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Manufacturing SSDs and platter drives is definitely not carbon neutral. Let's not even get into the problems with rare earth material extraction...
by kevingadd 5y ago
Manufacturing SSDs and platter drives is definitely not carbon neutral. Let's not even get into the problems with rare earth material extraction...
- throwaway894345 5y agoIn order to be considered a net benefit, it only needs to emit less carbon than compute-based mining. It doesn't need to be carbon neutral (and indeed, I don't think anyone posited that it was).
- AlexandrB 5y agoThat's a pretty low bar. To be a net benefit it should emit less carbon than traditional payment processing. If you set my house on fire you don't get to call saving my cat a "net benefit".
- spentrent 5y agoHow much carbon is emitted by traditional payment processing?
- bluescrn 5y agoLess than the carbon that would be emitted by doing everything with physical banknotes, coins, and precious metals?
- AlexandrB 5y agoAs an example: https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-consumption-transaction-comparison-visa/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-co... I'm sure modern, all digital, methods like Venmo or PayPal use even less.
- throwaway894345 5y agoI don’t think you understand what “net benefit” means. It does not mean “the most optimal state”, it only means “better than the status quo”. In this case, the status quo for crypto is compute-based, so storage-based crypto is a net benefit if it beats compute-based crypto. Saying something is a net benefit doesn’t imply that it is optimal, so I’m specifically not suggesting that storage based crypto is optimal (indeed, I’m not even sure it is a net benefit; I only said “if it emits less carbon, then it very likely is a net benefit”).