王轶辰
要维持元宇宙长期运作，充足稳定的能源供应必不可少。在无法实现清洁能源稳定充足供给前，政府部门应加强顶层设计，紧跟“双碳”工作节奏做好元宇宙产业规划。
越来越热的元宇宙概念和能源有关系吗？可以肯定地说，有！去年年底以来，元宇宙概念在资本市场持续热炒，游戏、互联网、旅游、餐饮等各行各业争相与元宇宙挂钩，北京、上海、杭州等各大城市也在元宇宙上展开布局。不少网友感叹，“还有什么能阻挡元宇宙时代的到来？”答案很简单：断电。在有限的能源供给面前，元宇宙其实很脆弱。
全球著名互联网企业甚至更名，彰显进军元宇宙的决心。他们认为，互联网的下一代是“一个身临其境的互联网”。简单理解，元宇宙就是与现实世界平行，可提供游戏、购物、社交等沉浸体验的开放虚拟世界。要实现高阶元宇宙，数字世界需要持续模拟和复制现实世界，通过各类传感器和外接设备，人们可自由穿梭于两个世界之间。
几乎支撑元宇宙运行的每一个设备都需要能源支持，要维持元宇宙长期运作，充足稳定的能源供应必不可少。1946年2月，世界上第一台现代电子数字计算机在美国宾夕法尼亚大学诞生。这台电脑占地约150平方米，重达30余吨，耗电功率约150千瓦。启动这个巨型机器时，常导致部分街区停电。元宇宙的发展，让信息设备能耗再次大幅跃升。
为创造堪比真实世界的沉浸感，元宇宙发展需要5G、人工智能、区块链、云计算、大数据、物联网、VR、AR等数字技术支持。物联网和工业互联网打通线上线下数据；5G网络帮助数据高速稳定传输；区块链将元宇宙中的数据资产化，形成新的可信机制和协作模式；VR和AR改变人机交互的方式。其中，每一项技术的大规模发展都要以提高能耗为代价。
当前，VR、AR技术离真正具有低延迟、高沉浸的理想体验还有很长的路要走。以VR为例，设备分辨率至少要达到8K以上才会有非常真实的体验，设备刷新率也还有较大提升空间。要突破这些瓶颈，对网络、存储、计算、电池的要求会大幅提升。
The blockchain is one of the basic technical components of the Metaverse, and the digital currency based on the blockchain technology is an important tool for the operation of the Metaverse.
The generation of blocks in the blockchain requires a lot of meaningless calculations, and the computing power is highly positively correlated with electricity.
Research shows that global bitcoin mining consumes about 91 terawatt-hours of electricity per year, which is more than the electricity consumption of Finland, which has a population of 5.5 million.
Data centers consume more energy and have a greater impact on the power system.
According to statistics, in 2018, the total power consumption of data centers in China reached 160.9 billion kWh, which exceeded the electricity consumption of the whole society in Shanghai that year, accounting for 2.35% of the national electricity consumption.
As the metaverse world continues to grow, all kinds of data will also show exponential growth, which will drive the number and scale of data centers to grow significantly, and bring new challenges to power supply and carbon emissions.
Bits are faster and cheaper to transmit than atoms, so digitized things tend to grow exponentially.
In the metaverse era, the amount of data is exploding, the data sources are diverse and updated frequently, and the existing computing power and technology cannot meet the needs of the future development of the metaverse.
For the metaverse era to truly come, while improving computing power and technology, clean and sustainable energy supply has become one of the decisive factors.
Before a stable and sufficient supply of clean energy cannot be achieved, government departments should strengthen top-level design, and closely follow the pace of "dual-carbon" work to make Metaverse industrial planning.
Adhere to the strategy of giving priority to energy conservation, clarify the dominant position of Metaverse-related enterprises in energy conservation and emission reduction, restrain improper energy consumption by enterprises, and encourage enterprises to obtain additional benefits and rewards through energy conservation.
To avoid the development of a new high-energy-consuming industry while strictly controlling the development of traditional high-energy-consuming industries.
Relevant enterprises should be encouraged to actively purchase renewable energy in various ways according to their own development needs. Enterprises that do not meet the conditions can apply renewable energy by subscribing for green power certificates.
At the same time, enterprises should also give full play to the innovation potential of technology and industrial models, adopt new processes, new materials, new solutions, and new designs to reduce equipment energy consumption, and improve the efficiency of unified resource scheduling through computing power sharing, so that unit computing power is more efficient. and maximize value.
In the long run, distributed renewable energy systems may be an important solution for the sustainable development of the Metaverse.
The huge metaverse digital space that supports sustainable development needs to be based on huge computing power and massive data storage space, which determines that the infrastructure in the metaverse era will be highly dependent on distributed systems, and global computing and storage resources need to be fully coordinated.
Every distributed Metaverse infrastructure can provide power support through a distributed energy system, and new technologies such as energy storage and hydrogen energy should be combined to increase the proportion of renewable energy in its energy supply.
From the perspective of energy supply alone, the full explosion of the metaverse is still far away, and this day may have to wait until the world truly realizes energy freedom.