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The worst part is that according to Cambridge some 40% of that is coal power [1]. Frequently the dirtiest coal power in the world, between Xinjiang (no longer,

The worst part is that according to Cambridge some 40% of that is coal power [1]. Frequently the dirtiest coal power in the world, between Xinjiang (no longer, probably...) and Kazakhstan. Coal power causes excess mortality of anywhere between 25 and 278 deaths per TWh generated depending on how you're counting it and (most importantly) where it's generated. [2,3,4] Bitcoin's addiction to dirty coal killed between 1500 and 15000 people last year. To process 4 transactions per second. In a few years Bitcoin mining will kill way more people than the number of political dissidents it could hope to save through the magic of decentralization. [edit] Energy is not free people. Not even renewables. Making electronics isn't free. E-waste isn't free. This isn't WoW. [1] https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw... [3] https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-ener... [4] https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

colecut 5y ago
Assuming it killed 15000 people, that is still over 8000 transactions per person killed... Nothing is perfect.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  If one person died for every 8000 transactions on the Visa network it would be nothing short of global genocide. Credit networks ran 468 billion transactions in 2020, so that would be 60 million dead. "Pobody's nerfect" hardly seems like the right response.
  - colecut 5y ago
    It is if you're being darkly cynical
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      Touché.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
oneoff786 5y ago
Is free energy a noteworthy feature of the WoW world?
- wackro 5y ago
  There are no externalities in the Wow economy
johndevor 5y ago
> In a few years Bitcoin mining will kill way more people than the number of political dissidents How are you counting the number of political dissidents saved?
- arcticbull 5y ago
  I was just being glib - but in an ideal world that number should be 0. Any political dissidents that are willing to write their entire transaction history in plaintext on a slow, small public ledger are going to end up in political prison in a hot minute. They're just waiting for automated tooling to file a report with the secret police. Bitcoin is not the tool you should be using for that. It's just poor opsec.
- not2b 5y ago
  Do you have any evidence that this number is nonzero?
  - johndevor 5y ago
    Edit: I don't have direct evidence of saving lives (e.g. somebody bribed a guard with bitcoin in order to escape execution), but it's not hard to argue that these resistance organizations do save lives. * https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2020/09/09/belarus-nonprofit-helps-protestors-with-bitcoin-grants/ https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2020/09/09/belarus-nonprofit... * https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2020/10/16/nigerian-banks-shut-them-out-so-these-activists-are-using-bitcoin-to-battle-police-brutality/ https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2020/10/16/nigerian-banks-shut... * https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2020/07/15/russian-activists-use-bitcoin-and-the-kremlin-doesnt-like-it/ https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2020/07/15/russian-activists... * https://wikileaks.org/ https://wikileaks.org/
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      It has niche uses, but so would any other non-PoW crypto or a CBDC.
cableshaft 5y ago
You really think that China banning bitcoin means they no longer use those dirty coal power plants? For a country that has such a huge demand for power that it's had blackouts and struggled to keep businesses powered even AFTER they banned all bitcoin mining[1]? Maybe that might even have to do with why they banned it in the first place? It sucks that bitcoin uses so much power, but these countries using fossil fuels would still use them with or without bitcoin mining. We need to keep the pressure up to get these countries (and our own) to convert to 100% green renewable sources. Right now China has only promised to reduce its fossil fuel to 20% of its total energy use by 2060, which is still 38 years away and way too late. In fact they're planning to keep INCREASING fossil fuel use up through 2030! "China is targeting a clean energy goal of reducing fossil fuel use to below 20% by 2060, according to an official plan published by state media." "The cabinet document, released on Sunday, follows a pledge by President Xi Jinping to wean the world’s biggest polluter off coal, with a target of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality 30 years later." There's no bitcoin mining in the country now to use it as a scapegoat either. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/business/economy/china-electricity.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/business/economy/china-el... [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/25/china-to-cut-fossil-fuel-use-to-below-20-by-2060 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/25/china-to-cut-f...
- arcticbull 5y ago
  > You really think that China banning bitcoin means they no longer use those dirty coal power plants? No, but banning the miners meant they didn't have to build a whole pile more. "Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point" - they have the moral high-ground on this issue. > Right now China has only promised to reduce its fossil fuel to 20% of its total energy use by 2060. Sure. And it would have been a smaller reduction had they not kicked out the miners. This waste is purely additive.
  - cableshaft 5y ago
    > No, but banning the miners meant they didn't have to build a whole pile more. I wasn't arguing that it was a bad thing that China banned bitcoin mining, just that banning it didn't reduce fossil fuels at all (maybe slowed down how fast they expanded in the future, sure). And they're still planning to build 43 new ones[1] in addition to what they already have. So now what? Can't ban bitcoin mining in China twice. How are we going to get them to reduce emissions now? > "Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point" - they have the moral high-ground on this issue. You are neither the worst person I know, nor did you make a great point, nor am I heartbroken. Thanks for the snarky reference to a Clickhole article[2] that's just a slight sidestep from an ad hominem attack. I also don't know who you mean by "they" or what moral high ground you're referring to. I already said it's shitty bitcoin used this much energy this year, and also what percentage was generated by fossil fuels. But it's not the only reason the world is still using so much fossil fuels, and energy demands around the world have been increasing rapidly even if you take out all of bitcoin's usage. Most of that is driven by economic growth in Asian countries[3], not bitcoin. You want those countries to ban economic growth too? How are we going to do that? Hell, how's anyone going to get the political will to do it in the U.S.? For the record, I'm all for degrowth worldwide to help reduce the looming climate/biodiversity/water catastrophe, I just don't see how it's going to happen. Pretty sure we're doomed to have a major collapse forced upon us by the world in the next 20-30 years. [1]: https://time.com/6090732/china-coal-power-plants-emissions/ https://time.com/6090732/china-coal-power-plants-emissions/ [2]: https://clickhole.com/heartbreaking-the-worst-person-you-know-just-made-a-gr-1825121606/ https://clickhole.com/heartbreaking-the-worst-person-you-kno... [3]: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41433 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41433
la_fayette 5y ago
There are no new dirty power plants like coal or nuclear built specifically for bitcoin mining. There are definitely new renewable energy sources built for bitcoin mining. So dirty energy would be used anyway! The rate of new renewable energy sources created because of bitcoin is higher overall than without bitcoin.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- gefhfffh 5y ago
  No, there have been fossil plants that were reinstated or bought for mining. E.g. https://youtu.be/GMcgEdLUdu4 https://youtu.be/GMcgEdLUdu4
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  I'm sure fewer coal power plants would have been built in China before the ban if it wasn't for Bitcoin.
- pudo 5y ago
  Source? To what extent has this been quantified? Of course there's some anecdotes that someone puts a couple of solar panels on a mining cluster, but for all the numbers I've seen around this, it's lipstick on a pig. The climate balance of the thing is horrific.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  Here's one. [1] [1] https://e360.yale.edu/digest/bitcoin-miners-resurrect-fossil-fuel-power-plant-drawing-backlash-from-environmentalists https://e360.yale.edu/digest/bitcoin-miners-resurrect-fossil...
- sgjohnson 5y ago
  >like coal or nuclear Nuclear is dirty? How?
  - paulryanrogers 5y ago
    Nuclear fuel is made by physically mining the elements that go into it then processing them in an energy intensive process.
sudosysgen 5y ago
That's anywhere from 0.1 to 0.01 milimort per bitcoin transaction. Chilling.

