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«as much electricity as Chile» Or about as much as a single large hydroelectric dam. Fun fact: many miners are located in places with cheap hydro/wind electri

by mrb 6y ago

«as much electricity as Chile» Or about as much as a single large hydroelectric dam. Fun fact: many miners are located in places with cheap hydro/wind electricity like Sichuan & Yunnan provinces in China. These provinces abandon 100+ TWh/year of hydropower. They literally run water through the dams without powering the turbines. 100 TWh/year is more than what Bitcoin consumes globally. «single transaction has the same carbon footprint as...» Misleading. Bitcoin transactions don't consume mining energy. Mining power is completely independent of transaction volume.

Hamuko 6y ago
>Or about as much as a single large hydroelectric dam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_hydroelectric_power_stations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_hydroelectric_... According to this list, there are two dams in the world which generate that much electricity. And if you take the Cambridge estimate, zero dams.
- mrb 6y ago
  I know. Hence my claim.
  - Hamuko 6y ago
    Would you describe a box that weights 600 kg to weight "as much as a single man"?
    - mrb 6y ago
      I said "large" damn, not an average dam. But fair enough—I should have said "around as much as the largest dam".
olejorgenb 6y ago
> Bitcoin transactions don't consume mining energy. Mining power is completely independent of transaction volume. I'm not familiar with the intricacies of bitcoin, but another comment claimed that the block size is limited (without hardforking) and the number of transactions per block surly is limited by the block size?