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All this cryptocurrenty craziness doesn't help either. I don't understand how the HN crowd that is usually so pro-environment, is also happy with the tons of w

All this cryptocurrenty craziness doesn't help either. I don't understand how the HN crowd that is usually so pro-environment, is also happy with the tons of wasted energy from crytptocurrency mining.

Caveman_Coder 9y ago
The whole crypto-currency scene is increasingly seeming like a huge Ponzi scheme. I really wonder at what point popular opinion will no longer support wasting electrical power on mining a digital currency.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  When the music stops, and hope of striking it rich dies...people are greedy and shortsighted in the aggregate.
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    In aggregate over long time (multiple generations), not so much. Genetics optimized a global equation after all. The problem is that we might lack enough time for this to work.
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      True, given time and the resources to enjoy that time, we’re not monsters. The problem is that we might lack enough time for this to work. Alas... barring that miracle at least, and probably a few more like it.
jimmaswell 9y ago
If the energy comes from a source where gathering and expending it doesn't have any adverse environmental effects then it's hard to say using it is "wasteful" - the only real problem comes if you assume using more power means more coal is burned and the like. Heavy coin mining tends to be done around the cheapest energy sources like hydro, and in the interim before burning fossil fuels is fully phased out I don't think the additional use from coin mining is going to be that big of a deal compared to people using inefficient air conditioner setups, heating their homes with electric too much, leaving all the lights and the TV on when they go out, or a bunch of other things that can add up to the additional power miners use.
- llukas 9y ago
  https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption I beg to differ - currently just Bitcoin mining uses as much energy as country of Iceland - anything consuming energy on a scale of entire country (even small one yes) is environmentally significant.
  - melling 9y ago
    “Bitcoin's electricity consumption as a percentage of the world's electricity consumption 0.09%“ By definition 0.09% is not significant. Eliminating it would not significantly impact climate change.
    - Nomentatus 9y ago
      Excellent. Please send me a check for this insignificant amount, at current wholesale (business consumption) rates.
      - melling 9y ago
        What does the amount of money have to do with anything? If someone found a way to reduce the $20 trillion US deficit by 0.09%, and someone said that it’s not significant, would it rate the snarky “well, then send me a check for that amount”? Would you optimize a program by refactoring a function that used 0.09% of the execution time?
        Nomentatus 9y ago
        Yes, I often have done such refactoring. It's hard to get that last 20% of speed, much less last 5% without making a large number of small changes in code, usually after getting accumulated trace results (however presented.) .1% = one in one thousand. Keep stacking up those improvements and you do get somewhere, and often you'll easily find one hundred very small improvements in a day (10% altogether!) if it's green code, along with the bigger inefficiencies to fix. Not to mention that ignoring a presently-small inefficiency is predicting that future use won't swell that into a problem - which can be most unwise. Also, looking for tiny improvements gives you a good chance to stumble upon larger improvements you'd missed earlier. Optimize much?
imglorp 9y ago
Filecoin is another proof of work that doesn't involve burning cpu cycles.
melling 9y ago
You derailed the entire point of the article by taking a tangent into a completely different, essentially irrrelevant, discussion. “Bitcoin's electricity consumption as a percentage of the world's electricity consumption 0.09%“ How about Bill Gates and Terrapower trying to build a new generation of nuclear power in China? https://qz.com/627113/bill-gates-says-china-is-the-best-place-to-pursue-next-generation-nuclear-power/ https://qz.com/627113/bill-gates-says-china-is-the-best-plac...
- Caveman_Coder 9y ago
  TerraPower is interesting, especially since it recycles previously enriched uranium. On a side note, as far as the future of nuclear power goes, I'm more interested in LFTR designs and I think Flibe Energy is going to someone to watch here in the near future. http://flibe-energy.com/ http://flibe-energy.com/
  - wbl 9y ago
    Totally OT, but have they cracked the corrosion issues?
    - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
      The last I remember hearing about it was that there is active research in a new Hastelloy-N plus Titanium alloy combo that supposedly eliminates corrosion and neutron embrittlement. http://moltensalt.org.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/references/static/downloads/pdf/ORNL-TM-6002.pdf http://moltensalt.org.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ref...
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    I like the notion of Bi-Pb eutectic designs myself, but LFTR is much more likely in the near term.
  - novalis78 9y ago
    ...or Thorcon Power. Bitcoin mining puts an interesting economic incentive on cheap energy production and chip efficiency. That and its implications always fascinated me.
zedadex 9y ago
> I don't understand how the HN crowd that is usually so pro-environment, is also happy with the tons of wasted energy from crytptocurrency mining Iirc that's one of the points of proof-of-stake. PoS is nearly analogous to PoW in its platform implications - potential for centralization due to resource costs and so on - but doesn't rely on burning through processing power to be secured.
- hughw 9y ago
  Paul Sztorc argues that PoS will burn as much electricity as PoW [1]. Buterin answers here [2]. [1] http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/ http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/ [2] https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Proof-of-Stake-FAQ#doesnt-mc--mr-mean-that-all-consensus-algorithms-with-a-given-security-level-are-equally-efficient-or-in-other-words-equally-wasteful https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Proof-of-Stake-FAQ#doe...
  - aoeusnth1 9y ago
    That's not an accurate characterization of his argument (in [1]) about PoW vs. PoS. It's not about which one will burn more or less electricity - his point is that each burns an equivalent amount of economic value, be that electricity, capitaltime, liquidity, etc. PoS tends to burn less energy but compensates this by burning exactly as many dollars worth of capitaltime and liquidity. My disagreement with this analysis is twofold: - The capital that PoS burns has been created by switching to PoS. It's measured in ETH, and it's that extra value that hn commentors are referring to when they snidely remark that PoS is a good way to deflate your currency. - The negative externalities of power consumption for PoW are both murderous and civilization-threatening. PoS has basically zero negative externalities.
openfuture 9y ago
It's still young technology and the energy efficiency will improve with the lightning network or proof of stake or different concepts like filecoin. The societal gain from these technologies is potentially very large and will hopefully realign interests in the direction of saving the environment rather than bailing out businesses.. But the most sane definition of money is actually energy imo Also comparing the energy cost of printing physical money with mining cryptocurrencies is favorable to CC's iirc.
- layoric 9y ago
  > Also comparing the energy cost of printing physical money with mining cryptocurrencies is favorable to CC's iirc. Really? Last I checked, taking the averaged of the top 10 most efficient mining setups, BitCoin network was pulling 9GW+. https://twitter.com/layoric/status/906087502414352384 https://twitter.com/layoric/status/906087502414352384 Another model here showing 18 TWh annual usage, that's still an insane amount of power. https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption Proof of Work (and BitCoin in particular) is so damaging, really hoping another currency takes over that doesn't use so much power for 4 transactions per second..
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    > Really? Last I checked, taking the averaged of the top 10 most efficient mining setups, BitCoin network was pulling 9GW+. And where is the comparison vs physical money? You know, with trucks moving around every day, and the cost of insurance, special facilities, salaries, etc...
    - pkulak 9y ago
      Except that cash is used in about a third of consumer transactions, and basically not at all otherwise. Everything else is chain of trust and essentially free, in terms of energy and every other resource. Besides, a single truck can move millions of dollars, and I doubt reaching out to take my money and then making change contributes very much to the salary of a shop keeper. Probably far less than scanning my phone and waiting an hour for 3 confirmations. The only way a cash transaction would use the same power as a Bitcoin one would be if I had to personally drive the money 1000 miles to its destination in a Tesla.
glibgil 9y ago
Mining is a placeholder for the real resource which is useful computation. There will be an economy based on distributed electricity and distributed computation eventually