colecut 5y ago

Assuming it killed 15000 people, that is still over 8000 transactions per person killed... Nothing is perfect.

arcticbull 5y ago
If one person died for every 8000 transactions on the Visa network it would be nothing short of global genocide. Credit networks ran 468 billion transactions in 2020, so that would be 60 million dead. "Pobody's nerfect" hardly seems like the right response.
- colecut 5y ago
  It is if you're being darkly cynical
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    Touché.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

oneoff786 5y ago

Is free energy a noteworthy feature of the WoW world?

wackro 5y ago
There are no externalities in the Wow economy

johndevor 5y ago

> In a few years Bitcoin mining will kill way more people than the number of political dissidents How are you counting the number of political dissidents saved?

arcticbull 5y ago
I was just being glib - but in an ideal world that number should be 0. Any political dissidents that are willing to write their entire transaction history in plaintext on a slow, small public ledger are going to end up in political prison in a hot minute. They're just waiting for automated tooling to file a report with the secret police. Bitcoin is not the tool you should be using for that. It's just poor opsec.
not2b 5y ago
Do you have any evidence that this number is nonzero?
- johndevor 5y ago
  Edit: I don't have direct evidence of saving lives (e.g. somebody bribed a guard with bitcoin in order to escape execution), but it's not hard to argue that these resistance organizations do save lives. * https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2020/09/09/belarus-nonprofit-helps-protestors-with-bitcoin-grants/ https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2020/09/09/belarus-nonprofit... * https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2020/10/16/nigerian-banks-shut-them-out-so-these-activists-are-using-bitcoin-to-battle-police-brutality/ https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2020/10/16/nigerian-banks-shut... * https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2020/07/15/russian-activists-use-bitcoin-and-the-kremlin-doesnt-like-it/ https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2020/07/15/russian-activists... * https://wikileaks.org/ https://wikileaks.org/
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    It has niche uses, but so would any other non-PoW crypto or a CBDC.

