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that's not enough - until there is zero carbon emissions from power generation, bitcoin is creating additional carbon output by displacing something more useful
by bananapub 5y ago
that's not enough - until there is zero carbon emissions from power generation, bitcoin is creating additional carbon output by displacing something more useful.
if someone wants to mine bitcoin on an island with their own solar or tidal capacity, ok, I guess, but that's not the case anywhere afaik.
- scotty79 5y agoBut sufficiently large tax on dirty energy could push out bitcoin out of fossil fuel energy and force it to invest into renewable energy sources. And there's a lot of non-useful energy usage that is happening because fossil fuel energy is too cheap. Like heating pools and outdoor hot tubs or heating or cooling houses instead of properly insulating them. I'd say that harsh tax on fossil fuels could do way more to limit carbon footprint and accelerate movement toward renewables than any one measure such as banning bitcoin mining. Inform the market of the true cost and let it find the best solution.
- bananapub 5y agoa greenhouse gas tax isn't enough by itself - bitcoin's price may just rise high enough to justify (to bitcoin fans) mining even with the tax. the purpose of the tax isn't to change the economics of bitcoin, it is to slash emissions since no amount of bitcoin justifies further damage to the climate. it needs to be banned (and other similar things) until the grid is ~100% greenhouse emission free.
- scotty79 5y agoBitcoin price is not related at all with energy prices or fossil energy tax. If price of energy is high enough bitcoin mining will not be profitable for so many people and number of miners and their energy usage will scale down to the point where average reward for each miner covers energy cost. But you don't want miners to disappear. You want them to use the money they got from financial markets to build their own renewable energy generation capacity vastly exceeding what people now build for ordinary use. Same way they bought coal power plant they'd build a solar or wind farm and sell energy to the grid when price of energy is higher than mining reward.
- bananapub 5y agoI in fact do want them (and all proof of work miners) to disappear.