Hacker News with Generative AI: Energy Efficiency

Industry groups are not happy about the imminent demise of Energy Star (insideclimatenews.org)
It’s a voluntary program launched during a Republican administration, endorsed by manufacturers and well-recognized by U.S. consumers, who have saved an estimated $500 billion over the past 33 years guided by its familiar blue label.

Energy Efficiency, Environmental Policy, Consumer Products, Government Regulation

86 points by Tomte 2 days ago | 109 comments

EPA Plans to Shut Down the Energy Star Program (nytimes.com)
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate Energy Star, the popular energy efficiency certification for dishwashers, refrigerators, dryers and other home appliances, according to agency documents and a recording of an internal meeting.

Environment, Government, Energy Efficiency, Appliances

247 points by danso 5 days ago | 282 comments

Energy efficiency of heat pumps in residential buildings using operation data (nature.com)
As heat pumps become more prevalent in residential buildings, effective performance monitoring is essential.

Energy Efficiency, Heat Pumps, Residential Buildings, Data Analysis

10 points by gnabgib 6 days ago | 2 comments

EU Energy labelling will apply to phones and tablets from June 2025 (europa.eu)
Energy labelling and ecodesign requirements will apply to these products from June 2025.

EU Regulations, Consumer Electronics, Sustainability, Technology, Energy Efficiency

90 points by sohkamyung 18 days ago | 82 comments

Reworking 30 lines of Linux code could cut power use by up to 30 percent (ieee.org)
Reworking 30 lines of Linux code could cut power use by up to 30 percent

Energy Efficiency, Linux, Programming, Open Source

318 points by gslin 21 days ago | 115 comments

Making Every Air Conditioner a 2-Way AC (heatpumped.org)
The first episode of the Heat Pumped podcast is out, and it’s a fun one.

Heating, Cooling, Climate Change, Sustainability, Energy Efficiency

5 points by ssuds 24 days ago | 2 comments

Do Heat Pumps Save You Money? In California, It Depends on Your Electric Utility (insideclimatenews.org)
Last year, when Shreyas Sudhakar started a heat pump installation company in the San Francisco Bay Area, he realized he wouldn’t be able to find new customers by promising to bring down their utility bills.

Energy Efficiency, Climate Change, California, Heat Pumps, Utility Rates

5 points by ssuds 27 days ago | 1 comments

How to Build Influence and Install Heat Pumps (heatpumped.org)

Home Improvement, Sustainability, HVAC, Climate Change, Energy Efficiency

4 points by ssuds 38 days ago | 0 comments

Show HN: Terminal dashboard that throttles my PC during peak electricity rates (naveen.ing)

Show HN, Terminal, Energy Efficiency, Optimization, Hardware

98 points by naveen_k 41 days ago | 58 comments

Dryers in the US consume ~3% of residential energy budget, 6x washing machines (news.umich.edu)
Researchers from the University of Michigan are hoping their new study will inspire some Americans to rethink their relationship with laundry. Because, no matter how you spin it, clothes dryers use a lot of comparatively costly energy when air works for free.

Energy Efficiency, Laundry, Sustainability, Research

26 points by giuliomagnifico 63 days ago | 45 comments

Linear Pluggable Optics Save Energy in Data Centers (semiengineering.com)
Linear pluggable optics (LPO) is garnering more attention as a way to quickly and efficiently move data in and out of server racks, but a lack of standards for connecting the optical modules is slowing adoption at a time when there is growing pressure to reduce power in data centers.

Data Centers, Networking, Energy Efficiency, Optical Technology

15 points by PaulHoule 65 days ago | 6 comments

Closing the “green gap”: energy savings from the math of the landscape function (wordpress.com)
I recently returned from the 2025 Annual Meeting of the “Localization of Waves” collaboration (supported by the Simons Foundation, with additional related support from the NSF), where I learned (from Svitlana Mayboroda, the director of the collaboration as well as one of the principal investigators) of a remarkable statistic: net electricity consumption by residential customers in the US has actually experienced a slight decrease in recent years:

Energy Efficiency, Science, Climate Change, Mathematics

111 points by raphlinus 77 days ago | 71 comments

Waste-based perovskite solar cell achieves 21.39% energy efficiency (techxplore.com)
A team of materials scientists and solar engineers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, working with a colleague from Polytechnique Hauts-de-France, has developed a perovskite solar cell using a biomass-based polymer.

Solar Cells, Materials Science, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy

50 points by wglb 80 days ago | 34 comments

The future of AI is analog? $100M to push GPU-like brains on less juice (theregister.com)
Interview AI chip startup EnCharge claims its analog artificial intelligence accelerators could rival desktop GPUs while using just a fraction of the power. Impressive — on paper, at least. Now comes the hard part: Proving it in the real world.

Artificial Intelligence, Hardware, Energy Efficiency

4 points by rntn 84 days ago | 0 comments

Mission Accomplished? Heat pump adoption has a long way to go (heatpumped.org)
A few weeks ago, my feed exploded in celebration – not only have heat pumps maintained their sales lead over gas furnaces, but the gap has continued to grow year-on-year.

