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Total electricity*. Which is still huge, I am not sure people realize that there are no more low-hanging fruits in the form of a technical feat that a small gro

by mrpopo 4y ago

Total electricity*. Which is still huge, I am not sure people realize that there are no more low-hanging fruits in the form of a technical feat that a small group of people can accomplish like this, without impacting people's lives.

shafyy 4y ago
It's weird to celebrate the electricity savings of Ethereum like this. It's good that it's less energy-intensive now, but it was that energy-intensive before because of Ethereum in the first place.
- whatisweb3 4y ago
  This is how all tech works - trains, cars, power stations. We build things that are initially inefficient. We eventually transition to energy efficient tech. We celebrate. It’s rare the transition can reduce 99.95% of energy footprint the size of a country within a minute of activating the new tech.
  - Mordisquitos 4y ago
    The difference is that PoW is not "inefficient". Rather, it is intrinsically wasteful by its very nature. Take an inefficient car for instance. There are diminishing returns in its utility after a certain point of energy use. On the other hand, there are no diminishing returns in PoW. The more energy you use, the more money you make.
    - whatisweb3 4y ago
      Sure? It was both an inefficient and wasteful mechanism to secure consensus. This is why developers have been actively researching and developing how to switch Eth to PoS for years.
    - deadfish 4y ago
      An electric heater runs current through a wire .. the waste product of doing so is heat. The more you 'waste' the more heat produced. I guess the more efficient version of the same thing would be the move to using heat pumps.
      - anonymous_sorry 4y ago
        Electric heaters are the classic exception in energy efficiency calculations. The heat produced is only wasted in that it will eventually dissipate. But heat is exactly what you wanted when you turned the heater on, and so heaters are often described as 100% efficient. I guess with heat pumps this logic makes less sense. It is more efficient to move heat around than to generate it. Not quite sure how this relates to Proof of Work. People don't generally run mining rigs because they want to generate heat. The heat is almost always waste. I've always wondered if the economics of using CPUs in heaters to do something useful and generate heat would ever work out.
  - scambier 4y ago
    Trains, cars and power stations serve a purpose. The blockchain only creates waste with nothing in return. Yeah it does pollute less now, but it's still too much.
- throwaway5959 4y ago
  Let me introduce you to carbon credits.
- miguelmota 4y ago
  For something that millions of people across the world rely on, with million+ transactions daily, it's definitely worth celebrating. It's using a magnitude less energy now than YouTube or Netflix [1] If YouTube had a similar decrease in energy, Hacker News would be all over it. https://ethereum.org/en/energy-consumption/#proof-of-stake-energy https://ethereum.org/en/energy-consumption/#proof-of-stake-e...
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > For something that millions of people across the world rely on People keep claiming that millions of people rely on it is such a bullshit claim > with million+ transactions daily Which is a paltry 11 transactions per second. I think a Raspberry Pi is now capable of the same amazing feat. > It's using a magnitude less energy now than YouTube or Netflix And doing orders of magnitudes less while consuming insane amounts of energy. Had Ethereum tried to move around as much video as Youtube and Netflix are doing, heat death of the universe would happen the next day after the attempt.
    - dannyw 4y ago
      Can your Raspberry Pi synchronize with other Pis in a permissionless way, and agree on a shared state despite malicious actors?
      - mort96 4y ago
        Can nodes in Etherium? Or is there a central governing body there which has the power to revert legitimate transactions, just like in traditional systems? https://levelup.gitconnected.com/how-ethereum-reversed-a-50-million-dao-attack-cee528d8c030 https://levelup.gitconnected.com/how-ethereum-reversed-a-50-... Oh. But hey, at least it's an unregulated, informal, ad-hoc process in Etherium with no justice system or oversight to enforce the rights of the little guy.
        ikt 4y ago
        You do know you just compared ethereum when it was in its bootstrapping phase to now when it has millions of users and projects right? and you do know a group of people tried to have the same thing done again a few years ago and it failed right?
- j_mo 4y ago
  Yeah, this quote from the article made me groan out loud: > I've had a role to play in removing a megaton of carbon from the atmosphere every week You're not removing it, you helped create the thing that was putting it there in the first place, and fixed your mistake! It's still there, it's just not getting worse now.
alkonaut 4y ago
While it’s a good step, I’ll only join in the applause when someone reduces energy use by a 0.5% they didn’t create themselves.

