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There is a difference between each of those uses of electricity and PoW. PoW is throwing away electricity for the sake of it, and resists getting more efficien

There is a difference between each of those uses of electricity and PoW. PoW is throwing away electricity for the sake of it, and resists getting more efficient. If the goal is for the bitcoin network to cost $1M to do a single double spend, then PoW has to use $1M worth of electricity every 10 minutes. Let's say we live in a future where we suddenly have 10x as much electricity. Due to supply and demand, electricity now costs 10% of what it did before. Dryers etc all keep using the same amount of electricity with no issue, but bitcoin has a problem: it's now really cheap to double spend unless bitcoin uses 10x as much electricity. So of course, it does. There's a similar proper with making things more efficient. If we make a christmas light more efficient (make it use an LED instead of an incandescent bulb or whatever), christmas lights will use less electricity. If we make ASICs or GPUs more efficient, then people will just have to run more of them, or else bitcoin will be less secure. I think this is a real and notable difference, and I think that's enough of a justification to consider a ban.

hopevillian 5y ago
bitcoin incentivizes the search for cheaper energy, and allows for the instant monetization of once wasted energy. That's a LOT. this whole argument of energy use... i bet most of these people would have fallen for the same energy propaganda when the internet was just getting started... "what's email?? why would you waste electricity to send an electronic mail??"
- Nevermark 5y ago
  Other merit's aside, Bitcoin's incentivizing cheaper energy provides nothing new of value. All uses of energy incentivize the search for cheaper energy. Not all energy uses are optimized to increase usage over time, to cancel efficiencies. Proof of work, whatever it's merits, is anti-efficiency with respect to itself. This is a significant difference.
  - hopevillian 5y ago
    nothing new of value? I know this sounds cliche but maybe consider you dont know enough about it?
    - Nevermark 5y ago
      I made a strong statement, so maybe I need to be more precise with my point. Bitcoin has merits. So proof of work, being a part that is currently necessary for it to work has merits. But the argument that proof-of-work has the merit of incentivizing cheaper energy sources does not stand up. 1. All uses of energy already incentivize the search for cheaper energy. This isn't a novel incentive that proof-of-work provides. 2. But proof-of-work does have a relatively novel disadvantage. It won't just incentivize greater energy uses as prices come down, as in normal supply-demand curves, but must keep up the original and even grow the amount spent on energy. This would not be a problem in a market without negative externalities, but energy is famously a huge industry that will be struggling with negative externalities for quite some time and at great cost.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  There's rarely such a thing as 'wasted energy' outside crypto. Energy can be exported (even if at low efficiency) or stored in various forms (pumping water up a mountain, hydrolisis of water to fuel hydrogen plants, etc). Unfortunately, Bitcoin, Ethereum et al are actively making these productive uses of energy un-economical, as they have worse return on investment than simply burning that energy on crypto.
  - mrkramer 5y ago
    >There's rarely such a thing as 'wasted energy' outside crypto. There is a lot of resources getting wasted in the real life. For example I'm from East Europe and we do not have good water pipes' infrastructure and lots of water gets leaked every month. Speaking of wasting and leaking electricity I did a quick Google search and this is what I found: "Are your appliances leaking electricity? Some of you might not be familiar with what this means. Not only do we have more small- and medium-sized appliances than ever before, but many of these never really stop using electricity. For example, if the television has a remote, then part of the TV is always on, waiting for a signal from the remote. If there is a clock on the microwave then the microwave is always using some electricity. Experts call this usage "standby consumption" or "leaking electricity" because people are often not aware that the appliance is using electricity. A single appliance usually leaks only a small amount of electricity each hour (see Leaking Watts Chart below). Since these appliances leak electricity whenevery they are not turned on, and since people have a lot of these appliances, the amount of leaking electricity is significant. The average household spends about $40 a year on leaking electricity. The federal government works with appliance manufacturers to reduce the amount of electricity that leaks out of new appliances[1]." Also here is another good resource on electricity leak which is related to the first web document I linked[2]. And then how much food is getting wasted every month globally? Probably billions of dollars of food is getting thrown away every month. [1] https://www.