[Maursault]

Thank you for the accurate and concise summary of what I wanted to know, but I think that this has larger implications that has nothing to do with computers or algae. As you observed, that is really not a lot of power. And off I go... it is incredible that that is not a lot of power, iow, what can be achieved optimizing for low-power is nothing short of miraculous, and we as a global society... we should suck it up, optimize for low power, and immediately ban everything contributing to Global Warming, and stop it by force if necessary, you know, optimized for zero casualties using psyops and harmless hallucinogenic bombs. We should get with our allies, get China on board, and take over the world, and stop Global Warming with a quickness. Power hogs can read books and sleep at night instead of insisting on more and more power.

[tetris11]

I keep looking for, and failing to find, any metrics that suggest that GPUs or CPUs have gotten more efficient and less energy intensive over time. Simple intuition would suggest "yes, obviously, of course", but I would love to see a simple line graph indicating so. Toms Hardware seems like a good place to look, but their comparisons dont overlap backwards very far

[LoveMortuus]

I think they have gotten more efficient. Just by the fact that pretty much every laptop today has a much better battery life then any had many years ago. Of course the difference is also in the battery tech, but the change and improvement is still visible.

[dmos62]

Devices probably became more energy efficient in that they can do more with 1 watt-hour, but I doubt if they suck up less watt-hours: probably more.