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The energy use is of captured energy that would be lost in transport to other energy users, because it uses just as much energy or more to transport it. This m

The energy use is of captured energy that would be lost in transport to other energy users, because it uses just as much energy or more to transport it. This means that “renewable energy more than the output of Argentina was always being wasted for over a century every day because it was uneconomical to transport it” Crypto mining has been unique in that it only needs power and housing to stay dry, low infrastructure, and doesn't need very good internet, compared to other large computational projects, or any other sector. Okay, so we got the “ah it uses a lot of energy!” argument over to “ah okay its a relatively green sector compared to literally everything else but I don't respect the use in favor of literally everything else and this must be taking away from that” which is also not true so I’m curious how the goal post moves after this - assuming you are able to corroborate what I’ve told you at face value. It would be more productive to advocate for specific sites to not raise prices for others if they did, or specific sites to use cleaner energy sources. I can understand how that could cause some consternation if your whole cause is not liking crypto mining at all. But it is important to remain vigilante on how these mining operations run, as it is possible for nation states to operate these uneconomically and actually do things that you imagine is happening now. (Renewable and captured are not synonymous but usually its the same)

formerly_proven 5y ago
If your first paragraph is about rejected energy, then there's not a lot to say here except that rejected energy doesn't mean what you think it does. If not, then I don't know what it is supposed to be about. No one builds power plants in places where there is no demand for power. Electric power can be carried over pretty large distances though with very low losses, so having say a few hundred km between a hydro-dam and a large consumer is not a major problem. According to your post the best result would be that Bitcoin farms are powered by renewable energy plants build in places where nobody would have any use for that power anyway, because they're too remote to connect to any consumer. Even if this happens (and from what we're able to tell, it is not, instead we see coal and natural gas plants being ramped up to power bitcoin farms), it's still a net negative because building renewable energy power plants (as well as bitcoin farms) causes a significant amount of emissions. In normal use of e.g. a solar panel, this makes sense because it displaces non-renewable energy sources with higher emissions, so net emissions are reduced. In your scenario, there's a bunch of solar farms in the middle of the Saharan desert mining bitcoins, which - at this point - yes would not be able to displace non-renewable energy, but still represents a net-negative regardless because of the effort required to put all that shit there in the first place. The simple fact of the matter is that there is no free lunch and there is NO ecological way of randomly wasting energy.
- vmception 5y ago
  > (and from what we're able to tell, it is not, instead we see coal and natural gas plants being ramped up to power bitcoin farms) like I said, advocate against those specific mining sites. those made headlines in your world, while others did not. A lot of captured energy mining occurs at remote flare gas sites, where those sites are in the business of pumping oil and flaring off byproducts and not in the business of moving power a few hundred km. These are highly polluting places, and crypto mining is ironically (to you) their sustainability solution, as they provide a use for the energy that would have been flared into the atmosphere as hydrocarbons instead. As these are also fracking sites, the machines can use the polluted water for cooling. Those kinds of sites are only captured and not necessarily renewable, an important distinction because your example was limited to imagining uneconomical solar. There is much more energy like this able to be tapped while reducing hydrocarbons in the atmosphere, and if it was economical for other use cases that you respect more to tap into that energy, you and others had several decades to do so.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    OK, but those exact same places could power servers instead of miners, taking a load off of wherever the servers are currently hosted.
    - hackingforfun 5y ago
      It's cheaper for them to just flare the gas. The only thing that has made economic sense, as an alternative to flaring it, is to mine Bitcoin. I understand the energy criticism, but flare gas is an example where Bitcoin mining actually makes something less polluting.
      - vmception 5y ago
        Thanks for chiming in! Nice to see a new account understanding this issue and joining the fray. It has been fascinating to me to watch the disbelief evolve. One aspect of this is that negative reporting has been basically allowed and encouraged by miners because they didn't want competition on their cheaper renewable/captured energy sources. So, for years, many investment groups would discourage their renewable or captured energy activity to be citable source of what is happening with bitcoin mining, because they didn't want others with deeper connections to make partnerships with sites faster. Its really funny, to me, watching people have to redo their understanding but trying to make that understanding conform to the negative energy impact idea that they were intentionally led on with.

formerly_proven 5y ago

If your first paragraph is about rejected energy, then there's not a lot to say here except that rejected energy doesn't mean what you think it does. If not, then I don't know what it is supposed to be about. No one builds power plants in places where there is no demand for power. Electric power can be carried over pretty large distances though with very low losses, so having say a few hundred km between a hydro-dam and a large consumer is not a major problem. According to your post the best result would be that Bitcoin farms are powered by renewable energy plants build in places where nobody would have any use for that power anyway, because they're too remote to connect to any consumer. Even if this happens (and from what we're able to tell, it is not, instead we see coal and natural gas plants being ramped up to power bitcoin farms), it's still a net negative because building renewable energy power plants (as well as bitcoin farms) causes a significant amount of emissions. In normal use of e.g. a solar panel, this makes sense because it displaces non-renewable energy sources with higher emissions, so net emissions are reduced. In your scenario, there's a bunch of solar farms in the middle of the Saharan desert mining bitcoins, which - at this point - yes would not be able to displace non-renewable energy, but still represents a net-negative regardless because of the effort required to put all that shit there in the first place. The simple fact of the matter is that there is no free lunch and there is NO ecological way of randomly wasting energy.

vmception 5y ago
> (and from what we're able to tell, it is not, instead we see coal and natural gas plants being ramped up to power bitcoin farms) like I said, advocate against those specific mining sites. those made headlines in your world, while others did not. A lot of captured energy mining occurs at remote flare gas sites, where those sites are in the business of pumping oil and flaring off byproducts and not in the business of moving power a few hundred km. These are highly polluting places, and crypto mining is ironically (to you) their sustainability solution, as they provide a use for the energy that would have been flared into the atmosphere as hydrocarbons instead. As these are also fracking sites, the machines can use the polluted water for cooling. Those kinds of sites are only captured and not necessarily renewable, an important distinction because your example was limited to imagining uneconomical solar. There is much more energy like this able to be tapped while reducing hydrocarbons in the atmosphere, and if it was economical for other use cases that you respect more to tap into that energy, you and others had several decades to do so.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  OK, but those exact same places could power servers instead of miners, taking a load off of wherever the servers are currently hosted.
  - hackingforfun 5y ago
    It's cheaper for them to just flare the gas. The only thing that has made economic sense, as an alternative to flaring it, is to mine Bitcoin. I understand the energy criticism, but flare gas is an example where Bitcoin mining actually makes something less polluting.
    - vmception 5y ago
      Thanks for chiming in! Nice to see a new account understanding this issue and joining the fray. It has been fascinating to me to watch the disbelief evolve. One aspect of this is that negative reporting has been basically allowed and encouraged by miners because they didn't want competition on their cheaper renewable/captured energy sources. So, for years, many investment groups would discourage their renewable or captured energy activity to be citable source of what is happening with bitcoin mining, because they didn't want others with deeper connections to make partnerships with sites faster. Its really funny, to me, watching people have to redo their understanding but trying to make that understanding conform to the negative energy impact idea that they were intentionally led on with.