by mrpopo 4y ago

shafyy 4y ago

It's weird to celebrate the electricity savings of Ethereum like this. It's good that it's less energy-intensive now, but it was that energy-intensive before because of Ethereum in the first place.

whatisweb3 4y ago
This is how all tech works - trains, cars, power stations. We build things that are initially inefficient. We eventually transition to energy efficient tech. We celebrate. It’s rare the transition can reduce 99.95% of energy footprint the size of a country within a minute of activating the new tech.
- Mordisquitos 4y ago
  The difference is that PoW is not "inefficient". Rather, it is intrinsically wasteful by its very nature. Take an inefficient car for instance. There are diminishing returns in its utility after a certain point of energy use. On the other hand, there are no diminishing returns in PoW. The more energy you use, the more money you make.
  - whatisweb3 4y ago
    Sure? It was both an inefficient and wasteful mechanism to secure consensus. This is why developers have been actively researching and developing how to switch Eth to PoS for years.
  - deadfish 4y ago
    An electric heater runs current through a wire .. the waste product of doing so is heat. The more you 'waste' the more heat produced. I guess the more efficient version of the same thing would be the move to using heat pumps.
    - anonymous_sorry 4y ago
      Electric heaters are the classic exception in energy efficiency calculations. The heat produced is only wasted in that it will eventually dissipate. But heat is exactly what you wanted when you turned the heater on, and so heaters are often described as 100% efficient. I guess with heat pumps this logic makes less sense. It is more efficient to move heat around than to generate it. Not quite sure how this relates to Proof of Work. People don't generally run mining rigs because they want to generate heat. The heat is almost always waste. I've always wondered if the economics of using CPUs in heaters to do something useful and generate heat would ever work out.
- scambier 4y ago
  Trains, cars and power stations serve a purpose. The blockchain only creates waste with nothing in return. Yeah it does pollute less now, but it's still too much.
throwaway5959 4y ago
Let me introduce you to carbon credits.
miguelmota 4y ago
For something that millions of people across the world rely on, with million+ transactions daily, it's definitely worth celebrating. It's using a magnitude less energy now than YouTube or Netflix [1] If YouTube had a similar decrease in energy, Hacker News would be all over it. https://ethereum.org/en/energy-consumption/#proof-of-stake-energy https://ethereum.org/en/energy-consumption/#proof-of-stake-e...
- dmitriid 4y ago
  > For something that millions of people across the world rely on People keep claiming that millions of people rely on it is such a bullshit claim > with million+ transactions daily Which is a paltry 11 transactions per second. I think a Raspberry Pi is now capable of the same amazing feat. > It's using a magnitude less energy now than YouTube or Netflix And doing orders of magnitudes less while consuming insane amounts of energy. Had Ethereum tried to move around as much video as Youtube and Netflix are doing, heat death of the universe would happen the next day after the attempt.
  - dannyw 4y ago
    Can your Raspberry Pi synchronize with other Pis in a permissionless way, and agree on a shared state despite malicious actors?
    - mort96 4y ago
      Can nodes in Etherium? Or is there a central governing body there which has the power to revert legitimate transactions, just like in traditional systems? https://levelup.gitconnected.com/how-ethereum-reversed-a-50-million-dao-attack-cee528d8c030 https://levelup.gitconnected.com/how-ethereum-reversed-a-50-... Oh. But hey, at least it's an unregulated, informal, ad-hoc process in Etherium with no justice system or oversight to enforce the rights of the little guy.
      - ikt 4y ago
        You do know you just compared ethereum when it was in its bootstrapping phase to now when it has millions of users and projects right? and you do know a group of people tried to have the same thing done again a few years ago and it failed right?
j_mo 4y ago
Yeah, this quote from the article made me groan out loud: > I've had a role to play in removing a megaton of carbon from the atmosphere every week You're not removing it, you helped create the thing that was putting it there in the first place, and fixed your mistake! It's still there, it's just not getting worse now.

alkonaut 4y ago

While it’s a good step, I’ll only join in the applause when someone reduces energy use by a 0.5% they didn’t create themselves.