5 ms·

If BTC mining and related operations were halted right now as you wish, by what percentage would the CO2 production decrease? By 0.1%, inconsequential. We need

by effie 6y ago

If BTC mining and related operations were halted right now as you wish, by what percentage would the CO2 production decrease? By 0.1%, inconsequential. We need to focus on decomissioning coal/gas power plants and combustion motors for transport. That will get us at least 60%.

tsimionescu 6y ago
> We need to focus on decomissioning coal/gas power plants and combustion motors for transport. Bitcoin is actively working against that. By increasing the energy demand from the network, it makes it harder to simply stop producing energy. It doesn't matter if miners are directly buying only from renewable sources (as some claim), they are still likely out-bidding someone else, who then has to go to a fossil fuel plant for their electricity.
- effie 6y ago
  The energy consumption of BTC is minuscule when compared to total electric consumption and its physical/economic effect on power networks is similarly minuscule. Yes, it consumes and contributes to CO2. So do other electric energy consumers, like big companies like Amazon, Google. So do, orders of magnitude more than BTC, consumers of fossil fuels. BTC is just an easy inconsequential scapegoat.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    BTC consumes more electricity than many individual countries in the world. It is something like 0.1% of the electrical energy consumption of the entire world. That is not insignificant, it is a huge chunk that could be stopped with virtually 0 impact on the world economy (unlike all your other examples).
    - effie 6y ago
      0.1% percent is pretty insignificant, it is 1/1000 of the world electric energy production, and that contributes only around 30% to total world C02 production. Blaming and cancelling insignificant activities leads nowhere. And it's absurd, considering the main CO2 contributors are elsewhere - it is the transport and power plants which need this attention. If we are talking about affecting CO2 production via electric energy policies, more just way (and more effective way) to introduce "CO2 sanctions" on various activities is to factor the damage in the energy price. That way everybody feels the pain proportionally, not just few random scapegoats like BTC. I agree that price does not need to be the same for everyone. Maybe BTC activities should pay much more for electric energy than a normal (non-BTC oriented) household does.
isoprophlex 6y ago
Last part: sure, agreed. First part: bullshit. Shutting down BTC would be highly consequential. BTC is the perfect peak shaver to have on your grid. This is what makes it so perverse. With a mining rig, you can shave excess production peaks on any of the energy markets: long-term, cover intraday swings, or frequency stabilization where you have to react in seconds. If BTC ceases siphoning green energy away from hydro plants, etc, the grid operators and their governments will be forced to look into storing surplus production instead of turning it into waste heat and crypto hashes.
- effie 6y ago
  Yes big players can buy electric energy cheaper than the small guy (or even be paid to consume). Impact on consumer prices or CO2 production is very small and the blame in CO2 production is shared with the producer. So if there is a problem here it is with big player consumers and big producers increasing total CO2 production. I agree that on a global scale, that is a problem. However, it's not a problem inherent to BTC. If you think you can get rid of big players building dirty plants and producing lots of CO2 by cancelling BTC then you are naive. Storage of energy was and is very small / non-existent because of large investments needed to build it, and little profit to be gained. It's not BTC's fault.

by effie 6y ago

tsimionescu 6y ago

> We need to focus on decomissioning coal/gas power plants and combustion motors for transport. Bitcoin is actively working against that. By increasing the energy demand from the network, it makes it harder to simply stop producing energy. It doesn't matter if miners are directly buying only from renewable sources (as some claim), they are still likely out-bidding someone else, who then has to go to a fossil fuel plant for their electricity.

effie 6y ago
The energy consumption of BTC is minuscule when compared to total electric consumption and its physical/economic effect on power networks is similarly minuscule. Yes, it consumes and contributes to CO2. So do other electric energy consumers, like big companies like Amazon, Google. So do, orders of magnitude more than BTC, consumers of fossil fuels. BTC is just an easy inconsequential scapegoat.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  BTC consumes more electricity than many individual countries in the world. It is something like 0.1% of the electrical energy consumption of the entire world. That is not insignificant, it is a huge chunk that could be stopped with virtually 0 impact on the world economy (unlike all your other examples).
  - effie 6y ago
    0.1% percent is pretty insignificant, it is 1/1000 of the world electric energy production, and that contributes only around 30% to total world C02 production. Blaming and cancelling insignificant activities leads nowhere. And it's absurd, considering the main CO2 contributors are elsewhere - it is the transport and power plants which need this attention. If we are talking about affecting CO2 production via electric energy policies, more just way (and more effective way) to introduce "CO2 sanctions" on various activities is to factor the damage in the energy price. That way everybody feels the pain proportionally, not just few random scapegoats like BTC. I agree that price does not need to be the same for everyone. Maybe BTC activities should pay much more for electric energy than a normal (non-BTC oriented) household does.

isoprophlex 6y ago

Last part: sure, agreed. First part: bullshit. Shutting down BTC would be highly consequential. BTC is the perfect peak shaver to have on your grid. This is what makes it so perverse. With a mining rig, you can shave excess production peaks on any of the energy markets: long-term, cover intraday swings, or frequency stabilization where you have to react in seconds. If BTC ceases siphoning green energy away from hydro plants, etc, the grid operators and their governments will be forced to look into storing surplus production instead of turning it into waste heat and crypto hashes.

effie 6y ago
Yes big players can buy electric energy cheaper than the small guy (or even be paid to consume). Impact on consumer prices or CO2 production is very small and the blame in CO2 production is shared with the producer. So if there is a problem here it is with big player consumers and big producers increasing total CO2 production. I agree that on a global scale, that is a problem. However, it's not a problem inherent to BTC. If you think you can get rid of big players building dirty plants and producing lots of CO2 by cancelling BTC then you are naive. Storage of energy was and is very small / non-existent because of large investments needed to build it, and little profit to be gained. It's not BTC's fault.