Energy Efficiency, Climate Change, Technology, Home Improvement

22 points by ssuds 92 days ago | 77 comments

Linux kernel tweak could cut data center power usage by up to 30% (networkworld.com)
An improvement to the way Linux handles network traffic, developed by researchers at Canada’s University of Waterloo, could make data center applications run more efficiently and save energy at the same time.

Linux, Data Centers, Energy Efficiency, Networking

5 points by thunderbong 96 days ago | 1 comments

Mechanically Powered Flashlight (wikipedia.org)
A mechanically powered flashlight (UK: mechanically powered torch) is a flashlight that is powered by electricity generated by the muscle power of the user, so it does not need replacement of batteries, or recharging from an electrical source.

Mechanical Engineering, Flashlights, Energy Efficiency

5 points by Croftengea 97 days ago | 0 comments

Linux kernel could cut energy use in data centres by up to 30 per cent (uwaterloo.ca)
Researchers at the Cheriton School of Computer Science have developed a small modification to the Linux kernel that could reduce energy consumption in data centres by as much as 30 per cent.

Linux, Data Centers, Energy Efficiency, Computer Science

33 points by stefanhoelzl 105 days ago | 4 comments

Volvo Wants to Improve EV Efficiency by Heating Your Windshield (thedrive.com)
Automakers have tried just about every trick in the book to improve on-road efficiency over the years, but we must admit, using a heater to improve the range of an EV is not one we’d previously accounted for.

Electric Vehicles, Automotive Technology, Energy Efficiency

7 points by PaulHoule 107 days ago | 2 comments

Update to Linux kernel could cut energy use in data centres by up to 30% (uwaterloo.ca)
Researchers at the Cheriton School of Computer Science have developed a small modification to the Linux kernel that could reduce energy consumption in data centres by as much as 30 per cent.

Energy Efficiency, Linux, Data Centers, Computer Science

9 points by paulv 109 days ago | 1 comments

Study shows how households can cut energy costs (news.mit.edu)
An experiment in Amsterdam suggests providing better information to people can help move them out of “energy poverty.”

Energy Efficiency, Sustainability, Social Impact, Research

4 points by gnabgib 119 days ago | 1 comments

Reversible computing escapes the lab (ieee.org)
This weird information-theory concept has become a power-saving chip

Computer Science, Energy Efficiency, Quantum Computing

276 points by jasondavies 122 days ago | 76 comments

Reversible Computing Escapes the Lab in 2025 (ieee.org)
This weird information-theory concept has become a power-saving chip

Reversible Computing, Computing, Energy Efficiency, Hardware

17 points by pseudolus 129 days ago | 0 comments

OpenERV (openerv.ca)
The TW4 decentralized Energy Recovery Ventilator transfers clean outdoor air inside and moves polluted air outdoors, while harvesting ~90% of the heat energy - so you get fresh air without the downsides of heating or cooling it.

Energy Efficiency, HVAC, Green Technology, Open Source

849 points by graboy 147 days ago | 262 comments

Photonic processor could enable fast AI computations with energy efficiency (news.mit.edu)
The deep neural network models that power today’s most demanding machine-learning applications have grown so large and complex that they are pushing the limits of traditional electronic computing hardware.

Artificial Intelligence, Hardware, Energy Efficiency, Computing

5 points by gnabgib 161 days ago | 0 comments

Terrible popular websites waste your CPU and energy (ericra.com)
These simple tests demonstrate that you can cede control over a large % of your computer's processing power simply by leaving a poorly or maliciously-designed website open in the background.

Website Performance, Energy Efficiency, Privacy, Cybersecurity

25 points by ericra 193 days ago | 11 comments

AI engineers claim new algorithm reduces AI power consumption by 95% (tomshardware.com)

Artificial Intelligence, Energy Efficiency, Computer Hardware

370 points by ferriswil 205 days ago | 170 comments

Integer addition algorithm could reduce energy needs of AI by 95% (techxplore.com)
A team of engineers at AI inference technology company BitEnergy AI reports a method to reduce the energy needs of AI applications by 95%.

Artificial Intelligence, Energy Efficiency, Computer Science

9 points by ycnews 211 days ago | 2 comments

Addition is all you need for energy-efficient language models (arxiv.org)
Large neural networks spend most computation on floating point tensor multiplications. In this work, we find that a floating point multiplier can be approximated by one integer adder with high precision.

Generative AI, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Computer Science, Energy Efficiency

334 points by InvisibleUp 215 days ago | 126 comments

Datacenters bleed watts and cash – all because they're afraid to flip a switch (theregister.com)
Datacenter power consumption has become a major concern in recent years, as utilities struggle to keep up with growing demand and operators are forced to seek alternative means to keep the lights on.

Datacenters, Energy Efficiency, Environmental Impact, Technology

11 points by LinuxBender 233 days ago | 5 comments