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I pay for all my energy to be renewable. I don't see why my crypto mining needs to be banned. In fact, estimates peg Bitcoin's use of renewable energy to be be

I pay for all my energy to be renewable. I don't see why my crypto mining needs to be banned. In fact, estimates peg Bitcoin's use of renewable energy to be between 50-75%. This is a fact lost on HN, which hates crypto at all costs.

gambiting 5y ago
That's not how this works. Even if you pay your supplier to buy only renewable energy on the open market, if your house is supplied by a coal power plant then your mining rig is powered by coal, regardless who you're paying for your electricity. Yes it feels good to pay for renewable electricity but ultimately that's not how it works. And crypto needs to be banned because it's all a gigantic scam that has a gigantic environmental cost attached to it.
- ls15 5y ago
  > And crypto needs to be banned because it's all a gigantic scam that has a gigantic environmental cost attached to it. Is it worse than, let's say, Christmas in this regard?
  - tick_tock_tick 5y ago
    Yes
    - ls15 5y ago
      How so? Christmas lights, plastic trash, food waste and transportation combined?
      - acdha 5y ago
        Those do something useful and there's a cap on how much people use: if I put up lights and then my neighbors put up lights, I don't put up twice as many lights so I can out-compete them for carolers and I certainly don't buy another house to put up even more lights. Proof-of-waste effectively requires that of all participants.
        ls15 5y ago
        People (and cities) absolutely try to out-compete each other with christmas lights. Even countries with negligible Christian populations are taking part nowadays. Don't forget all the other wasteful elements of christmas. And all the christmas-related scams and crime. And the yearly spikes in domestic violence. The growth of the christmas price index seems to go to the moon. How is celebrating some guy's birthday 2000 years later useful and how does it justify all of this? And does it at least really have a lower environmental impact than crypto?
        acdha 5y ago
        There's some competition, yes, but it's bounded — even the most extravagant Christmas display is nowhere near the maximum amount of lights which could be placed in the space, not to mention only operating for a few weeks a year. The design of Bitcoin ensures that does _not_ happen there, and it's currently using a massive amount of power to process a tiny fraction of the total economy, especially after you account for the transactions which are not linked to real economic value (money laundering, wash trading, etc.). The design ensures that if someone did find a useful application which saw popular adoption, usage would need to be many orders of magnitude higher than it is now.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- gjs278 5y ago
- xvector 5y ago
  > then your mining rig is powered by coal, And my emissions are offset for the fee that I pay. Carbon credits, more planted trees, whatever. My net impact is likely lower than anyone that doesn't pay for renewables, even with mining. > And crypto needs to be banned because it's all a gigantic scam that has a gigantic environmental cost attached to it For PoW, it's the purest form of currency - the value of energy itself. For other currencies, it's no different than precious metals. Trust HN to call decentralized technologies enabling pseudonymity/anonymity scams on one hand while advocating for decentralized technologies enabling pseudonymity/anonymity on the other hand. Also, from my perspective, you should stop eating meat. Your eating of meat provides you nothing but selfish pleasure while causing a ton of carbon emissions - and actual tangible suffering on scales never before seen on this planet. The magnitude of suffering caused is tens billions of times worse than crypto. Let's ban meat first.
  - skulk 5y ago
    > Your eating of meat provides you nothing but selfish pleasure while causing a ton of carbon emissions You might want to revise your argument if you're not going to acknowledge the fact that meat has a good number of calories per kg.
- teawrecks 5y ago
  That is how it works though. If my money is only allowed to be used to generate renewable energy, then it doesn't matter how the power that comes to my house was generated. Energy is energy. If everyone does what I do, then no one will be left to fund nonrenewable energy. But the only way that would happen is if the cost of nonrenewable energy went up proportional to the damage it causes via a carbon tax. And banning crypto mining is impossible. It's arbitrary math. You can't ban a computer from doing arbitrary math. At best you could discourage businesses taking crypto as payment, but even then people can operate 100% in crypto and avoid any regulations.
colinmhayes 5y ago
> I pay for all my energy to be renewable. That's not how it works. It just means that instead of everyone using 10% renewable energy you use 100% and 9 other people use 0%.
- xvector 5y ago
  It means that I am effectively purchasing carbon credits to offset my carbon emissions. I and my Bitcoin mining rig have a net zero impact.
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    Buying renewable energy isn't the same as purchasing carbon credits. Since energy is fungible there's no way to say your demand for renewable energy actually mattered if others are agnostic in their demand for renewable versus non renewable energy. When we use more energy it's not renewables that are picking up the slack, the fossil fuel plants burn more.