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/KEEP/nres633/Pages/Unit3/Section-G-Leaking-Electricity.aspx https://www.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/KEEP/nres633/Pages/Unit3/Section... [2] https://www.teachengineering.org/content/cla_/activities/cla_activity2_household_audit/leaking_electricity_fact_sheet.pdf https://www.teachengineering.org/content/cla_/activities/cla...
- brabel 5y ago
  You haven't addressed the parent commenter's point though: that PoW will cause increase of energy consumption every time you make any progress in making energy cheaper, hence cancelling out any improvements energy production efficiency. It would only be benefitial if after a certain level of efficiency were achieved, PoW got banned and all that efficiency increase could actually benefit consumers of energy that did not have to keep increasing spend to keep up (though even that's not sure, because if energy becomes 10x cheaper, it's just a matter of time for people to invent new creative ways to use all that cheap energy that's prohebitevely expensive right now).
- the_why_of_y 5y ago
  There's a trend now of Bitcoin mining businesses buying fossil fuel power plants in the US, in many cases plants that had already been shut down due to being unprofitable. https://futurism.com/bitcoin-mining-company-buys-entire-coal-power-plant https://futurism.com/bitcoin-mining-company-buys-entire-coal... https://grist.org/technology/bitcoin-greenidge-seneca-lake-cryptocurrency/ https://grist.org/technology/bitcoin-greenidge-seneca-lake-c... https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/09/old-coal-plant-is-now-mining-bitcoin-for-a-utility-company/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/09/old-coal-plant-i...
- jq-r 5y ago
  > bitcoin incentivizes the search for cheaper energy, and allows for the instant monetization of once wasted energy. This is just like saying: let's burn as much coal and oil as fast as we can, so we can accelerate the need to develop alternative fuel sources.
nawitus 5y ago
It's better to tax the harm created from electricity generation, which I suppose is mainly CO2 emissions. Then the market will decide how much PoW mining should be done compared to Christmas lights etc.
- tylerhou 5y ago
  Nit: when you say better you mean "more economically efficient in terms of $s produced." That's not necessarily equivalent to a policy that would be the best for society.
127 5y ago
Why do people keep propagating this claim that PoW is burning electricity for nothing? It directly provides security for the blockchain. I don't disagree with your arguments general direction, just with this piece of incorrect misinformation. LED was a technological innovation. Nothing says Bitcoin can't have those. If you want more light, you need more lamps and you need to spend more energy. I don't really see the difference here. About every 4 years the reward for mining a block will be halved. I don't see LED lights getting two times more efficient every 4 years.
- floatboth 5y ago
  Because "security of the blockchain" doesn't necessarily mean "good for society". Cryptocurrencies are most widely used for speculation, and then fraud, ransomware, all those very fun and pleasant things.
  - 127 5y ago
    I thought there was enough historical data to draw the conclusion that command economy doesn't work. I also would appreciate if you could back up your claims on how Bitcoin is used.
thesausageking 5y ago
Videogames share that property. The Atari 2600 was ~5 watts. That's about what the Playstation 5 consumes during rest mode; when you're playing it, it takes 150-200 watts. It really sounds like you're rationalizing banning Bitcoin because you don't see any value in it. That's a dangerous way to decide who gets to use electricity.
mrkramer 5y ago
I think Bitcoin is possible without PoW; decentralized peer to peer network in which nodes verify transactions and make agreements on which transaction came first and then draw consensus. But then someone needs to figure out how new coins would be distributed or in another words what incentive would be to verify transactions. Btw Satoshi introduced blockchain checkpoint so no attacker can fork the existing Bitcoin chain and make a competing one.

