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What a ridiculous article. Household air-conditioning wastes energy. Running your television wastes energy. Serving up webpages for The Guardian is apparently a

What a ridiculous article. Household air-conditioning wastes energy. Running your television wastes energy. Serving up webpages for The Guardian is apparently a waste of energy. If the problem is that the price of energy does not encompass the negative externalities it creates, then we need a Pigouvian tax on it. The price rises, and miners reassess whether or not they are profitable in a carbon-neutral world. The author seems to think that market participants using energy in a profitable manner are at fault here, rather than the policymakers who are not interested in tackling the Greatest Moral Challenge of Our Time (TM). But sure, jump on the bandwagon and write op-eds while Bitcoin is in the news.

AlexandrB 9y ago
> What a ridiculous article. Household air-conditioning wastes energy. Running your television wastes energy. Serving up webpages for The Guardian is apparently a waste of energy. All of these provide some form of value to the user. I have yet to see what value bitcoin provides over USD. Okay, so we now have another medium of exchange, so what? Why is that worth the 1000x energy consumption per transaction over payment processors like Visa? All your examples, by the way, have gotten more and more energy efficient over the last 50 years. Bitcoin is going in the opposite direction for payment processing.
- pdemporg 9y ago
  Thank you for actually engaging! Let me preface this by saying I'm usually the first to deride Bitcoin as a payments platform. However, using energy to mine Bitcoin does provide value to the user - profits over and above what the power bill and ASICs/GPUs cost. And you're right - for a payments platform, it is a regression in terms of energy consumption. That, however, does not change the fundamental issue - the severe underpricing of emissions-heavy power generation. The externalities that the author is so worried about (in the form of climate change) are not priced into the going rate for electricity. Blaming bitcoin miners is silly - if I pay for my power, I should be able to use it however I see fit. The alternative leads to absurdity, such as a law that states your aircon may be set no lower than 22C in summer, as anything more would be "a waste". I pay for it, I use it, bugger off. The external social cost of electricity generation needs to be internalised into the private end-cost - a carbon tax or an ETS. Pick one, follow through, and stop blaming rational agents for acting rationally. EDIT: Spelling

AlexandrB 9y ago

> What a ridiculous article. Household air-conditioning wastes energy. Running your television wastes energy. Serving up webpages for The Guardian is apparently a waste of energy. All of these provide some form of value to the user. I have yet to see what value bitcoin provides over USD. Okay, so we now have another medium of exchange, so what? Why is that worth the 1000x energy consumption per transaction over payment processors like Visa? All your examples, by the way, have gotten more and more energy efficient over the last 50 years. Bitcoin is going in the opposite direction for payment processing.

pdemporg 9y ago
Thank you for actually engaging! Let me preface this by saying I'm usually the first to deride Bitcoin as a payments platform. However, using energy to mine Bitcoin does provide value to the user - profits over and above what the power bill and ASICs/GPUs cost. And you're right - for a payments platform, it is a regression in terms of energy consumption. That, however, does not change the fundamental issue - the severe underpricing of emissions-heavy power generation. The externalities that the author is so worried about (in the form of climate change) are not priced into the going rate for electricity. Blaming bitcoin miners is silly - if I pay for my power, I should be able to use it however I see fit. The alternative leads to absurdity, such as a law that states your aircon may be set no lower than 22C in summer, as anything more would be "a waste". I pay for it, I use it, bugger off. The external social cost of electricity generation needs to be internalised into the private end-cost - a carbon tax or an ETS. Pick one, follow through, and stop blaming rational agents for acting rationally. EDIT: Spelling