gambiting 5y ago

That's not how this works. Even if you pay your supplier to buy only renewable energy on the open market, if your house is supplied by a coal power plant then your mining rig is powered by coal, regardless who you're paying for your electricity. Yes it feels good to pay for renewable electricity but ultimately that's not how it works. And crypto needs to be banned because it's all a gigantic scam that has a gigantic environmental cost attached to it.

ls15 5y ago
> And crypto needs to be banned because it's all a gigantic scam that has a gigantic environmental cost attached to it. Is it worse than, let's say, Christmas in this regard?
- tick_tock_tick 5y ago
  Yes
  - ls15 5y ago
    How so? Christmas lights, plastic trash, food waste and transportation combined?
    - acdha 5y ago
      Those do something useful and there's a cap on how much people use: if I put up lights and then my neighbors put up lights, I don't put up twice as many lights so I can out-compete them for carolers and I certainly don't buy another house to put up even more lights. Proof-of-waste effectively requires that of all participants.
      - ls15 5y ago
        People (and cities) absolutely try to out-compete each other with christmas lights. Even countries with negligible Christian populations are taking part nowadays. Don't forget all the other wasteful elements of christmas. And all the christmas-related scams and crime. And the yearly spikes in domestic violence. The growth of the christmas price index seems to go to the moon. How is celebrating some guy's birthday 2000 years later useful and how does it justify all of this? And does it at least really have a lower environmental impact than crypto?
        acdha 5y ago
        There's some competition, yes, but it's bounded — even the most extravagant Christmas display is nowhere near the maximum amount of lights which could be placed in the space, not to mention only operating for a few weeks a year. The design of Bitcoin ensures that does _not_ happen there, and it's currently using a massive amount of power to process a tiny fraction of the total economy, especially after you account for the transactions which are not linked to real economic value (money laundering, wash trading, etc.). The design ensures that if someone did find a useful application which saw popular adoption, usage would need to be many orders of magnitude higher than it is now.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
gjs278 5y ago
xvector 5y ago
> then your mining rig is powered by coal, And my emissions are offset for the fee that I pay. Carbon credits, more planted trees, whatever. My net impact is likely lower than anyone that doesn't pay for renewables, even with mining. > And crypto needs to be banned because it's all a gigantic scam that has a gigantic environmental cost attached to it For PoW, it's the purest form of currency - the value of energy itself. For other currencies, it's no different than precious metals. Trust HN to call decentralized technologies enabling pseudonymity/anonymity scams on one hand while advocating for decentralized technologies enabling pseudonymity/anonymity on the other hand. Also, from my perspective, you should stop eating meat. Your eating of meat provides you nothing but selfish pleasure while causing a ton of carbon emissions - and actual tangible suffering on scales never before seen on this planet. The magnitude of suffering caused is tens billions of times worse than crypto. Let's ban meat first.
- skulk 5y ago
  > Your eating of meat provides you nothing but selfish pleasure while causing a ton of carbon emissions You might want to revise your argument if you're not going to acknowledge the fact that meat has a good number of calories per kg.
teawrecks 5y ago
That is how it works though. If my money is only allowed to be used to generate renewable energy, then it doesn't matter how the power that comes to my house was generated. Energy is energy. If everyone does what I do, then no one will be left to fund nonrenewable energy. But the only way that would happen is if the cost of nonrenewable energy went up proportional to the damage it causes via a carbon tax. And banning crypto mining is impossible. It's arbitrary math. You can't ban a computer from doing arbitrary math. At best you could discourage businesses taking crypto as payment, but even then people can operate 100% in crypto and avoid any regulations.

colinmhayes 5y ago

> I pay for all my energy to be renewable. That's not how it works. It just means that instead of everyone using 10% renewable energy you use 100% and 9 other people use 0%.

xvector 5y ago
It means that I am effectively purchasing carbon credits to offset my carbon emissions. I and my Bitcoin mining rig have a net zero impact.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  Buying renewable energy isn't the same as purchasing carbon credits. Since energy is fungible there's no way to say your demand for renewable energy actually mattered if others are agnostic in their demand for renewable versus non renewable energy. When we use more energy it's not renewables that are picking up the slack, the fossil fuel plants burn more.