hopevillian 5y ago

bitcoin incentivizes the search for cheaper energy, and allows for the instant monetization of once wasted energy. That's a LOT. this whole argument of energy use... i bet most of these people would have fallen for the same energy propaganda when the internet was just getting started... "what's email?? why would you waste electricity to send an electronic mail??"

Nevermark 5y ago
Other merit's aside, Bitcoin's incentivizing cheaper energy provides nothing new of value. All uses of energy incentivize the search for cheaper energy. Not all energy uses are optimized to increase usage over time, to cancel efficiencies. Proof of work, whatever it's merits, is anti-efficiency with respect to itself. This is a significant difference.
- hopevillian 5y ago
  nothing new of value? I know this sounds cliche but maybe consider you dont know enough about it?
  - Nevermark 5y ago
    I made a strong statement, so maybe I need to be more precise with my point. Bitcoin has merits. So proof of work, being a part that is currently necessary for it to work has merits. But the argument that proof-of-work has the merit of incentivizing cheaper energy sources does not stand up. 1. All uses of energy already incentivize the search for cheaper energy. This isn't a novel incentive that proof-of-work provides. 2. But proof-of-work does have a relatively novel disadvantage. It won't just incentivize greater energy uses as prices come down, as in normal supply-demand curves, but must keep up the original and even grow the amount spent on energy. This would not be a problem in a market without negative externalities, but energy is famously a huge industry that will be struggling with negative externalities for quite some time and at great cost.
tsimionescu 5y ago
There's rarely such a thing as 'wasted energy' outside crypto. Energy can be exported (even if at low efficiency) or stored in various forms (pumping water up a mountain, hydrolisis of water to fuel hydrogen plants, etc). Unfortunately, Bitcoin, Ethereum et al are actively making these productive uses of energy un-economical, as they have worse return on investment than simply burning that energy on crypto.
- mrkramer 5y ago
  >There's rarely such a thing as 'wasted energy' outside crypto. There is a lot of resources getting wasted in the real life. For example I'm from East Europe and we do not have good water pipes' infrastructure and lots of water gets leaked every month. Speaking of wasting and leaking electricity I did a quick Google search and this is what I found: "Are your appliances leaking electricity? Some of you might not be familiar with what this means. Not only do we have more small- and medium-sized appliances than ever before, but many of these never really stop using electricity. For example, if the television has a remote, then part of the TV is always on, waiting for a signal from the remote. If there is a clock on the microwave then the microwave is always using some electricity. Experts call this usage "standby consumption" or "leaking electricity" because people are often not aware that the appliance is using electricity. A single appliance usually leaks only a small amount of electricity each hour (see Leaking Watts Chart below). Since these appliances leak electricity whenevery they are not turned on, and since people have a lot of these appliances, the amount of leaking electricity is significant. The average household spends about $40 a year on leaking electricity. The federal government works with appliance manufacturers to reduce the amount of electricity that leaks out of new appliances[1]." Also here is another good resource on electricity leak which is related to the first web document I linked[2]. And then how much food is getting wasted every month globally? Probably billions of dollars of food is getting thrown away every month. [1] https://www.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/KEEP/nres633/Pages/Unit3/Section-G-Leaking-Electricity.aspx https://www.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/KEEP/nres633/Pages/Unit3/Section... [2] https://www.teachengineering.org/content/cla_/activities/cla_activity2_household_audit/leaking_electricity_fact_sheet.pdf https://www.teachengineering.org/content/cla_/activities/cla...
brabel 5y ago
You haven't addressed the parent commenter's point though: that PoW will cause increase of energy consumption every time you make any progress in making energy cheaper, hence cancelling out any improvements energy production efficiency. It would only be benefitial if after a certain level of efficiency were achieved, PoW got banned and all that efficiency increase could actually benefit consumers of energy that did not have to keep increasing spend to keep up (though even that's not sure, because if energy becomes 10x cheaper, it's just a matter of time for people to invent new creative ways to use all that cheap energy that's prohebitevely expensive right now).
the_why_of_y 5y ago
There's a trend now of Bitcoin mining businesses buying fossil fuel power plants in the US, in many cases plants that had already been shut down due to being unprofitable. https://futurism.com/bitcoin-mining-company-buys-entire-coal-power-plant https://futurism.com/bitcoin-mining-company-buys-entire-coal... https://grist.org/technology/bitcoin-greenidge-seneca-lake-cryptocurrency/ https://grist.org/technology/bitcoin-greenidge-seneca-lake-c... https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/09/old-coal-plant-is-now-mining-bitcoin-for-a-utility-company/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/09/old-coal-plant-i...
jq-r 5y ago
> bitcoin incentivizes the search for cheaper energy, and allows for the instant monetization of once wasted energy. This is just like saying: let's burn as much coal and oil as fast as we can, so we can accelerate the need to develop alternative fuel sources.

nawitus 5y ago

It's better to tax the harm created from electricity generation, which I suppose is mainly CO2 emissions. Then the market will decide how much PoW mining should be done compared to Christmas lights etc.

tylerhou 5y ago
Nit: when you say better you mean "more economically efficient in terms of $s produced." That's not necessarily equivalent to a policy that would be the best for society.

127 5y ago

Why do people keep propagating this claim that PoW is burning electricity for nothing? It directly provides security for the blockchain. I don't disagree with your arguments general direction, just with this piece of incorrect misinformation. LED was a technological innovation. Nothing says Bitcoin can't have those. If you want more light, you need more lamps and you need to spend more energy. I don't really see the difference here. About every 4 years the reward for mining a block will be halved. I don't see LED lights getting two times more efficient every 4 years.

floatboth 5y ago
Because "security of the blockchain" doesn't necessarily mean "good for society". Cryptocurrencies are most widely used for speculation, and then fraud, ransomware, all those very fun and pleasant things.
- 127 5y ago
  I thought there was enough historical data to draw the conclusion that command economy doesn't work. I also would appreciate if you could back up your claims on how Bitcoin is used.

thesausageking 5y ago

Videogames share that property. The Atari 2600 was ~5 watts. That's about what the Playstation 5 consumes during rest mode; when you're playing it, it takes 150-200 watts. It really sounds like you're rationalizing banning Bitcoin because you don't see any value in it. That's a dangerous way to decide who gets to use electricity.

mrkramer 5y ago

I think Bitcoin is possible without PoW; decentralized peer to peer network in which nodes verify transactions and make agreements on which transaction came first and then draw consensus. But then someone needs to figure out how new coins would be distributed or in another words what incentive would be to verify transactions. Btw Satoshi introduced blockchain checkpoint so no attacker can fork the existing Bitcoin chain and make a competing one.