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Bitcoin incentivizes efficient generation and use of energy. Until people can find economic uses for, say, the immense solar energy produced in a desert, bitco

Bitcoin incentivizes efficient generation and use of energy. Until people can find economic uses for, say, the immense solar energy produced in a desert, bitcoin will use it all up because it can be deployed practically anywhere. Likewise anywhere there's excess wasted energy, it will use it. So in that respect, bitcoin finances the construction of energy generation where it is generated the cheapest but may have no other market otherwise due to geographic isolation and transportation. Unfortunately people are biased for one reason or another against accepting this reality, seemingly due to a lack of imagination and prejudice.

octacat 3y ago
"Efficient" use is using 2% of all energy just to do 7 transactions a second and allow people to speculate?
- lurking15 3y ago
  Efficient use means ability to be deployed to consume. The point being that energy is over-produced as a matter of fact in order to be a reliable utility and bitcoin can be throttled on a dime to profitably match supply to demand unlike much else. But it sounds like you're purposely misunderstanding.
  - octacat 3y ago
    So call it easy to deploy, not efficient use. Or "ease of utilisation of excess energy generation". The point is that bitcoin would use as much energy as possible as long as it is profitable regardless of fact it is over-produced or under-produced. And regardless if it is "clean" or not. It also would drive prices up, we already saw it with prices of GPUs/memory.
    - lurking15 3y ago
      You're playing semantic games when efficient does not exclusively mean "waste-less" it means capable or effective, which is exactly what Bitcoin is, a very effective way to consume energy on command. You're also arbitrarily calling Bitcoin wasteful. You could subjectively categorize any aspect of existing as wasteful or unnecessary. > The point is that bitcoin would use as much energy as possible as long as it is profitable regardless of fact it is over-produced or under-produced. And regardless if it is "clean" or not. It's hard to say that electricity is wasted when no one else is buying it and that's exactly the argument that the article discounts. Low cost and negative cost electricity (that's already produced!) cannot be wasted and consuming it through any means, as someone willing to purchase it, balances the operation of a grid. The fact that no one else is finding a profitable use is their problem and opportunity in a market. Bitcoin will use whatever energy people decide they wish to purchase to use it. It's not a magic energy vacuum. I can't help but imagine you'd be outlawing people to buy solar panels if they wanted to use that off-grid to do whatever you arbitrarily deem wasteful. The entire thrust of the article is about controlling and demonizing the economic decisions of free people in a market at the behest of political agendas. > It also would drive prices up, we already saw it with prices of GPUs/memory. Yes consumption of anything generally drives up prices. Should we ban PC video gaming because they also drive up prices of computer parts? Video games are wasteful too. We could be entertaining ourselves with card games or marbles. Printing money drives up prices too.
      - octacat 3y ago
        As long as something legal and makes profit - people would do it. Energy generation does not offset all the climate damage it makes. Efficient: (of a system or machine) achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense. Bitcoin is least efficient way of doing transactions. Pretty efficient way doing ecological damage though.
      - octacat 3y ago
        I am totally for off-grid generation. As long as people buy their panels without any tax reliefs and incentives. Also, free market is good, if generation is 100% carbon offset which is not now. And yea, you are free to make any economical decisions as long as it is legal. Excessive usage of energy could make it easy to ban though in the near future. Which would not be missed by personally me much.
jcranmer 3y ago
> Until people can find economic uses for, say, the immense solar energy produced in a desert, bitcoin will use it all up because it can be deployed practically anywhere. Okay, how many Bitcoin miners are using immense solar energy produced in a desert? Do note that the article mentions that the largest clusters are in, um, Texas and the Appalachians, and their providers of electricity seem to largely be, uh, natural gas and coal power, respectively.
- lurking15 3y ago
  For one, miners are already deployed to use up flared oil wells and landfills which mitigates methane emissions which is very important in terms of reducing total impact of GHG emissions. Otherwise miners are buying cheap energy anywhere they can find it, and using waste energy on the grid, of which there's tons. The idea that they're going to spike demand isn't even correct because mining can scale to any level of power generation. Also mining does not cause emissions, mining simply purchases generated power, and emissions are caused by power generation from non-renewables. If mining is emitting GHGs you could say the same thing about EV cars or any other power consumer. But like I said at least bitcoin as a consumer can be ideally placed ANYWHERE especially where energy is plentiful but not easily used otherwise. > Do note that the article mentions that the largest clusters are in, um, Texas and the Appalachians, and their providers of electricity seem to largely be, uh, natural gas and coal power, respectively. So does driving an EV car in those areas amount to being a horrible person too under that logic?

