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0.55% of energy consumption[0] is not a trivial amount of energy. 0: https://hbr.org/2021/05/how-much-energy-does-bitcoin-actually-consume https://hbr.org/2021

• matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Yeah, but in the grand scheme of things it's nothing. A nuisance at best. If people really are worried about climate change, they need to stop trading with China, regulate big oil, invest in public infrastructure and transportation, heavily incentivize development and usage of clean energy sources, etc. Bitcoin is just a convenient distraction from the real problems. Regulating it will contribute virtually nothing to this cause. At this point in time, there is no reason to care about this. Maybe we start caring if some insane development happens and BTC suddenly starts representing 10-20% of our energy consumption. Until then, there are bigger problems to worry about.
  • politician 5y ago
    Indeed. If folks weren't just virtue signaling about climate change, then we could get on with tiling a third of the State of New Mexico with solar panels to power the North American hemisphere. We already have the technology and the land area.
• politician 5y ago
  If that energy were produced by solar, then it would require 332 km^2 of 290W 60-cell solar panels which is roughly the size of downtown Austin, TX. The ability to tile a land area the size of a smaller American city with relatively bad solar panels to power half a percent of the world's energy usage is pretty amazing.