On Fri, Aug 5, 2022 at 7:23 PM Joel Halpern <jmh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I can't speak for Fred, but I don't think we as a community even know what "energy efficient protocol" means. Much less how that trades off against all the other aspects of protocol design.
We do however know what a chronically wasteful protocol is.
BitCoin DELENDA EST!
I am serious. We should make sure that nothing the IETF does gives any credibility to the people peddling proof of waste in any form. They are using a greater quantity of electricity than some really large countries and every kWh used for BitCoin, Ethereum etc. increases demand for electricity and every kWh of additional demand is by definition met by dispatchable sources which are all fossil fuels.
I am really, really fed up of the gaslighting and lies and especially the greenwashing coming from the Criminal Currency community.
IETF could provide a notary chain scheme that does not depend on proof of waste in any form. Cross notarization is more powerful than proof of work which is a brittle approach based on faulty assumptions which I believe are likely to be tested in the near future.
We do consider message size and frequency when we design protocols. We consider those aspects along with lots of others. if that is "designing energy efficient protocols" then we already do so. On the other hand, design for issues such as to to partially wake up a sleeping device is generally outside our remit and skill set. And is meaningless for many of our devices.
+1
There is a limit to what we can do at our layer of the stack and particularly at this stage of the transition to zero fossil fuels. Not least because electricity used by IT is really not that large considering the impact on people's lives.
Where we can help is by delivering the technologies that the smart grid is going to be needing as renewables capacity starts to saturate demand. At that point the ability to offload demand from peak demand is going to be really important for appliances like dishwashers, washing machines, BEVs etc.
Another area that we might have a role in is verifying carbon offsets. Now yes, there is an utterly stupid and offensive Ponzi currency 'carbon credits' scheme which uses vast amounts of electricity. I mean a carbon offset validation scheme that doesn't cause more carbon emissions than are traded on it.
Offsets need not reduce quality of life. For example, roughly the same quantity of kerosene that is used for aviation is used for lighting. Hurricane lanterns are still widely used and they are inferior to LEDs in every possible way; cost, health, safety, light output. Now imagine if each time you book air travel with Expedia, you can check a box and a solar rechargeable hurricane lantern costing a couple of bucks to make is supplied to folk in Sudan/ Ghana etc. etc.
