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Why are we no longer having a discussion about the environmental impact of Bitcoin? A technology designed solely to burn fossil fuels has no place in society.

Why are we no longer having a discussion about the environmental impact of Bitcoin? A technology designed solely to burn fossil fuels has no place in society. How is the price still going up after all the conversations we've had on this topic?

axg11 5y ago
Everything we do as a species has an environmental impact, even breathing. Perhaps this is one of the group of activities where the benefits outweigh the costs.
ambientenv 5y ago
Perhaps, as a species, a society, a culture, our value system is completely out of whack in that it remains - at least for a sizable proportion of those in the world who can avail themselves of such 'opportunity' - the "optimal" action to sacrifice a planet in order to gain material/monetary wealth in the short term. I really don't understand bitcoin or crypto currencies but it feels to me like so much opportunism at the expense of, well, life as we have come to know it.
panarky 5y ago
Maybe because Bitcoin mining is rapidly moving away from dirty coal-fired electricity generation in China, and toward clean and renewable energy sources. We're not there yet, but there's been astounding progress just in the last 12 months. Or maybe because Bitcoin mining helps solve the intermittancy problem of renewable sources such as wind. Today there's a lot of supply at the times there's low demand, so it doesn't make economic sense to invest in enough wind power to make a difference when demand spikes. Intermittant Bitcoin mining provides a market for the surplus, then goes dark during demand spikes to match supply with demand. Or maybe because the current monetary and financial system is so fantastically corrupt and broken that it's worth spending a fraction of one percent of the world's energy on an alternative. Or maybe people use energy for all kinds of things that I think are stupid and wasteful, but I can't tell others how to invest their own resources.
- qeternity 5y ago
  > Maybe because Bitcoin mining is rapidly moving away from dirty coal-fired electricity generation in China, and toward clean and renewable energy sources. This doesn't solve the problem. Miners are consuming renewable power that would otherwise displace coal/gas elsewhere on the grid. The narrative that miners are somehow backstopping renewables just doesn't work.
  - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
    Renewable power doesn't displace coal elsewhere. It's a fairy tale.
    - qeternity 5y ago
      I mean it either prevents new hydrocarbon from being built, or as we’ve seen in a lot of places in the US where coal is wildly uneconomic, it outright displaces coal.
      - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
        It can displace coal on spot, but not remotely.
  - latchkey 5y ago
    > Miners are consuming renewable power that would otherwise displace coal/gas elsewhere on the grid. This isn't necessarily true. Transporting electricity over distances is expensive. I've seen the pricing. Coinmint, in upstate NY, has a direct feed from Moses-Saunders damn. The lines were originally built to feed the Alcoa Aluminum smelter that once existed there (and became a superfund site). There isn't anywhere else that the power company can send the power, without a huge investment.

axg11 5y ago

Everything we do as a species has an environmental impact, even breathing. Perhaps this is one of the group of activities where the benefits outweigh the costs.

ambientenv 5y ago

Perhaps, as a species, a society, a culture, our value system is completely out of whack in that it remains - at least for a sizable proportion of those in the world who can avail themselves of such 'opportunity' - the "optimal" action to sacrifice a planet in order to gain material/monetary wealth in the short term. I really don't understand bitcoin or crypto currencies but it feels to me like so much opportunism at the expense of, well, life as we have come to know it.

panarky 5y ago

Maybe because Bitcoin mining is rapidly moving away from dirty coal-fired electricity generation in China, and toward clean and renewable energy sources. We're not there yet, but there's been astounding progress just in the last 12 months. Or maybe because Bitcoin mining helps solve the intermittancy problem of renewable sources such as wind. Today there's a lot of supply at the times there's low demand, so it doesn't make economic sense to invest in enough wind power to make a difference when demand spikes. Intermittant Bitcoin mining provides a market for the surplus, then goes dark during demand spikes to match supply with demand. Or maybe because the current monetary and financial system is so fantastically corrupt and broken that it's worth spending a fraction of one percent of the world's energy on an alternative. Or maybe people use energy for all kinds of things that I think are stupid and wasteful, but I can't tell others how to invest their own resources.

qeternity 5y ago
> Maybe because Bitcoin mining is rapidly moving away from dirty coal-fired electricity generation in China, and toward clean and renewable energy sources. This doesn't solve the problem. Miners are consuming renewable power that would otherwise displace coal/gas elsewhere on the grid. The narrative that miners are somehow backstopping renewables just doesn't work.
- GoblinSlayer 5y ago
  Renewable power doesn't displace coal elsewhere. It's a fairy tale.
  - qeternity 5y ago
    I mean it either prevents new hydrocarbon from being built, or as we’ve seen in a lot of places in the US where coal is wildly uneconomic, it outright displaces coal.
    - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
      It can displace coal on spot, but not remotely.
- latchkey 5y ago
  > Miners are consuming renewable power that would otherwise displace coal/gas elsewhere on the grid. This isn't necessarily true. Transporting electricity over distances is expensive. I've seen the pricing. Coinmint, in upstate NY, has a direct feed from Moses-Saunders damn. The lines were originally built to feed the Alcoa Aluminum smelter that once existed there (and became a superfund site). There isn't anywhere else that the power company can send the power, without a huge investment.