I think I understand how a mining pool works. How would "huge payment commissions and payment pools" reduce the high PoW energy costs which the research claims?

I think I understand how a mining pool works. How would "huge payment commissions and payment pools" reduce the high PoW energy costs which the research claims? (I won't say the theory in the original post is correct. I am agnostic about that, as it's a hard equation to resolve)