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The CBECI tool estimates that bitcoin consumes about 15.24 gigawatts. There are approximately 2 million employees working at FDIC insured banks in the United S
by sabalaba 6y ago
The CBECI tool estimates that bitcoin consumes about 15.24 gigawatts.
There are approximately 2 million employees working at FDIC insured banks in the United States.[2] There are approximately 330 million people in the United States.[3] United States food production uses about 10 quadrillion BTUs per year (about 332 gigawatts = [10 quadrillion BTU / (365246060) sec to gigawatts]). 332 gigawatts / 330 million ~ 1kW. That's approximately 1 kilowatt per person in the United States. There are probably some good arguments about exports etc but we will hold that aside for now. In 2019, total U.S. primary energy consumption per person (or per capita consumption) was about 305 million British thermal units (Btu).[5] = 305 million btu / (365246060) sec = 10kW. So, we get around 11kW per person for the total food and primary energy consumption rate.
11kW / person * 2 million people = 22 gigawatts
So, we come to the conclusion that if you look at the people employed by FDIC insured banks in the United States alone, they have a larger impact on the environment than bitcoin. If my calculations are correct, maybe we don't need this complaint to be the same first post in every thread on crypto.
Maybe I'm missing something or have done an incorrect calculation, if so, please point it out.
[1] https://www.cbeci.org https://www.cbeci.org
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/193286/number-of-employees-at-fdic-insured-commercial-banks-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/193286/number-of-employe...
[3] https://www.census.gov/popclock/ https://www.census.gov/popclock/
[4] https://www.chooseenergy.com/blog/energy-101/energy-food-production/ https://www.chooseenergy.com/blog/energy-101/energy-food-pro...
[5] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=85&t=1 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=85&t=1
- jbob2000 6y agoSo Bitcoin is a weight in addition to all the banking weight? We’re running two banking systems right now. It’s inefficient and stupid.
- mam2 6y agobitcoin fans will agree with you and say we should remove traditional banks ^^
- beefield 6y agoYou miss the fact that what bitcoin does is a tiny fraction of what banks do. I mean, how do you do for example mortgages or corporate finance with bitcoin - without hiring all the people and using all the resources current financial system does? Frankly, more proper comparison would be the resource consumption of using gold in the financial system.
- andosa 6y agoHow many people work on Bitcoin (mining, exchanges like Coinbase etc)? What's the number of transactions (money transfers, loans etc) per employee in banking vs Bitcoin ecosystem?
- tzs 6y agoYou are comparing (baseline US power use/person x number of people working at banks) to (power consumed to do the computations to operate the bitcoin blockchain). I fail to see how this is relevant to the question of how bitcoin compares to the banking system as a system for storing and transferring money from an energy perspective. The relevant comparison would be to compare the costs of doing a similar volume of similar operations using bitcoin and the bank system.
- IshKebab 6y agoSo Bitcoin - which almost nobody uses - consumes a similar amount of power to feeding, heating and powering every person in the US? Ok.