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How to save 10% of the World Energy Consumption by replacing Internet 2.0 by Web 3.0

Akshay Reddy

• 11 min read
How to save 10% of the World Energy Consumption by replacing Internet 2.0 by Web 3.0

Summary:
This article explains how Archethic public blockchain consumes very less energy even compared to centralized systems and how it could provide a more eco-friendly and advanced version of the internet!

Contents:

  1. Introduction
  2. Problems pertaining to the current internet in terms of the energy consumption
    2.1 Internet has always been a mismanaged and unoptimised network that rebuilds every layer of every service, every time!
    2.2 Lack of Interoperability between services leading to at least 80% more energy consumption.
  3. Archethic blockchain’s ARCH Consensus offers a game changing efficiency for the internet!
    3.1 Archethic's Blockchain + Decentralized Identity model directly integrates all the layers necessary for creation of a service
    3.2 Only 0.1 gm of sugar equivalent to 0.42 Ws of energy is consumed per transaction
  4. Comparing the efficiency of Archethic to the day to day internet services
    4.1 Web-hosting and access to users (44000 times efficient)
    4.2 Email and messaging services (77000 times efficient)
    4.3 Other common day to day transactions on the internet
    4.4 Log in and access to services on the internet
  5. Conclusion

I. Introduction

Most of us are aware of the advents of climate change, CO2 emissions, energy consumption and their impact on the society. One of the main emitters of CO2 is the internet. The internet currently consumes around 10% of the world’s electricity and will soon consume 20% by 2025.

The objective of that article is to explain the methodology and the assumptions explaining how Archethic drastically reduces every Internet service's energy consumption and how it is able to challenge any centralised network thanks to its native ARCH consensus that is deeply worked with academic researchers and scientists.

2. Problems pertaining to the current internet in terms of the energy consumption

2.1 Internet has always been a mismanaged and unoptimised network that rebuilds every layer of every service, every time!

Since the beginning of the internet, for every new service that is created, the builders of that new service recreate all the elementary operating blocks each time like user portal, customer identification, customer databases, service management, hosting, storage, backups, payments, etc... This means each time a new service is created these operating blocks need to be created from scratch which in turn need time, effort and a lot of computational power to be run.

Internet Today v/s Internet Hypothetical

The leading internet giants like Amazon, Facebook, Google and the others don't share anything with respect to these operating blocks! This leads to

  • An awful consumption of computational power every time by every service
  • A lot of login/passwords for users who end up copying their passwords everywhere thus giving them away thereby increasing the risk of fraud or cyberattack
  • Increase in time and costs to build and maintain a new service.
What if, in a hypothetical scenario where all the operating blocks are already part of the internet and a new service which needs to be created just needs to build the service and not the elementary operating blocks like user portal, customer identification, customer databases, service management, hosting, storage, backups, payments, etc...?
Think about it!

2.2 Lack of Interoperability between services leading to at least 80% more energy consumption.

Just Imagine!
What if all the services on the internet had unified access to the basic elementary blocks, i.e. user portal, customer identification, hosting, storage, etc… And any new service could just plug in with this unified access and get started without having to think about the elementary operating blocks and just focus on the service. And to top it off, what if these services have an interoperability factor in them.

Internet Today without Interoperability v/s Internet with Interoperability

For example: Let's say I buy some items on Amazon and I receive some Amazon credits, with the interoperability factor, I can then be able to buy food from Uber Eats with Amazon credits! With the interoperability factor the energy consumption of the internet can easily be decreased by approx 80% (more details explained below)

Here is what EU Council noted:

There is also a need to address the bottlenecks in accessing one's "digital life" from different platforms which persist due to a lack of interoperability or lack of portability of content and data. This hampers the use of digital services and competition. An open and nondiscriminatory framework must therefore be put in place to ensure such interoperability and portability without hindering development of the fast-moving digital sphere and avoiding unnecessary administrative burden, especially for SME's

3. Archethic blockchain’s ARCH Consensus offers a game-changing efficiency for the internet!

Archethic blockchain is built on a native consensus protocol called ARCH Consensus. For the first time in history, the blockchain represents a technology that can work without a central decision-making body. A system that is not only impartial but also transparent and inalienable compared to the internet.

