Bitcoin Forum

Sometime in the future the "Greens" will object loudly to Bitcoin's energy consumption. Does anyone think the voices will get so loud, POW for Bitcoin will be a controversy?

This is one of Bitcoin's weak spots in the public opinion arena. Does anyone think somewhere down the road POW might be changed?

I mean, they're already objecting. I've seen a lot of Twitter chatter on the topic lately.

Long-term, I figure the most likely outcomes are:

• Wind/solar become so cheap/plentiful that they outcompete even (e.g.) coal plants in Inner Mongolia for pure BTC/kWh.
• A Bitcoin proof-of-stake fork gets broad community adoption.
• A non-Bitcoin proof-of-stake coin (Casper Ethereum, f'rex) ends up becoming the dominant cryptocoin for everyday users.

It's also possible that the BTC ecosystem just soldiers on, not caring about its externalities on the literal ecosystem, and its network effects (first mover advantage etc) let it get away with that. But IMO that's a bad outcome, and probably not as likely as the above.

I imagine there will be massive use of solar panels etc. Once the price of solar comes down even further, it would make sense for a mining farm to buy a solar wall and use that to generate electricity rather than pay for it.

the need to find the cheapest and most sustainable electricity will give rise to innovations that previously weren't thought of, also it'll drive the use of renewables and make them cheaper.

the greens will still complain of course but screw them.

People have been finding creative ways to get around the high energy usage and heat output. For example, in the future, we could see more areas using the miners in order to heat up smaller spaces.

https://news.bitcoin.com/siberians-use-cryptocurrency-miners-heat-homes/

I saw this article recently and it intrigued me how this man was using the miners to heat up a house. It's very possible that this could be a solution that allows for both parties to come to some kind of consensus about bitcoin mining.

Except that solar panels/cells still costs a fortune to acquire, and what's even more surprising is that some countries still have fucked up laws when it comes to installing your own solar panels to run your household.

We still might see PoW being the go-to algorithm for coins that wants to get the highest level of security possible for their utilization like bitcoin. Quantum computing, day-by-day, is getting nearer and nearer to our hands. It could be the solution for our problem regarding PoW or developer might come to think of other green alternatives to keep the system going.

We laugh and laugh and laugh...because Bitcoin is one thing they cannot stop with their precious governments.

I'm not sure PoW is actually higher-security than second-generation (N@S-resistant) PoS. One big advantage of Proof of Stake is that a 51% attacker can only double-spend once (since executing the attack destroys their stake), whereas a PoW 51% attacker can attack again and again (they still have their mining hardware to give it another go).

The whole capitalist system will always find a way out in this kind of problems, but you all know that tey are doing whatever they want and i am sure that this will end someday.
But you are right with that, but everybody is always trying to find a cheaper solution when they are talking about bitcoins and of course, about bitcoin mining.
It is very expensive in my country and i can not afford the electrity bills, and this is why i dont mine.

Yea , I heat our home with a small mining farm. I typically upgrade equipment at the end of summer. I am in the southern hemisphere so around March. It just makes a whole lot of sense to do this. On the other hand POS makes a lot of sense too.

I often think it is your third option that may become true.( Casper Ethereum etc..)

does it really matter, though? if bitcoin has made one thing clear, it's that governments cannot stop it. 10 or 20 years from now, i think the "greens" will look to us just like the altcoiners pushing proof-of-stake do now. they make the same exact arguments.

i'm partial to the idea proof-of-work mining is wasteful if there is no better alternative. to date, there is no proven method for byzantine fault tolerance that can compare to bitcoin. proof-of-stake is on shaky footing conceptually as it is; it will be many years before we have a working test case (like bitcoin is for proof-of-work).

Why they dont object the Gold?  There is so much energy needed to mine for gold and there  after it is mined there is such a devastation. Not to mention, chemicals that poison soil are used when getting pure gold.

Nothing will happen most of the bitcoin mining is happening in China a country that obviously does not care about such thing so their objections are going to be useless the only thing they can do is to try to pass laws to make bitcoin mining illegal in their countries but that is all, and even if those laws pass that does not mean that people are going to stop mining bitcoin.

Why only focus on Proof of Stake? There are other interesting technologies that could be used.

I admit that I lack a deep technological understanding, but for me, Bram Cohen's (Bittorrent creator) "Proof of Space" (https://www.coindesk.com/proof-of-space-bittorrent-creator-publishes-eco-friendly-mining-paper/) could be an interesting alternative. It's more similar to standard PoW mining because everybody can start mining "from zero" using external resources. But it wastes less electricity, because the "attack price" is not based primarily on the electricity price used to carry out the attack. (There is already an experimental altcoin called "Burst" using a similar algorithm).

In the case it's proven secure, I see no problem in Bitcoin adopting that technology.

We gently remind them, that Bitcoin is replacing the legacy banking system, which is consuming orders of magnitude more energy than the Bitcoin network. All the buildings to house employees, computers to keep track of databases, cars to drive banknotes around and the private jets of the corrupt banksters...you get the point. Bitcoin energy consumption is a drop of water in the ocean compared to that.

