gallons of gas.
  - CyanLite2 5y ago
    You're probably off by an order of magnitude. But your point is valid nonetheless. Average Tesla can do nearly 300 miles per charge. A gallon of gas can do about 30 miles per gallon in a similar sedan.
    - svnt 5y ago
      If you did some more math instead of assuming you were right you would see that their numbers are actually right, and so are yours.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      He is right. Electromotors are way more efficient than ICEs. That is why many of the world's railways run on electricity, at least on the main lines: it costs something to set up all the catenary wires etc., but the operational savings are huge.
    - dahfizz 5y ago
      What am I wrong about? A Tesla gets ~130 mpg equivalent [1]. This means that if you put a gallon of gas worth of electricity into a tesla, the Tesla can go 130 miles. On that same page you can see the Tesla is rated for ~350 miles of range. So the Tesla battery pack carries less energy than 3 gallons of gas. Let's phrase it this way: if you had a 100% efficient generator, you would need less than 3 gallons of gas to fully charge a 1000lb Tesla battery pack. The Tesla could then travel 350 miles with that energy. [1] https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=43401 https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=43401
      - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
        I think it's easier to say: A Tesla long range battery is 82 kWh. A gallon of gas is ~33.7 kWh. So even in a Tesla, 1 mile of driving = 1 hour of gaming = it's not worth talking about gaming as a cause of global warming.

Someone 5y ago

> compared to the energy a single shipping tanker, long-haul truck, car, or even microwave compute energy is microscopic. I don’t think that ever is a good argument. Efficiency improvements likely will come from thousands of small steps, and it’s not a given (but still fairly likely) that the cheapest (in kWh decrease/$ spent) improvements can be made by cutting down on the largest spenders. The good news is that data centers have become much more efficient over time. The bad news is that demand has about kept up for that. Data centers used about 1% of global electricity in 2018 (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba3758 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba3758, https://datacenters.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/Masanet_et_al_Science_2020.full_.pdf https://datacenters.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/Masanet_et_a...)

Damogran6 5y ago

There's some work to improve shipping container ships (https://www.equinor.com/en/magazine/battery-hybrid-supply-ship.html https://www.equinor.com/en/magazine/battery-hybrid-supply-sh...) but to not look at anything else because shipping containers pollute so much is...folly. It's a logical fallacy that keeps the entirety from improving just because the worst one is just _so_bad_. ETA:And it's not like the pollution is evenly distributed...

feoren 5y ago

> compared to the energy a single shipping tanker Isn't a cargo freighter one of the biggest efficiency gains humanity has ever produced? It's hundreds of times more efficient than moving the same weight of goods any other way, except by train (after the rail has been laid). Not to detract from your main argument, but using a cargo ship as an example of an energy hog is really badly missing the point.

xboxnolifes 5y ago
Even if it's the most efficient energy improvement in history, it can still be best thing to focus on making more efficient. The best thing to target for improvement is that which has the best output from a function of highest impact and lowest effort. Making cargo ships 0.5% more efficient could still be the lowest effort, highest impact returns on energy (hypothetically, I don't actually know).
codingdave 5y ago
It would be better to not ship those goods in the first place. That is one reason for buying local and regional where possible. And as you said - we already have rail laid to get it around countries and continents. There are far more complexities than that, of course. Our economy is global, not every country can be self-sufficient, and dialing back our current logistics is a huge task that few people are ready for. But no, saying "cargo ships are efficient" feels like a limiting perspective on this problem.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
Yet thanks to the shipping container our general levels of consumption have never been so high. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox