Hi. I am very much a newbie and only starting to learn the very basics about cryptocurrency.
One thing that was thrown at me today when I was discussing how inspired I’ve been by CARDANO’s leader and sensing some real innovation here vs. for example a certain fecal coin which seems to be hype driven was “blah but blah coin is almost 5 times as energy efficient as CARDANO.” So I’m not sure if it is possible to answer this given that I do not even have a fundamental understanding of things but how does that number not make said coin “better.” Now I know CARDANO is proof-of-stake vs. said coin being proof-of-work. But lol I barely comprehend the difference and am not sure if this is part of the answer!
Thanks for any comments!
Hi @paulf123 its great that you are here and want to learn more about cryptocurrencys.
You are right that the Proof of Work vs. Proof of Stake is part of the answer. Its difficult to estimate the power consumption in an Proof of Stake system, because you never can tell how much servers are run by an Pool Operator. In an Proof of Work system you can better estimate the power cunsumption because the hashrates of the whole network is often listed in their API. Also we know the average power consumption of an mining rig.
So back to the answer:
Its difficult to compare the energy waste in numbers of our blockchain versus an blockchain with an 
as logo. The best answer is that the system PoS is more eco friendly than PoW.
Why?
In Proof of Work every server, computer and mining rig is operating at 100% workload. This one who is solving the cryptographical riddle as fastest, is getting the rewards for it.
In Proof of Stake will be one
Mining-rig or computer elected to solve the mathematical riddle, which isnt by far so hard like in PoW.
So here is just 1 entity operating at 100% workload, not everyone of the whole network. The mining-rigs also dont need to be high power cunsuming machines, because the riddle isnt so hard to solve.
So i hope this answer is helping you a little bit. Greeting from Germany! 
Hi Jonny22. Thank you vert much for taking the time to explain this! All the best!
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