cableshaft 5y ago

You really think that China banning bitcoin means they no longer use those dirty coal power plants? For a country that has such a huge demand for power that it's had blackouts and struggled to keep businesses powered even AFTER they banned all bitcoin mining[1]? Maybe that might even have to do with why they banned it in the first place? It sucks that bitcoin uses so much power, but these countries using fossil fuels would still use them with or without bitcoin mining. We need to keep the pressure up to get these countries (and our own) to convert to 100% green renewable sources. Right now China has only promised to reduce its fossil fuel to 20% of its total energy use by 2060, which is still 38 years away and way too late. In fact they're planning to keep INCREASING fossil fuel use up through 2030! "China is targeting a clean energy goal of reducing fossil fuel use to below 20% by 2060, according to an official plan published by state media." "The cabinet document, released on Sunday, follows a pledge by President Xi Jinping to wean the world’s biggest polluter off coal, with a target of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality 30 years later." There's no bitcoin mining in the country now to use it as a scapegoat either. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/business/economy/china-electricity.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/business/economy/china-el... [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/25/china-to-cut-fossil-fuel-use-to-below-20-by-2060 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/25/china-to-cut-f...

arcticbull 5y ago
> You really think that China banning bitcoin means they no longer use those dirty coal power plants? No, but banning the miners meant they didn't have to build a whole pile more. "Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point" - they have the moral high-ground on this issue. > Right now China has only promised to reduce its fossil fuel to 20% of its total energy use by 2060. Sure. And it would have been a smaller reduction had they not kicked out the miners. This waste is purely additive.
- cableshaft 5y ago
  > No, but banning the miners meant they didn't have to build a whole pile more. I wasn't arguing that it was a bad thing that China banned bitcoin mining, just that banning it didn't reduce fossil fuels at all (maybe slowed down how fast they expanded in the future, sure). And they're still planning to build 43 new ones[1] in addition to what they already have. So now what? Can't ban bitcoin mining in China twice. How are we going to get them to reduce emissions now? > "Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point" - they have the moral high-ground on this issue. You are neither the worst person I know, nor did you make a great point, nor am I heartbroken. Thanks for the snarky reference to a Clickhole article[2] that's just a slight sidestep from an ad hominem attack. I also don't know who you mean by "they" or what moral high ground you're referring to. I already said it's shitty bitcoin used this much energy this year, and also what percentage was generated by fossil fuels. But it's not the only reason the world is still using so much fossil fuels, and energy demands around the world have been increasing rapidly even if you take out all of bitcoin's usage. Most of that is driven by economic growth in Asian countries[3], not bitcoin. You want those countries to ban economic growth too? How are we going to do that? Hell, how's anyone going to get the political will to do it in the U.S.? For the record, I'm all for degrowth worldwide to help reduce the looming climate/biodiversity/water catastrophe, I just don't see how it's going to happen. Pretty sure we're doomed to have a major collapse forced upon us by the world in the next 20-30 years. [1]: https://time.com/6090732/china-coal-power-plants-emissions/ https://time.com/6090732/china-coal-power-plants-emissions/ [2]: https://clickhole.com/heartbreaking-the-worst-person-you-know-just-made-a-gr-1825121606/ https://clickhole.com/heartbreaking-the-worst-person-you-kno... [3]: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41433 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41433

la_fayette 5y ago

There are no new dirty power plants like coal or nuclear built specifically for bitcoin mining. There are definitely new renewable energy sources built for bitcoin mining. So dirty energy would be used anyway! The rate of new renewable energy sources created because of bitcoin is higher overall than without bitcoin.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
gefhfffh 5y ago
No, there have been fossil plants that were reinstated or bought for mining. E.g. https://youtu.be/GMcgEdLUdu4 https://youtu.be/GMcgEdLUdu4
sudosysgen 5y ago
I'm sure fewer coal power plants would have been built in China before the ban if it wasn't for Bitcoin.
pudo 5y ago
Source? To what extent has this been quantified? Of course there's some anecdotes that someone puts a couple of solar panels on a mining cluster, but for all the numbers I've seen around this, it's lipstick on a pig. The climate balance of the thing is horrific.
arcticbull 5y ago
Here's one. [1] [1] https://e360.yale.edu/digest/bitcoin-miners-resurrect-fossil-fuel-power-plant-drawing-backlash-from-environmentalists https://e360.yale.edu/digest/bitcoin-miners-resurrect-fossil...
sgjohnson 5y ago
>like coal or nuclear Nuclear is dirty? How?
- paulryanrogers 5y ago
  Nuclear fuel is made by physically mining the elements that go into it then processing them in an energy intensive process.

sudosysgen 5y ago

That's anywhere from 0.1 to 0.01 milimort per bitcoin transaction. Chilling.