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Some industries use more energy but do more useful things. The question is what’s the minimum to do something. Bitcoin uses more energy than the alternatives.

Some industries use more energy but do more useful things. The question is what’s the minimum to do something. Bitcoin uses more energy than the alternatives. A wood burning stove is wasteful, a heat pump, not so much. Why? Because what’s important is the difference in energy between the action taken and the most efficient action to complete a task.

vmception 4y ago
Energy != pollute Typically this desire for any other use of energy to occur relies on not understanding why that wasnt occurring beforehand
- MBCook 4y ago
  Energy does not come from nothing. A large amount of it comes from polluting sources. In those cases there is a very direct relationship between the creation of energy and pollution. Clean energy is obviously better, but suffers from a fundamental problem: energy is fungible. If mining takes up 10 MWh of juice, anyone else who would have used that energy can’t. So they have to use other energy. Often fossil fuel based energy has to make up the difference. For all intents and purposes the mining used that fossil fuel energy. If mining only used excess electricity produced by clean power plants, there would be no problem. But it’s not incentivized to use extra energy, it’s incentivized to use cheap energy. If energy can be generated by fossil fuels cheaper than what you can earn from mining, miners will use that energy. Producing pollution that wouldn’t have otherwise existed. Even if mining only used spare energy generated from clean sources, using that energy means it can’t be stored to be used later, like at night. Possibly necessitating polluting generation later. (I know storage isn’t common today.) If you can explain how mining either does or feasibly could given real incentives use only spare non-polluting energy I would love to know.
  - vmception 4y ago
    Sure, the flare gas sites that are (or arent) connected to the grid are exactly a case where bitcoin mining is taking from no other use, and actually reducing very quantifiable pollution There are likely several gigawatts of this kind of energy in north america and the amount of energy used this way and for mining in total will continue to increase without causing more pollution This is due completely to market forces as well, which is worth saying because more mining will migrate to this without it being some altruistic response to environmental outcry
  - datadata 4y ago
    Energy is most definitely not fungible. The availability of energy and demand for energy can vary by greatly location. For it to be fungible, energy would need to be free to transport, or demand for energy would need to be location insensitive. Bitcoin actually does a lot of good things here because it is location insensitive. For stranded energy, say methane flare gas, there is not an economical way to use the energy of this gas because transport is too expensive and demand is too far away. In this way, the bitcoin mining is consuming energy that wouldn't actually otherwise be marketable. It is also greatly reducing greenhouse emissions without demand for the energy, the methane would be burned, which has much worse emissions than when consumed in a generator.
- cuteboy19 4y ago
  Before Bitcoin no one was wasting energy doing redundant calculations on an astronomical scale. Energy==pollute, actually. Energy is fungible and most of it comes from fossil fuels.
solveit 4y ago
This discussion will go nowhere. Clearly the pro-Bitcoin crowd thinks proof of work is the most efficient way to get a permissionless, trustless, decentralised currency. And the anti-Bitcoin crowd either thinks 1. It's not the most efficient way and there's an alternative (e.g. Proof of Stake) or 2. It may or may not be the most efficient way, but Bitcoin doesn't provide the value to justify the carbon emissions ('just tax carbon commensurate to its negative externalities and let people decide for themselves', he says helplessly)
- vmception 4y ago
  I’m mostly avoiding the utility argument because the stranded energy reality is so much better As its not taking away from another use of energy and it’s reducing pollution, and is more likely to be the majority kind of bitcoin mining
- upsidesinclude 4y ago
  This deserves to be the top posted comment, but will certainly never be. Controversial Take: There is effectively no ceiling on the value potential of Bitcoin. If you live in a hyperinflationary environment, of which there are tons of examples in the last 100 years, the value is known. To people living with the $dollar and expecting endless monetary superiority, it is hard to recognize. It's important to note, there is incentive for miners to use renewable energy. Vast amounts of capital have propped up renewables that languish for lack of a proper demand. Wind isn't on demand, nor is solar. But there's never any discussion of the waste and pollution that subsidized unproductive green energy solutions produce. Mining can utilize 100% of that supply. It acts as a reinforcing mechanism for investment in clean energy. How is this lost on people?