Caveman_Coder 9y ago

The whole crypto-currency scene is increasingly seeming like a huge Ponzi scheme. I really wonder at what point popular opinion will no longer support wasting electrical power on mining a digital currency.

QAPereo 9y ago
When the music stops, and hope of striking it rich dies...people are greedy and shortsighted in the aggregate.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  In aggregate over long time (multiple generations), not so much. Genetics optimized a global equation after all. The problem is that we might lack enough time for this to work.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    True, given time and the resources to enjoy that time, we’re not monsters. The problem is that we might lack enough time for this to work. Alas... barring that miracle at least, and probably a few more like it.

jimmaswell 9y ago

If the energy comes from a source where gathering and expending it doesn't have any adverse environmental effects then it's hard to say using it is "wasteful" - the only real problem comes if you assume using more power means more coal is burned and the like. Heavy coin mining tends to be done around the cheapest energy sources like hydro, and in the interim before burning fossil fuels is fully phased out I don't think the additional use from coin mining is going to be that big of a deal compared to people using inefficient air conditioner setups, heating their homes with electric too much, leaving all the lights and the TV on when they go out, or a bunch of other things that can add up to the additional power miners use.

llukas 9y ago
https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption I beg to differ - currently just Bitcoin mining uses as much energy as country of Iceland - anything consuming energy on a scale of entire country (even small one yes) is environmentally significant.
- melling 9y ago
  “Bitcoin's electricity consumption as a percentage of the world's electricity consumption 0.09%“ By definition 0.09% is not significant. Eliminating it would not significantly impact climate change.
  - Nomentatus 9y ago
    Excellent. Please send me a check for this insignificant amount, at current wholesale (business consumption) rates.
    - melling 9y ago
      What does the amount of money have to do with anything? If someone found a way to reduce the $20 trillion US deficit by 0.09%, and someone said that it’s not significant, would it rate the snarky “well, then send me a check for that amount”? Would you optimize a program by refactoring a function that used 0.09% of the execution time?
      - Nomentatus 9y ago
        Yes, I often have done such refactoring. It's hard to get that last 20% of speed, much less last 5% without making a large number of small changes in code, usually after getting accumulated trace results (however presented.) .1% = one in one thousand. Keep stacking up those improvements and you do get somewhere, and often you'll easily find one hundred very small improvements in a day (10% altogether!) if it's green code, along with the bigger inefficiencies to fix. Not to mention that ignoring a presently-small inefficiency is predicting that future use won't swell that into a problem - which can be most unwise. Also, looking for tiny improvements gives you a good chance to stumble upon larger improvements you'd missed earlier. Optimize much?

