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> A significant amount of BTC is mined with renewables. Which could be used to replace non-renewable energy usage elsewhere.

• fastball 6y ago
  This anti-growth mindset is poison. The solution is to add more and more renewables (and nuclear), not to ration electricity.
  • titzer 6y ago
    > This anti-growth mindset is poison. And endless growth is suicide. We could trade absurdist oversimplifications, but the reality is that we live on a finite planet and we are currently in vast ecological overshoot. We need to live within the carrying capacity of the actual world instead of an economics textbook and the stock market that's programmed us to think in quarters and single-year increments. It sounds a lot like we don't share the same urgency about climate change. I won't accuse you of being a denialist but I would encourage you to look at just how deep and fast we need to cut carbon emissions before we just splurge energy on speculation markets like Bitcoin.
    • fastball 6y ago
      > finite planet Guess you haven't heard of outer-space then. This is some Thanos nonsense you're championing.
• janoside 6y ago
  In many cases this is incorrect. Bitcoin's mining network is the first global energy market that unlocks stranded energy (energy produced too remotely to be profitably inserted into any grid) and brings its value to society. Natural gas producers are TODAY starting up miners to burn excess gas that would otherwise be flared. The concept has been productized - https://www.upstreamdata.ca/ https://www.upstreamdata.ca/ - and is live.
  • titzer 6y ago
    Yeah, and entire coal-fired power plants spring up just to feed datacenters to mine bitcoins. We could as well put spare energy into manufacturing hydrogen fuel cells or running datacenters instead of blowing it on specially-shaped bits.