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I’m not saying we shouldn’t look for better solutions, but just to put things in perspective, Bitcoin uses approximately 30 TWh/year, while global energy consum
by tlrobinson 9y ago
I’m not saying we shouldn’t look for better solutions, but just to put things in perspective, Bitcoin uses approximately 30 TWh/year, while global energy consumption is more than 100,000 TWh/year (so 0.03%).
People have also hypothesized that energy used in mining cryptocurrency will tend to be cleaner since mining operations can be located close to cheap/renewable electricity.
- solotronics 9y agocurrently the most energy efficient places are mainly used for the large crypto mines. places with "excess" energy such as new hydroelectric dams in rural China and recently wind and solar with excess production.
- spiralx 9y agoThat's still the equivalent of 2.3 million people, more than the population of a third of the countries in the world.
- tlrobinson 9y agoAnd? The global population increases by about 80 million people per year. Comparisons like yours feel like they're designed to inflate the scale of a problem.
- tim333 9y agoAlso for perspective the old school equivalent of bitcoin mining, gold mining uses about 220 TWh/year or rather more.
- ufo 9y agoThe problem is that bitcoin is used by less than 0.03% of the people in the world. Bitcoin energy spenditure is proportional to demand for bitcoin and we should expect mining costs to go up drastically if Bitcoin becomes more popular. (Mining costs are proportional to mining rewards, which in turn is proportional to prices, which are a function of demand).
- tlrobinson 9y agoTrue, but mining rewards also halve every 4 years.