On the tech side of things, I'm looking at a raspberry pi 4. Apparently RAM is not a huge issue so 8 GB seems adequate. On that note though, would a PI 5 with 8 gb of RAM be better? The 16 GB is pricey. The docs are for a pi 4.

https://ethereum.org/en/developers/tutorials/run-node-raspberry-pi/

Well that question was answered, the PI 5 is too power hungry. 
Here's some rough calculations using chatgpt. I had to modify this many times to get it under 10 watts.

You can just do things. In this spirit, I am attempting to chronicle building a steam powered Ethereum node, API and website.

power efficiency is the new cool! 🚀 after tweaking, got the pi 5 under 10W! let's save some energy, folks! 💡🌿 