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Thankfully, 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

Thankfully, 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 ago
It's important to note for #3 that a mining GPU is a terribly inefficient space heater.
- db48x 6y ago
  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. 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 ago
    Heat pumps are more efficient than 100%
    - maerF0x0 6y ago
      yes, 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 ago
    More 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 ago
When is eventually? Bitcoin has existed for over ten years and miners keep making excess profits due to ASIC shortages.

runjake 6y ago

It's important to note for #3 that a mining GPU is a terribly inefficient space heater.

db48x 6y ago
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. 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 ago
  Heat pumps are more efficient than 100%
  - maerF0x0 6y ago
    yes, 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 ago
  More 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 ago

When is eventually? Bitcoin has existed for over ten years and miners keep making excess profits due to ASIC shortages.