octacat 3y ago

"Efficient" use is using 2% of all energy just to do 7 transactions a second and allow people to speculate?

lurking15 3y ago
Efficient use means ability to be deployed to consume. The point being that energy is over-produced as a matter of fact in order to be a reliable utility and bitcoin can be throttled on a dime to profitably match supply to demand unlike much else. But it sounds like you're purposely misunderstanding.
- octacat 3y ago
  So call it easy to deploy, not efficient use. Or "ease of utilisation of excess energy generation". The point is that bitcoin would use as much energy as possible as long as it is profitable regardless of fact it is over-produced or under-produced. And regardless if it is "clean" or not. It also would drive prices up, we already saw it with prices of GPUs/memory.
  - lurking15 3y ago
    You're playing semantic games when efficient does not exclusively mean "waste-less" it means capable or effective, which is exactly what Bitcoin is, a very effective way to consume energy on command. You're also arbitrarily calling Bitcoin wasteful. You could subjectively categorize any aspect of existing as wasteful or unnecessary. > The point is that bitcoin would use as much energy as possible as long as it is profitable regardless of fact it is over-produced or under-produced. And regardless if it is "clean" or not. It's hard to say that electricity is wasted when no one else is buying it and that's exactly the argument that the article discounts. Low cost and negative cost electricity (that's already produced!) cannot be wasted and consuming it through any means, as someone willing to purchase it, balances the operation of a grid. The fact that no one else is finding a profitable use is their problem and opportunity in a market. Bitcoin will use whatever energy people decide they wish to purchase to use it. It's not a magic energy vacuum. I can't help but imagine you'd be outlawing people to buy solar panels if they wanted to use that off-grid to do whatever you arbitrarily deem wasteful. The entire thrust of the article is about controlling and demonizing the economic decisions of free people in a market at the behest of political agendas. > It also would drive prices up, we already saw it with prices of GPUs/memory. Yes consumption of anything generally drives up prices. Should we ban PC video gaming because they also drive up prices of computer parts? Video games are wasteful too. We could be entertaining ourselves with card games or marbles. Printing money drives up prices too.
    - octacat 3y ago
      As long as something legal and makes profit - people would do it. Energy generation does not offset all the climate damage it makes. Efficient: (of a system or machine) achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense. Bitcoin is least efficient way of doing transactions. Pretty efficient way doing ecological damage though.
    - octacat 3y ago
      I am totally for off-grid generation. As long as people buy their panels without any tax reliefs and incentives. Also, free market is good, if generation is 100% carbon offset which is not now. And yea, you are free to make any economical decisions as long as it is legal. Excessive usage of energy could make it easy to ban though in the near future. Which would not be missed by personally me much.

jcranmer 3y ago

> Until people can find economic uses for, say, the immense solar energy produced in a desert, bitcoin will use it all up because it can be deployed practically anywhere. Okay, how many Bitcoin miners are using immense solar energy produced in a desert? Do note that the article mentions that the largest clusters are in, um, Texas and the Appalachians, and their providers of electricity seem to largely be, uh, natural gas and coal power, respectively.

lurking15 3y ago
For one, miners are already deployed to use up flared oil wells and landfills which mitigates methane emissions which is very important in terms of reducing total impact of GHG emissions. Otherwise miners are buying cheap energy anywhere they can find it, and using waste energy on the grid, of which there's tons. The idea that they're going to spike demand isn't even correct because mining can scale to any level of power generation. Also mining does not cause emissions, mining simply purchases generated power, and emissions are caused by power generation from non-renewables. If mining is emitting GHGs you could say the same thing about EV cars or any other power consumer. But like I said at least bitcoin as a consumer can be ideally placed ANYWHERE especially where energy is plentiful but not easily used otherwise. > Do note that the article mentions that the largest clusters are in, um, Texas and the Appalachians, and their providers of electricity seem to largely be, uh, natural gas and coal power, respectively. So does driving an EV car in those areas amount to being a horrible person too under that logic?