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We have so much uranium that we can do Bitcoin AND everything else.

by politician 6y ago

wmf 6y ago
Is that actually happening? Is it on track to happen?
- politician 6y ago
  The same people who lament the energy usage of PoW have also been stirring up FUD against nuclear. I said that the outrage about Bitcoin is a proxy for lamenting the lack of clean energy while also ignoring or resisting our current, proven ability to generate clean energy. Are you sealioning?
  - hootbootscoot 6y ago
    I question your observation. Currently, POW "currencies" burn real coal, divert energy from production applications like metal smelting, monopolize cheap renewables on-site (like Niagara falls) due to the way the markets reward BTC, which, in my opinion, is ridiculous. 60k for a slice of Ponzi pie? Cognitive dissonance due to vested interests. DO YOU OWN POW CRYPTO-"CURRENCIES"? - put that in your full disclaimer, please. It colors your output.
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
We have the uranium. Do we have the nuclear plants? No? Not yet? Then today, we can't burn all that electricity mining Bitcoin without it requiring burning more coal.
- politician 6y ago
  We don't exclusively burn coal to secure bitcoin and China uses a combination of power generation technologies to power its electrical grid. To imply that it's all coal is just wrong. Yes, shut down the coal plants today, but you'll be cancelling more than Bitcoin PoW. So what are you really mad about? Bitcoin or Coal? For goodness sakes, if these activists win at cancelling Bitcoin, all they've accomplished is extending the lifetime of coal-fired power generation. Yay?
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    I am not saying to shut down coal plants today, and I deny you the right to put words in my mouth. What I am doing is pushing back on your original argument, which was that China has nuclear plants and we have lots of uranium, so it's fine to waste enormous amounts of energy mining Bitcoin. My position is this: Today we have nuclear plants and coal plants, and we waste energy mining Bitcoin. It is a strictly better world where we have the same number of nuclear plants and fewer coal plants, and use the exact same amount of energy minus the amount that we spend on Bitcoin. I strongly suspect that the incremental energy load of mining Bitcoin is coming from coal plants, not nuclear plants. (If anyone has hard data, I would welcome it.) If my suspicion is correct, then claiming that China has nuclear plants is irrelevant, since they aren't producing the electricity that's being spent mining Bitcoin.
    - viklove 6y ago
      I think we should shut down Netflix because it is a huge waste of energy that could be better repurposed elsewhere. Who are you to say Netflix is more useful than Bitcoin?
    - politician 6y ago
      It's completely useless to assign loads to specific power generation schemes in countries that operate off of grids. Unless you're an aluminum smelter.

We have so much uranium that we can do Bitcoin AND everything else.

wmf 6y ago

Is that actually happening? Is it on track to happen?

politician 6y ago
The same people who lament the energy usage of PoW have also been stirring up FUD against nuclear. I said that the outrage about Bitcoin is a proxy for lamenting the lack of clean energy while also ignoring or resisting our current, proven ability to generate clean energy. Are you sealioning?
- hootbootscoot 6y ago
  I question your observation. Currently, POW "currencies" burn real coal, divert energy from production applications like metal smelting, monopolize cheap renewables on-site (like Niagara falls) due to the way the markets reward BTC, which, in my opinion, is ridiculous. 60k for a slice of Ponzi pie? Cognitive dissonance due to vested interests. DO YOU OWN POW CRYPTO-"CURRENCIES"? - put that in your full disclaimer, please. It colors your output.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

We have the uranium. Do we have the nuclear plants? No? Not yet? Then today, we can't burn all that electricity mining Bitcoin without it requiring burning more coal.

politician 6y ago
We don't exclusively burn coal to secure bitcoin and China uses a combination of power generation technologies to power its electrical grid. To imply that it's all coal is just wrong. Yes, shut down the coal plants today, but you'll be cancelling more than Bitcoin PoW. So what are you really mad about? Bitcoin or Coal? For goodness sakes, if these activists win at cancelling Bitcoin, all they've accomplished is extending the lifetime of coal-fired power generation. Yay?
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  I am not saying to shut down coal plants today, and I deny you the right to put words in my mouth. What I am doing is pushing back on your original argument, which was that China has nuclear plants and we have lots of uranium, so it's fine to waste enormous amounts of energy mining Bitcoin. My position is this: Today we have nuclear plants and coal plants, and we waste energy mining Bitcoin. It is a strictly better world where we have the same number of nuclear plants and fewer coal plants, and use the exact same amount of energy minus the amount that we spend on Bitcoin. I strongly suspect that the incremental energy load of mining Bitcoin is coming from coal plants, not nuclear plants. (If anyone has hard data, I would welcome it.) If my suspicion is correct, then claiming that China has nuclear plants is irrelevant, since they aren't producing the electricity that's being spent mining Bitcoin.
  - viklove 6y ago
    I think we should shut down Netflix because it is a huge waste of energy that could be better repurposed elsewhere. Who are you to say Netflix is more useful than Bitcoin?
  - politician 6y ago
    It's completely useless to assign loads to specific power generation schemes in countries that operate off of grids. Unless you're an aluminum smelter.