The Archethic blockchain natively integrates Decentralized identity which avoids the need of entrusting one's identity to a third party, who might exploit our identity without our knowledge (third-party on the internet are Google, Facebook, etc…). The user should retain the sole control of his/her identity. This decentralized identity model of Archethic thus guarantees privacy and its interoperability with the rest of the applications.

Read more on Archethic blockchain and its cryptocurrency UCO in the whitepaper, website

3.1 Archethic's Blockchain + Decentralized Identity model directly integrates all the layers necessary for creation of a service

This Blockchain + Decentralized Identity model finally rationalizes this operating model by directly integrating all the layers necessary for the creation of new services.

This model natively integrates payment, customer identity management, inventory management, data storage and security, hosting, messaging, delivery, subscriptions, invoicing … and interoperability. Thereby

  • The builders or maintainers of the new service need much less resources, time and computer skills, thanks to upstream integration
  • Unique and universal identity, activated and managed only by the user (regardless of their physical or virtual location)
  • Removal of any third parties (or third-party confidence) in favor of the blockchain to ensure the sustainability and full reliability of the system
  • Substantially decreasing the cost of each new service. (creation, usage, and maintenance)
Due to this native integration the energy consumed by the network is substantially decreased by multiple folds!

Not just that, the interoperability within the services provide portability without hindering development of the fast moving digital sphere and avoiding unnecessary administrative burden, this also further greatly reduces the energy consumption.
Increased interoperability within the services

3.2 Only 0.1 gm of sugar equivalent to 0.42 Ws of energy is consumed per transaction

Due to the mismanagement and unoptimized nature of the internet, where the network rebuilds every layer of every service, every time, its energy consumption is multiple times higher! Archethic blockchain through its ARCH consensus is bringing down this energy consumed to just 0.42Ws or 0.0000001167 kWh per transaction.

For the sake of calculation, we consider ten nodes are dedicated for 10 seconds to validate and replicate a transaction (the current figures for validation of a transaction are less than 1 second for a single node and around 100 ms for the replication)

A single node on Archethic consumes 15 Wh (15 watt per hour) which means the the node consumes 0.0042 Ws (0.0042 watt per second). Hence the energy consumed per transaction on Archethic considering 10 nodes are dedicated for 10 seconds to validate and replicate a transaction is 0.42 Ws! (This is equivalent to burning 0.1gm of sugar).

A mere 0.42 Ws = 0.0001167 Wh = 0.0000001167 kWh is consumed per transaction. This is equal to the energy produced when burning one tenth of a gram of sugar. To compare, Google spends 0.0003 kWh per search

Archethic blockchain is an open, decentralized network compatible with basic or minimum setup requirements for a node. For example: A simple laptop/PC with Intel i3 NUC (which consumes 15Wh) machine can be a node on Archethic blockchain.

As the Archethic network evolves, a smartphone or a basic laptop can become a node!

4. Comparing the energy efficiency of Archethic to the day-to-day internet services

In order to compare the energy efficiency of Archethic, we must first understand the energy consumption of the internet today.

Most of the internet used today falls majorly within the 3 spaces below.

