3 ms·

If all energy produced is green, then it doesn't matter anymore how much PoW consumes.

• chriswarbo 5y ago
  Of course it does. Even green/renewable energy has costs. Solar farms take up a lot of land, which competes with farming, puts pressure on ecosytems, etc. Wind turbines also require land, they make noise, disrupt views and kill birds. Man-made hydro requires flooding large areas; even tapping hydro on to existing lakes creates a flooding risk downstream. Hydro also has severe geopolitical implicications (e.g. Egypt's reaction to Ethiopia damming the Nile). The first principle of green energy is to reduce consumption as much as possible; renewable generation is a 'fallback' for unavoidable power consumption. It's similar to dealing with waste: recycling is a fallback, a far better solution is to reduce consumption.
  • jude- 5y ago
    Really? I thought the first principle of green energy was to stop polluting. There's no need to reduce consumption unless green energy tech can't meet the demand (and given advances in battery tech, I have no reason to believe it can't)
    • chriswarbo 5y ago
      > I thought the first principle of green energy was to stop polluting Even with such a laughably limited definition, "pollution" would include: - Noise pollution, e.g. from wind farms, construction, etc. - Chemical pollution, e.g. from batteries, photovoltaics, mining, etc. - Non-recyclable waste, e.g. many wind turbine blades, structural elements, etc. - Airbourne particulates, e.g. from transport and construction (tyres, road wear, brake wear, etc.) These are certainly less bad than "pollution" from fossil fuels; but it would be stupid to increase them for the sake of partially-inverting SHA256 on a few inputs.
      • jude- 5y ago
        That PoW contributes to pollution is because society allows it to, not because the protocol intrinsically requires it. You can call it "stupid" all you want, but Mother Nature doesn't give two sh*ts about anyone's moralizing. Fossil fuels are bad no matter what the purpose for consuming them is (even if it's making shoes for orphans, or giving everyone free healthcare). It's possible (and desirable!) to pass sensible regulations to require that PoW mining rigs to use only excess renewable energy, and it's possible (and desirable!) to require PoW mining to contribute taxes towards green energy roll-outs. But per my original point, trying to make it go away is a fool's errand -- that's at least as difficult as trying to ban general-purpose computing, and would cause far more problems than it would solve.