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Ask HN: How bad is proof-of-work blockchain energy consumption?
I'm not a blockchain/crypto expert by any means, but I've been hearing about how much energy the proof-of-work blockchains (Bitcoin, Ethereum, NFTs) consume. Unless I'm mistaken their whole design relies on cranking through more and more CPU cycles. Should we be more concerned about this? Are the concerns overblown? Are there ways to improve it without certain crypto currencies imploding?
- maerF0x0 6y agoThankfully, cheap energy fit for Bitcoin mining is increasingly not found in fossil fuels, but in renewables, wasted and “stranded” sources of energy, as we’ll dive into next. [1] tl;dr; The perfect competition of bitcoin mining is/will drive bitcoin to eventually only work off the least expensive (which currently is renewable[2]) and even more so on marginally wasted energy[3] or "stranded energy" (like a natural gas flare on a well). [1]: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/bitcoin-will-save-our-earth https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/bitcoin-will-save-our-e... [2]: https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-is-now-cheapest-electricity-in-history-confirms-iea https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-is-now-cheapest-electricit... [3]: For example, to illustrate the point, I currently mine BTG on a spare GPU I had because my house needed to be heated anyways. I turn the miner on when I want heat in my house (about 600w) and turn it off when not needed... This is a micro example of what could be done across our entire society "Recent data suggest that space heating accounts for about 42 percent of energy use in U.S. residences and about 36 percent of energy use in U.S. commercial buildings."[4] . Every one of those space heaters could actually be a processor doing computation. In the future the "waster" will not be a miner but someone who turns electricity straight to heat without intermediate chains of value (such as computation or light). [4]:https://www.epa.gov/rhc/renewable-space-heating#:~:text=Recent%20data%20suggest%20that%20space,use%20in%20U.S.%20commercial%20buildings https://www.epa.gov/rhc/renewable-space-heating#:~:text=Rece....
- runjake 6y agoIt's important to note for #3 that a mining GPU is a terribly inefficient space heater.
- db48x 6y agoNo, all space heaters are equally efficient. They all have perfect 100% efficiency, because they turn electrical power into heat. When your work product is heat and the waste product is also heat, then there really is no waste. Technically in the case of cryptocurrency mining, some of the electrical power is turned into information rather than heat. In principle this reduces the amount of heat that you get, but in practice this isn’t even measurable. Most of the information is erased (discarded as useless), which turns it back into heat. Only a few hundred bits of information will be kept after successfully mining a block of transactions, and the amount of heat that costs you is fantastically small. Far smaller than you can measure.
- speedgoose 6y agoHeat pumps are more efficient than 100%
- maerF0x0 6y agoyes, but in reality i have a a GPU or a wall heater as my actual choices and heat pumps are exceedingly rare in my area.
- westurner 6y agoMore transistors per unit area, but also more efficient please! There should be demand for more efficient chips (semiconductors,) that are fully-utilized while depreciating on your ma's electricity bill (which is not yet (?) really determined by a market-based economy with intraday speculation to smooth over differences in supply and demand in the US). Oversupply of the electrical grid results in damage costs; which is why the price sometimes falls so low where there are intraday prices and supply has been over-subsidized pending the additional load from developing economies and EVs: Electric Vehicles. New grid renewables (#CleanEnergy) are now less expensive than existing baseload; which makes renewables long term environment-rational and short term price-rational. "Thermodynamics of Computation Wiki" (2018) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18146854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18146854 > No, all space heaters are equally efficient. They all have perfect 100% efficiency, because they turn electrical power into heat. When your work product is heat and the waste product is also heat, then there really is no waste. This heat must be distributed throughout the room somehow (i.e. a batteryless woodstove fan or a sterling engine that does work with the difference in entropy when there is a difference in entropy) > Technically in the case of cryptocurrency mining, some of the electrical power is turned into information rather than heat. In principle this reduces the amount of heat that you get, but in practice this isn’t even measurable. Most of the information is erased (discarded as useless), which turns it back into heat. See "Thermodynamics of Computation Wiki" re: a possible way to delete known observer-entangled bits while reducing heat/entropy (thus bypassing Landauer's limit for classical computation?)? > Only a few hundred bits of information will be kept after successfully mining a block of transactions, and the amount of heat that costs you is fantastically small. Far smaller than you can measure. Each n-symbol sequence in the hash function output does appear to have nearly equal frequency/probability of occurrence. Indeed, is Proof-of-Work worth the heat if you're not reusing the waste heat?
- wmf 6y agoWhen is eventually? Bitcoin has existed for over ten years and miners keep making excess profits due to ASIC shortages.
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago“How bad” is a normative question. Absolute amounts of energy expended can’t tell you how to normatively value the result of that energy expenditure.
- logicslave 6y agoGold mining uses more energy than bitcoin.
- drakonka 6y agoDo you mean when comparing per-unit, or as a whole?
- logicslave 6y agoPer unit. People need to put these energy numbers into perspective and stop with fear mongering
- drakonka 6y agoI guess that comparison could be useful if you had hundreds of thousands of random people all over the world mining gold 24/7.
- westurner 6y agoA rational market would be choosing an asset that offers value storage and transmission (between points in spacetime) according to criteria: "security" (security theater, infosec, cryptologic competency assessment, software assurances), "future stability" (future switching costs), and "cost". The externalities of energy production are what must be overcome if we are to be able to withstand wasteful overconsumption of electricity. Eventually, we could all have free clean energy and no lightsabers, right? So, we do need to minimize wasteful overconsumption. Define wasteful in terms of USD/kWHr (irregardless of industry)? In terms of behavioral economics, why are they behaving that way when there are alternatives that cost <$0.01/tx and a fairly-aggregated comprehensive n kWhr of electricity? TIL about these guys, who are deciding to somewhat-responsibly self-regulate in the interest of long-term environmental sustainability for all of the land: "Crypto Climate Accord". https://cryptoclimate.org/ https://cryptoclimate.org/ "Crypto Climate Accord Launches to Decarbonize Cryptocurrency Industry Brings together the likes of CoinShares, ConsenSys, Ripple, and the UNFCCC Climate Champions to lead sustainability in blockchain and crypto" (2021) https://bit.ly/CryptoClimateAccord https://bit.ly/CryptoClimateAccord > What are the objectives of the Crypto Climate Accord? The Accord’s overall objective is to decarbonize the global crypto industry. There are three provisional objectives to be finalized in partnership with Accord supporters: > - Enable all of the world’s blockchains to be powered by 100% renewables by the 2025 UNFCCC COP Conference > - Develop an open-source accounting standard for measuring emissions from the cryptocurrency industry > - Achieve net-zero emissions for the entire crypto industry, including all business operations beyond blockchains and retroactive emissions, by 2040 Similar to the Paris Agreement (2015), stakeholders appear to be setting their own targets for sustainability in accordance with the Crypto Climate Accord (2021). https://cryptoclimate.org/accord/ https://cryptoclimate.org/accord/ Someone who's not in renewables could launch e.g. a "Satoshi Nakamoto Clean Energy Fund: SNCEF" to receive donations from e.g. hash pools and connect nonprofits with sustainability managed renewables. How many SNCEFs did you give this year and why? #CleanEnergy