  • Website hosting and access (also includes data backups, etc...) => 53.1%
  • Email and Messaging services => 24.5%
  • Web Search => 22.4%
Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/183910/internet-activities-of-us-users/

4.1 Web-hosting and access to users (44000 times efficient)

The internet is home to over 1.6 billion websites today and the websites vary
depending on the size or type (static website, multipage website, etc...). Based
on a study, the average size of a website is approx 2.07MB. Energy consumption
of website hosting is hard or almost impossible to measure accurately hence we
have taken an approximation in our calculations. Based on some studies, the average energy consumed to host a website on an individual server is 7 kWh

  • Hence, energy consumed by Archethic network to host a website

You might be wondering why the energy consumed by Archethic net-
work to host a website is approx 0.00016 kWh. As you have already
read above that a transaction in Archethic consumes 0.0000001167 kWh.
0.0000001167 kWh is the energy consumption of a simple transaction, where the transaction can have a size of 1KB to 3KB (approx 1.5KB) and also
involves simple boolean operations or just sending UCO. But the transac-
tions for website hosting are of sizes averaging 2.07MB and are a bit more
complex than simple UCO transaction.

  • Hence the average energy consumption of website hosting is approx
  • This would make hosting website on Archethic network approx 44000
    times less energy consuming than an individual server hosting website.
The cost of websites hosting and maintenance is also greatly reduced in Archethic network as the hosting is also treated just a transaction. (approx 0.1% transaction fees)

4.2 Email and messaging services (77000 times efficient)

On the internet, for an email, the average carbon footprint is 0.214 kWh with average size of approx 70KB.

  • In Archethic network, the same email transaction (with 70KB size) consumes approx

This increase in energy consumption is due to the size of email transaction.
Unlike the 0.0000001167kWh which is for a simple UCO transaction or a
transaction involving simple boolean operation, the email transaction has
a bigger size and more complexity than a simple transaction.

  • If emails and messages were on Archethic network, it would consume 77000
    times less energy than the centralized email and messaging services on the
    internet

Along with all the above advantages, due to Transaction Chains, the stor-
age replicas are reduced significantly.

For example, where you are sending an email to 1 million people, instead
of storing the same data multiple times, in Archethic the transaction of
the email is a separate transaction and is treated just like any transaction,
hence saving a lot of computation and storage space.

4.3 Other common day to day transactions on the internet

  • Google spends about 0.0003 kWh of energy on an average search. This makes Archethic 2570 times efficient.
  • Visa transactions consume 0.00148 kWh per transaction (card payments). This would make Archethic 12600 times efficient.

4.4 Log in and access to services on the internet

Due to the native DID Management & Keychains in Archethic Blockchain, there is a built-in decentralized identity model that rationalises the operating model by directly integrating all the layers of login/signup/access management necessary for the creation of new services. That means, to create a new service, Archethic already provides all the setup (like login/signup/access management/ storage/ monetisation mechanism/ etc...) thereby

  • the creators/maintainers of the new service need much less resources and computer skills (to build the security walls, security certificates, user access and maintenance, etc...) thanks to this "upstream integration".
  • the user has a unique and universal identity, activated only by the user, regardless of their physical or virtual location.

Both these inherently reduces the overall need for customer management setup and saves a considerable amount of energy consumed. Based on some benchmarks and assumptions, this blockchain + decentralised identity model alone can reduce the current internet's energy consumption by 80%.

5. Conclusion:

This would mean if the entire internet was on Archethic it would consume approx 42000 times less than what it is today

Assuming,

  • Archethic consumes
    - 2570 times less energy than Google search (= 0.0003 / 0.0000001167)
    - 44000 times less energy than web-hosting services (= 7 / 0.000159)
    - 77000 times less energy than  email and messaging services) (= 0.214 / 0.000002779)
  • Web Search contributes to 22.4% of internet usage
  • Website hosting (+ data backups, etc...) contributes to 53.1% of internet usage
  • Email and messaging services contribute to 24.5% of internet usage

Right now, the internet is consuming 10% of the world's electricity and by 2025 it is expected to go to 20% (due to increase in population & internet usage). Archethic Public Blockchain and its consensus protocol, ARCH have the potential to bring the entire internet’s energy consumption to just <0.01% of the world's electricity consumption and at the same time making the internet genuinely open, secured, scalable and decentralized.

Sources to all the numbers taken in the calculations:

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