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The thing about battery is that you can take the energy out of it. It stores energy. That's the entire point of a battery. How on earth can you do that with Bit

The thing about battery is that you can take the energy out of it. It stores energy. That's the entire point of a battery. How on earth can you do that with Bitcoin? If you can't, Bitcoin isn't a battery, it's a black hole.

notahacker 5y ago
Yep. At best, it's a black hole that pays money to the people lucky enough to have spare renewable capacity. But the extra money is of no help to the climate. From an Iceland's point of view, the alternative to using excess geothermal to Bitcoin mine is (i) build smaller geothermal power plants which have even smaller carbon footprints to build/maintain or (ii) reduce the carbon footprint of other countries by courting their energy-intensive industries with low cost renewable electricity.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  Not just a black hole, but a black hole that rewards people for using spare renewable capacity in a profoundly wasteful way. The bitcoin network (and all PoS) schemes incentivize waste beyond merely throwing away power: they incentivize e-waste, frivolous cooling and refrigerant use, &c. It's strictly better to just dump excess capacity than it is to use it on PoS schemes.
mwattsun 5y ago
Ideally, you would mine your Bitcoin in Iceland or Chile [1] with geothermal or hydro and buy corn from Iowa with it and the farmers there use it to buy power from the local windmill grid, so it's a battery in that sense. [1] https://www.hydropower.org/country-profiles/chile https://www.hydropower.org/country-profiles/chile
- meribold 5y ago
  It's a battery in the sense that you can use it to buy electricity?
  - mwattsun 5y ago
    Yes, energy in at one geographic location, energy out at another
- woodruffw 5y ago
  That's not a battery -- that's a form of economic triage where you burn power to produce tokens that allow you to buy power somewhere else. To use the analogy: nowhere is the battery being "drained". Edit: to make the analogy more complete: a bitcoin is, in effect, proof that energy has been wasted. Using a bitcoin to purchase renewable power from a windfarm is tantamount purchasing that power with empty batteries or empty oil drums.
  - mwattsun 5y ago
    You are literally correct, but if I use excess energy in Iceland to create Bitcoin, which I electronically send to Chile to finance a hydroelectric power plant, thus making electricity available in Chile that previously wasn't, how is that not like charging up a battery in Iceland and sending it to Chile?
    - woodruffw 5y ago
      Because you've expended the energy twice: once in Iceland, and again in Chile. The "battery" analogy requires a transfer of power, not a transfer of proof that the power was spent.

notahacker 5y ago

Yep. At best, it's a black hole that pays money to the people lucky enough to have spare renewable capacity. But the extra money is of no help to the climate. From an Iceland's point of view, the alternative to using excess geothermal to Bitcoin mine is (i) build smaller geothermal power plants which have even smaller carbon footprints to build/maintain or (ii) reduce the carbon footprint of other countries by courting their energy-intensive industries with low cost renewable electricity.

woodruffw 5y ago
Not just a black hole, but a black hole that rewards people for using spare renewable capacity in a profoundly wasteful way. The bitcoin network (and all PoS) schemes incentivize waste beyond merely throwing away power: they incentivize e-waste, frivolous cooling and refrigerant use, &c. It's strictly better to just dump excess capacity than it is to use it on PoS schemes.

mwattsun 5y ago

Ideally, you would mine your Bitcoin in Iceland or Chile [1] with geothermal or hydro and buy corn from Iowa with it and the farmers there use it to buy power from the local windmill grid, so it's a battery in that sense. [1] https://www.hydropower.org/country-profiles/chile https://www.hydropower.org/country-profiles/chile

meribold 5y ago
It's a battery in the sense that you can use it to buy electricity?
- mwattsun 5y ago
  Yes, energy in at one geographic location, energy out at another
woodruffw 5y ago
That's not a battery -- that's a form of economic triage where you burn power to produce tokens that allow you to buy power somewhere else. To use the analogy: nowhere is the battery being "drained". Edit: to make the analogy more complete: a bitcoin is, in effect, proof that energy has been wasted. Using a bitcoin to purchase renewable power from a windfarm is tantamount purchasing that power with empty batteries or empty oil drums.
- mwattsun 5y ago
  You are literally correct, but if I use excess energy in Iceland to create Bitcoin, which I electronically send to Chile to finance a hydroelectric power plant, thus making electricity available in Chile that previously wasn't, how is that not like charging up a battery in Iceland and sending it to Chile?
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    Because you've expended the energy twice: once in Iceland, and again in Chile. The "battery" analogy requires a transfer of power, not a transfer of proof that the power was spent.