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From a strictly environmental perspective, mining in China in general is going to be worse for the global environment than in the US due to restrictions on poll
by jrowley 9y ago
From a strictly environmental perspective, mining in China in general is going to be worse for the global environment than in the US due to restrictions on pollution from energy generation in the states, at least for now.
- CPLX 9y agoAre you sure about that? I thought one of the reasons a lot of this happens in China is because they can locate in areas with very cheap surplus hydropower. Also the idea that the US just automatically can be assumed to have cleaner energy policy than China is archaic at this point. The world changes fast.
- s0rce 9y agoThis was my understanding as well. Since the location of miners is probably economically decided they probably go to places with cheap power and that is usually hydroelectric. They could go to Washington state but as you say China is cheaper.
- dmoy 9y agoChina still burns a shit ton of nasty poorly regulated coal. The hydro (and in the near future nuclear) doesn't cover the growing needs of 1.4b people. Coal is literally like 3/4 of China's electric generation capacity. If Bitcoin is taking up some of the hydro, the slack is gonna come from coal.