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It doesn't make sense to compare 1 person gaming or clothes drying to a specific mining machine. The consideration was about global bans and total outputs from

by Tenoke 5y ago

It doesn't make sense to compare 1 person gaming or clothes drying to a specific mining machine. The consideration was about global bans and total outputs from those activities.

vorpalhex 5y ago
Bitcoin mining uses more power than the country of Sweden. [1] - https://www.thebalance.com/how-much-power-does-the-bitcoin-network-use-391280 https://www.thebalance.com/how-much-power-does-the-bitcoin-n...
- Xylakant 5y ago
  I have no love for bitcoin, but I always hate this comparison. It’s useless. Sweden uses much more energy than it uses power (as pretty much every country) and it also exports power usage by buying finished products. Why is the power usage not compared to something useful? The power or rather energy usage of the global banking network for example?
  - chii 5y ago
    When people compare energy usage like that, they are making an implicit argument that the energy usage of bitcoin is a "waste". This is what i dislike about the argument that PoW should be banned - that it wastes energy that could otherwise have been used for something else. I argue that it is not a waste, because the person who is paying for the energy does not consider it a waste. No one else can make this judgement. The only weakness of this argument is that some energy sources have externalized the cost of emissions. I would very much like to see an emissions tax to account for it (which makes sense to do, regardless of one's position on PoW).
    - bavell 5y ago
      Agreed with the "waste" argument. I won't defend the huge power consumption but the energy spent is strictly useful in a utilitarian sense - every joule spent makes it that much harder to perform a 51% attack. Ideally, the energy used to secure the network is widely/evenly distributed among nodes for maximum security benefit (though not usually how it plays out). However, to say it's all a waste is just an emotional argument because you don't like it. That's fine but it's opinion, not objective fact.
- dazeandconfuse 5y ago
  > When you put it all together, that’s a projection of 135.12 TWh in the year, or about as much power as is used annually by the country of Sweden I don't doubt that bitcoin miners use a lot of energy, but I hesitate to trust a source that doesn't know the difference between power and energy. Also, they're lying about the energy consumption of Sweden, which actually uses 645.7 TW/yr as of 2012 [0]. They number they quote is actually the electricity consumption of Sweden [1], which is like 5x lower. [0]: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=energy+consumption+of+sweden+in+TWh+per+year https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=energy+consumption+of+... [1]: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=energy+consumption+of+sweden+in+TWh+per+year&assumption=%7B%22DPClash%22%2C+%22EnergyResourcePropertyP%22%2C+%22energy%22%7D+-%3E+%7B%22ElectricityTotal%22%7D https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=energy+consumption+of+...

by Tenoke 5y ago

It doesn't make sense to compare 1 person gaming or clothes drying to a specific mining machine. The consideration was about global bans and total outputs from those activities.

vorpalhex 5y ago

Bitcoin mining uses more power than the country of Sweden. [1] - https://www.thebalance.com/how-much-power-does-the-bitcoin-network-use-391280 https://www.thebalance.com/how-much-power-does-the-bitcoin-n...

Xylakant 5y ago
I have no love for bitcoin, but I always hate this comparison. It’s useless. Sweden uses much more energy than it uses power (as pretty much every country) and it also exports power usage by buying finished products. Why is the power usage not compared to something useful? The power or rather energy usage of the global banking network for example?
- chii 5y ago
  When people compare energy usage like that, they are making an implicit argument that the energy usage of bitcoin is a "waste". This is what i dislike about the argument that PoW should be banned - that it wastes energy that could otherwise have been used for something else. I argue that it is not a waste, because the person who is paying for the energy does not consider it a waste. No one else can make this judgement. The only weakness of this argument is that some energy sources have externalized the cost of emissions. I would very much like to see an emissions tax to account for it (which makes sense to do, regardless of one's position on PoW).
  - bavell 5y ago
    Agreed with the "waste" argument. I won't defend the huge power consumption but the energy spent is strictly useful in a utilitarian sense - every joule spent makes it that much harder to perform a 51% attack. Ideally, the energy used to secure the network is widely/evenly distributed among nodes for maximum security benefit (though not usually how it plays out). However, to say it's all a waste is just an emotional argument because you don't like it. That's fine but it's opinion, not objective fact.
dazeandconfuse 5y ago
> When you put it all together, that’s a projection of 135.12 TWh in the year, or about as much power as is used annually by the country of Sweden I don't doubt that bitcoin miners use a lot of energy, but I hesitate to trust a source that doesn't know the difference between power and energy. Also, they're lying about the energy consumption of Sweden, which actually uses 645.7 TW/yr as of 2012 [0]. They number they quote is actually the electricity consumption of Sweden [1], which is like 5x lower. [0]: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=energy+consumption+of+sweden+in+TWh+per+year https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=energy+consumption+of+... [1]: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=energy+consumption+of+sweden+in+TWh+per+year&assumption=%7B%22DPClash%22%2C+%22EnergyResourcePropertyP%22%2C+%22energy%22%7D+-%3E+%7B%22ElectricityTotal%22%7D https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=energy+consumption+of+...