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Please put on your critical thinking hat for a minute. Using electricity is not the same as contributing to carbon emissions. Bitcoin is mostly mined in areas

by px43 6y ago

Please put on your critical thinking hat for a minute. Using electricity is not the same as contributing to carbon emissions. Bitcoin is mostly mined in areas overflowing with excess green energy, and thus contributes negligibly to carbon emissions. The idea that all electricity generation is bad and therefore all electricity usage is bad is completely ridiculous. Instead of working so hard to figure out how to hate on some technology you feel like you missed out on, maybe try understanding it for a minute, and realize the massive net benefits it offers to society.

kwanbix 6y ago
Do you have numbers to back what you are saying or you are just pulling numbers out from thin air?
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> Bitcoin is mostly mined in areas overflowing with excess green energy I thought it’s mostly mined in China?
- trogsworth 6y ago
  My understanding is that there's a surplus of hydroelectric dams, that were built far from any reasonable amount of electricity demand, which is why there's excess green energy in (parts of) China.
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> Bitcoin is mostly mined in areas overflowing with excess green energy Source? I thought it’s mostly mined in China?
- emteycz 6y ago
  Exactly! Seems like your knowledge about Chinese electricity might be outdated.
- apexalpha 6y ago
  Yes, and most of the mining in China happens in Sichuan, which has considerable renewable energy from hydro. I think maybe 95%+ of Sichuans electricity is hydro.
minikites 6y ago
>realize the massive net benefits it offers to society Surely you can list some of them.
- paystaxes 6y ago
  Preservation of wealth.
iagovar 6y ago
I think that you miss the tradeoff. By using so much electricity, we have: 1) It's not being stored (where they do). In some places they pump water or use other methods, which help to aliviate demand/offer tension when needed. 2) It's actually pushing prices up in the demand side, which means it's making everything else more expensive. 3) If Bitcoin really becomes widely adopted, this problem will increase by who knows how much. In a setting where we're worried about the impact of our energy pipeline, the use of bitcoins goes the other way around.
doctorwho42 6y ago
(1) power is not free, even green energy. It has production, labor, and material costs. (2) using the term 'excess' green energy is a false statement. There is no such thing as excess green energy while a bulk of the grid is still coal/gas/etc. (3) Bitcoin has led to a drain on GPU availability and in turn on the finite capacity of our semiconductor fabs. Arguably for nothing.
- emteycz 6y ago
  > There is no such thing as excess green energy while a bulk of the grid is still coal/gas/etc. Are you saying transporting and storing electricity is free or easy? Can you source that please? As far as I know many megawatts of electricity go to literal waste every day because it's actually extremely hard to store or transfer. > power is not free, even green energy. It has production, labor, and material costs Indeed. And thanks to Bitcoin powerplants can be paid for electricity that will be generated anyways but would go to waste, thus making green energy cheaper. > Arguably for nothing. For trustless, quick and reliable transfers of money, which are for example improving the life of many Nigerians.
  - lucb1e 6y ago
    > Can you source that please? This is like asking for a source on where 5G was shown not to cause corona. There is a difference between critical thinking and questioning generally accepted statements. You know as well as anyone that energy transportation isn't free or easy, why ask as GP to show that? You're implying that it's more environmentally friendly to build a big power plant in the middle of nowhere, then ship a bunch of ASICs there as well, and then mine bitcoin, rather than just not do that and use the investment money to renewable energy somewhere else. Heck, even if you did build a power plant in the middle of nowhere and intend to ship computers there, why not ship machine learning there? For example I know that DeepL has megawatts of GPUs for learning for the purposes of translation. There is no latency issue here, they can do this anywhere in the world. It's clearly better to use the energy for these purposes than for mining proofs of work.
    - 6y ago
Grustaf 6y ago
> Using electricity is not the same as contributing to carbon emissions Until all electricity comes from renewable source, then yes it is. > The idea that all electricity generation is bad and therefore all electricity usage is bad is completely ridiculous All _frivolous_ electricity usage is obviously bad.

by px43 6y ago

kwanbix 6y ago

Do you have numbers to back what you are saying or you are just pulling numbers out from thin air?

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> Bitcoin is mostly mined in areas overflowing with excess green energy I thought it’s mostly mined in China?

trogsworth 6y ago
My understanding is that there's a surplus of hydroelectric dams, that were built far from any reasonable amount of electricity demand, which is why there's excess green energy in (parts of) China.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> Bitcoin is mostly mined in areas overflowing with excess green energy Source? I thought it’s mostly mined in China?

emteycz 6y ago
Exactly! Seems like your knowledge about Chinese electricity might be outdated.
apexalpha 6y ago
Yes, and most of the mining in China happens in Sichuan, which has considerable renewable energy from hydro. I think maybe 95%+ of Sichuans electricity is hydro.

minikites 6y ago

>realize the massive net benefits it offers to society Surely you can list some of them.

paystaxes 6y ago
Preservation of wealth.

iagovar 6y ago

I think that you miss the tradeoff. By using so much electricity, we have: 1) It's not being stored (where they do). In some places they pump water or use other methods, which help to aliviate demand/offer tension when needed. 2) It's actually pushing prices up in the demand side, which means it's making everything else more expensive. 3) If Bitcoin really becomes widely adopted, this problem will increase by who knows how much. In a setting where we're worried about the impact of our energy pipeline, the use of bitcoins goes the other way around.

doctorwho42 6y ago

(1) power is not free, even green energy. It has production, labor, and material costs. (2) using the term 'excess' green energy is a false statement. There is no such thing as excess green energy while a bulk of the grid is still coal/gas/etc. (3) Bitcoin has led to a drain on GPU availability and in turn on the finite capacity of our semiconductor fabs. Arguably for nothing.

emteycz 6y ago
> There is no such thing as excess green energy while a bulk of the grid is still coal/gas/etc. Are you saying transporting and storing electricity is free or easy? Can you source that please? As far as I know many megawatts of electricity go to literal waste every day because it's actually extremely hard to store or transfer. > power is not free, even green energy. It has production, labor, and material costs Indeed. And thanks to Bitcoin powerplants can be paid for electricity that will be generated anyways but would go to waste, thus making green energy cheaper. > Arguably for nothing. For trustless, quick and reliable transfers of money, which are for example improving the life of many Nigerians.
- lucb1e 6y ago
  > Can you source that please? This is like asking for a source on where 5G was shown not to cause corona. There is a difference between critical thinking and questioning generally accepted statements. You know as well as anyone that energy transportation isn't free or easy, why ask as GP to show that? You're implying that it's more environmentally friendly to build a big power plant in the middle of nowhere, then ship a bunch of ASICs there as well, and then mine bitcoin, rather than just not do that and use the investment money to renewable energy somewhere else. Heck, even if you did build a power plant in the middle of nowhere and intend to ship computers there, why not ship machine learning there? For example I know that DeepL has megawatts of GPUs for learning for the purposes of translation. There is no latency issue here, they can do this anywhere in the world. It's clearly better to use the energy for these purposes than for mining proofs of work.
  - 6y ago

Grustaf 6y ago

> Using electricity is not the same as contributing to carbon emissions Until all electricity comes from renewable source, then yes it is. > The idea that all electricity generation is bad and therefore all electricity usage is bad is completely ridiculous All _frivolous_ electricity usage is obviously bad.