Biology spends 95% of energy just maintaining cells — the brain may run on just 1-2W
JosephJacks_ · x · 2026-10-17
Joseph Jacks shares a counterintuitive fact learned from biophysicist Steen Rasmussen: biology burns 95%+ of its energy supply just to contain the cell, leaving only 5% for everything else including computation and learning. By this accounting, the brain effectively runs on about 1-2 watts, not the commonly cited 20 watts.
The claim sharpens the usual "brain runs on 20W" talking point used in efficiency comparisons between biological intelligence and GPU clusters. Note it's a personally relayed observation rather than a formal published study.
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