That’s right - I was rushing and was calculating based on days rather than hours, so my estimates were 24x too small for the Safe Network
I guess that if the Safe Network became that ubiquitous with anywhere near 1bn nodes, the hard drives & a powerful enough SOC would probably be built into routers and devices that are low power and always on anyway.
That would reduce the additional power of the network massively (e.g. 5-10w per node additional power), making it likely use less power than the Bitcoin network today, but with far more users and doing far more useful work.
Nice work to all on coming up with some numbers on energy usage in regard to Jevon’s paradox. I might add that the ubiquitous nature of Safe and the eventuality and what it replaces would see it on the same scale of energy consumption as the internet itself. (Ever human, every device) The other thing to consider is that Safe is intended to operate “Forever”. (So multiply the bitcoin annual power consumption by 20 years, and then multiplythe numbers you got for Safe by 2 to 5 billion years for another rough order of magnitude view that would make Jevon happy )
Edit: Every human x every device would be about a Terrawatt in todays terms.
The point of Jevon’s patadox is that the energy never gets “saved”. The efficiency gains just give you the opportunity to do and accomplish more. More capabilities, more expansion. And the sum total energy use increases the more energy economical a single unit of the tech is, since more people can use it in more and more ways. The improvements quickly compound, leading to more energy use. Energy efficiency is a very good thing, but that shouldn’t be conflated with reductions in total energy use.
Not necessarily. Look at a raspberry pi. People think they are soooo “efficient”. If you look at the flops/watt they really aren’t. It’s more efficient to use a server for the same amount of computational work. However, what the rpi offers is a low power feature complete device with low barrier to economic entry.
The difference is incentives and trends. It doesn’t matter how much energy Blockchain or Safe Network will use as much as the fact that Blockchain maximises use of energy whereas Safe Network minimises it.
That’s slightly simplistic, but is the essence of the point I’m making and why Safe Network will be very much greener than Blockchain and Bitcoin.
It’s not that simple either! Distributed small low power devices offer other efficiencies such as being able to be powered locally rather than using large scale power generation and infrastructure.
The point is that Safe Network can use either, which means it is adaptable, flexible and can be used more effectively. In some cases that will be judged by energy efficiency, in other cases energy use won’t be the most important factor, such as where there is a lack of infrastructure, or where cheap solar power is available etc.
No good using servers to do weather station sensors monitoring and data gathering. The hardware need to do this is so much energy efficient than 20 years ago. A watt rather than 200 watts.
The flip side is that there are more than an increase of 200 fold in weather stations. So more work per watt, but because so much more work is being done there is more energy being used.
Then you do not use super computers taking a floor to do a web server for one small static site. Use the right hardware for the right job. You are an engineer and I suspect you are using answers to further your point rather than being balanced about it. LOL
No argument there. Your distributed sensor network was a good example where low power devices work well. I’m a big fan of low power devices too. But people are lying to themselves if they think high power servers are not efficient or that they won’t serve as a natural backbone on Safe, or that Safe has no need for them. Safe gets to where it needs by “efficiently” making use of all these devices.
Sorry @jlpell that was a UK-only joke, Freeman Dysons son is a manufacturer of innovative but not always particularly effective vacuum cleaners and other devices. Makes great play of his “Britishness” but manufactures everything abroad with cheap/slave labour in SE Asia. Generally regarded as a complete cult by most here, except the fools who buy his stuff
I’m a fool who has bought two of his vacuums (in twenty years), both still working better than the several I went through before trying one. The man is a shit but his vacuums are awesome and his customer service is amazing.
We need people and business models that can deliver for employees and community as well as their customers, so maybe we can learn from them too.
Ma erng-leesh is nahy goo-d ernuf ferr yerr tar geet maar troo meenink feela. Yon Dire-soon dizna have tha foost too, eenli tha coostermmers suited. Yerr goot ma?
(So multiply the bitcoin annual power consumption by 20 years, and then multiplythe numbers you got for Safe by 2 to 5 billion years for another rough order of magnitude view that would make Jevon happy 
)