imglorp 9y ago

Filecoin is another proof of work that doesn't involve burning cpu cycles.

melling 9y ago

You derailed the entire point of the article by taking a tangent into a completely different, essentially irrrelevant, discussion. “Bitcoin's electricity consumption as a percentage of the world's electricity consumption 0.09%“ How about Bill Gates and Terrapower trying to build a new generation of nuclear power in China? https://qz.com/627113/bill-gates-says-china-is-the-best-place-to-pursue-next-generation-nuclear-power/ https://qz.com/627113/bill-gates-says-china-is-the-best-plac...

Caveman_Coder 9y ago
TerraPower is interesting, especially since it recycles previously enriched uranium. On a side note, as far as the future of nuclear power goes, I'm more interested in LFTR designs and I think Flibe Energy is going to someone to watch here in the near future. http://flibe-energy.com/ http://flibe-energy.com/
- wbl 9y ago
  Totally OT, but have they cracked the corrosion issues?
  - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
    The last I remember hearing about it was that there is active research in a new Hastelloy-N plus Titanium alloy combo that supposedly eliminates corrosion and neutron embrittlement. http://moltensalt.org.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/references/static/downloads/pdf/ORNL-TM-6002.pdf http://moltensalt.org.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ref...
- QAPereo 9y ago
  I like the notion of Bi-Pb eutectic designs myself, but LFTR is much more likely in the near term.
- novalis78 9y ago
  ...or Thorcon Power. Bitcoin mining puts an interesting economic incentive on cheap energy production and chip efficiency. That and its implications always fascinated me.

zedadex 9y ago

> I don't understand how the HN crowd that is usually so pro-environment, is also happy with the tons of wasted energy from crytptocurrency mining Iirc that's one of the points of proof-of-stake. PoS is nearly analogous to PoW in its platform implications - potential for centralization due to resource costs and so on - but doesn't rely on burning through processing power to be secured.

hughw 9y ago
Paul Sztorc argues that PoS will burn as much electricity as PoW [1]. Buterin answers here [2]. [1] http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/ http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/ [2] https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Proof-of-Stake-FAQ#doesnt-mc--mr-mean-that-all-consensus-algorithms-with-a-given-security-level-are-equally-efficient-or-in-other-words-equally-wasteful https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Proof-of-Stake-FAQ#doe...
- aoeusnth1 9y ago
  That's not an accurate characterization of his argument (in [1]) about PoW vs. PoS. It's not about which one will burn more or less electricity - his point is that each burns an equivalent amount of economic value, be that electricity, capitaltime, liquidity, etc. PoS tends to burn less energy but compensates this by burning exactly as many dollars worth of capitaltime and liquidity. My disagreement with this analysis is twofold: - The capital that PoS burns has been created by switching to PoS. It's measured in ETH, and it's that extra value that hn commentors are referring to when they snidely remark that PoS is a good way to deflate your currency. - The negative externalities of power consumption for PoW are both murderous and civilization-threatening. PoS has basically zero negative externalities.

openfuture 9y ago

It's still young technology and the energy efficiency will improve with the lightning network or proof of stake or different concepts like filecoin. The societal gain from these technologies is potentially very large and will hopefully realign interests in the direction of saving the environment rather than bailing out businesses.. But the most sane definition of money is actually energy imo Also comparing the energy cost of printing physical money with mining cryptocurrencies is favorable to CC's iirc.

layoric 9y ago
> Also comparing the energy cost of printing physical money with mining cryptocurrencies is favorable to CC's iirc. Really? Last I checked, taking the averaged of the top 10 most efficient mining setups, BitCoin network was pulling 9GW+. https://twitter.com/layoric/status/906087502414352384 https://twitter.com/layoric/status/906087502414352384 Another model here showing 18 TWh annual usage, that's still an insane amount of power. https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption Proof of Work (and BitCoin in particular) is so damaging, really hoping another currency takes over that doesn't use so much power for 4 transactions per second..
- ekianjo 9y ago
  > Really? Last I checked, taking the averaged of the top 10 most efficient mining setups, BitCoin network was pulling 9GW+. And where is the comparison vs physical money? You know, with trucks moving around every day, and the cost of insurance, special facilities, salaries, etc...
  - pkulak 9y ago
    Except that cash is used in about a third of consumer transactions, and basically not at all otherwise. Everything else is chain of trust and essentially free, in terms of energy and every other resource. Besides, a single truck can move millions of dollars, and I doubt reaching out to take my money and then making change contributes very much to the salary of a shop keeper. Probably far less than scanning my phone and waiting an hour for 3 confirmations. The only way a cash transaction would use the same power as a Bitcoin one would be if I had to personally drive the money 1000 miles to its destination in a Tesla.

glibgil 9y ago

Mining is a placeholder for the real resource which is useful computation. There will be an economy based on distributed electricity and distributed computation eventually