vmception 4y ago

Energy != pollute Typically this desire for any other use of energy to occur relies on not understanding why that wasnt occurring beforehand

MBCook 4y ago
Energy does not come from nothing. A large amount of it comes from polluting sources. In those cases there is a very direct relationship between the creation of energy and pollution. Clean energy is obviously better, but suffers from a fundamental problem: energy is fungible. If mining takes up 10 MWh of juice, anyone else who would have used that energy can’t. So they have to use other energy. Often fossil fuel based energy has to make up the difference. For all intents and purposes the mining used that fossil fuel energy. If mining only used excess electricity produced by clean power plants, there would be no problem. But it’s not incentivized to use extra energy, it’s incentivized to use cheap energy. If energy can be generated by fossil fuels cheaper than what you can earn from mining, miners will use that energy. Producing pollution that wouldn’t have otherwise existed. Even if mining only used spare energy generated from clean sources, using that energy means it can’t be stored to be used later, like at night. Possibly necessitating polluting generation later. (I know storage isn’t common today.) If you can explain how mining either does or feasibly could given real incentives use only spare non-polluting energy I would love to know.
- vmception 4y ago
  Sure, the flare gas sites that are (or arent) connected to the grid are exactly a case where bitcoin mining is taking from no other use, and actually reducing very quantifiable pollution There are likely several gigawatts of this kind of energy in north america and the amount of energy used this way and for mining in total will continue to increase without causing more pollution This is due completely to market forces as well, which is worth saying because more mining will migrate to this without it being some altruistic response to environmental outcry
- datadata 4y ago
  Energy is most definitely not fungible. The availability of energy and demand for energy can vary by greatly location. For it to be fungible, energy would need to be free to transport, or demand for energy would need to be location insensitive. Bitcoin actually does a lot of good things here because it is location insensitive. For stranded energy, say methane flare gas, there is not an economical way to use the energy of this gas because transport is too expensive and demand is too far away. In this way, the bitcoin mining is consuming energy that wouldn't actually otherwise be marketable. It is also greatly reducing greenhouse emissions without demand for the energy, the methane would be burned, which has much worse emissions than when consumed in a generator.
cuteboy19 4y ago
Before Bitcoin no one was wasting energy doing redundant calculations on an astronomical scale. Energy==pollute, actually. Energy is fungible and most of it comes from fossil fuels.

solveit 4y ago

This discussion will go nowhere. Clearly the pro-Bitcoin crowd thinks proof of work is the most efficient way to get a permissionless, trustless, decentralised currency. And the anti-Bitcoin crowd either thinks 1. It's not the most efficient way and there's an alternative (e.g. Proof of Stake) or 2. It may or may not be the most efficient way, but Bitcoin doesn't provide the value to justify the carbon emissions ('just tax carbon commensurate to its negative externalities and let people decide for themselves', he says helplessly)

vmception 4y ago
I’m mostly avoiding the utility argument because the stranded energy reality is so much better As its not taking away from another use of energy and it’s reducing pollution, and is more likely to be the majority kind of bitcoin mining
upsidesinclude 4y ago
This deserves to be the top posted comment, but will certainly never be. Controversial Take: There is effectively no ceiling on the value potential of Bitcoin. If you live in a hyperinflationary environment, of which there are tons of examples in the last 100 years, the value is known. To people living with the $dollar and expecting endless monetary superiority, it is hard to recognize. It's important to note, there is incentive for miners to use renewable energy. Vast amounts of capital have propped up renewables that languish for lack of a proper demand. Wind isn't on demand, nor is solar. But there's never any discussion of the waste and pollution that subsidized unproductive green energy solutions produce. Mining can utilize 100% of that supply. It acts as a reinforcing mechanism for investment in clean energy. How is this lost on people?