If they still don't get it, they should contemplate the following: our legacy financial system is predicated upon perpetual growth, driven by inflationary spending. It has to continue to find new ways to monetize new areas of human experience and natural resources. Through this it is driving the complete destruction of our environment and the conversion of all the resources into useless crap. Bitcoin puts an end to these incentives. Greens should happily support Bitcoin.

If you talk about bankers' private jets, then you must also mention happy Bitcoiners' Lambos ;D

But I get your point, and I think you're right. However, improving the current situation investigating possible alternative algorithms should not be forbidden.

It is inevitable. It has not gained a lot of traction yet, because very few people know about bitcoin, and only those who do are aware of the power consumption. Once they start making noise, governments will be pressured to regulate mining and crack down on mining farms. It is not a pretty picture. It is not sustainable either, so we should look at the power consumption as a problem that needs to be solved.

Hydropower energy is actually renewable & clean energy and soon there will be more hydropower plants all over the world enough to power all house hold devices + bitcoin mining equipments. Also soon use of solar and wind energy will be common in most of the area, bitcoin miners doesn't run on fossil fuel actually.

So topic of green energy might not hit hard on bitcoin mining industry but there are lots of debates popping up regarding energy consumption by these miners is just waste lately.

I think the whole Bitcoiner Lambo thing is embarrassing, even though it is mostly tongue-in-cheek. We are the vanguard of the new economic system, one based on sustainability instead of cancerous infinite growth and consumerism and we should act like it!

Investigating alternatives to Bitcoin style PoW security should of course be encouraged! There is always room for improvement.

All the green parties are complete nonsense. Wherever the are or were power, things has gone worse!!!
And I can tell you they can scream, cry and rant as much as they want, Bitcoin will not care!!!
There won't be a POW change just because some irrelavant dummies want so.

Good point. Proof of Space and Proof of Liveness are definitely possibilities too, at least in terms of moving off "electricity" (with all its baggage) as the scarce resource of choice.

As for "mining with only external resources"... well, there's pros and cons to that. The fact that (with proof of work/space/etc) people can enter the system without establishing a link to "someone who bought the coins" is a powerful property for a cryptocurrency to have... but so is being able to "self-host", without consuming any physically scarce resource at all.

Use the blockstream satellites to collect solar energy. This will shut their mouths.

The fact is that this is a very good idea And I have already read a lot about such projects, but they are very expensive today and will not be implemented in reality. Although if you think about the developments of Ilon Max, then I think that the prospects in green technologies are very large.

I don't think proof of stake will work as an alternative. Perhaps the future belongs to byteball? No mining, no blocks. It seems an interesting tech

Well, let's see, the "greens", yes the "greens".... hmmm.... yeah....

About 10 year ago, when I would go to the grocery store, I'd see those little reusable grocery bags. I'd see them everywhere. Even the grocery store was giving them away for a while, then later selling them on the cheap... trying to promote using eco-friendly reusable bags instead of those thin plastic throwaway bags that are bad for the environment. For a while it seemed to be working.

Fast forward to today 10 years later, and at the grocery store literally NO ONE is using the reusable bags, they're ALL using the plastic bags that are bad for the environment. The grocery store is not even selling or giving the reusable grocery bags away anymore. Because apparently it was all a fad and no one really cares about the environment that much, if it sacrifices convenience.

So what does that tell you?  ::)  :P

I believe that this is a very legitimate concern in the face of the burgeoning environmental problems we are all facing and I am hoping that the Bitcoin community can be able to address this challenge. Of course, there are already many business entities doing something about it as some mining activities already shifted to more environmentally-friendly options like using power form the sun, wind, water and geothermal sources.

We are also waiting for the full development of better mining equipment which hopefully will consume less power and can emit less heat...am sure innovations like this can corner a big share of the business for the Bitcoin mining industry and there are already companies taking part of the race to be the first to introduce less power-consuming alternatives.

We just have to wait though because innovations can take some time to mature.

I agree the Greens are mostly nonsense.

For example a Prius Electric car has 18kg or rare earth minerals used in various components.  Rare earth minerals are mined at a rate of grams per ton, depending on how rich the deposit. You are digging a pretty big hole in Australia to get these materials for one car. Now all the leaching processes to refine the minerals and separate them out into their pure forms. We are talking acids etc for this process and big leeching ponds. ( I am not sure what is in the Tesla )

Lithium same deal.

I have seen the greens complain about mining and at the same time advocating for electric cars, windmills and solar panels. Where do they think this shit comes from to build all this so called green energy. It it just a different way of polluting the environment.

They are a  fantasy party not living in the real world.

That is true. If the greens generate enough noise, the government will impose an additional cess/tax on miners. The miners will incorporate this in their profitability calculations, or just move away to where the electricity is cheaper.

That's true, Proof of Stake has this advantage that it consumes almost no physical ressources - but it needs Weak Subjectivity to work because of the Nothing at Stake problem. So a way is needed for users to know on which chain their friends and service providers are in the case of a chain fork.

There are solutions to this problem, but as far as I know the people behind the Bitcoin project, they don't like that concept and the proposed solutions like Economic Clustering (and I know there are also critics that think there may be more vulnerabilities). That's why I don't believe in the near future that Bitcoin itself will transition to Proof of Stake. The Proof of Stake block rewards are another problem; to dis-incentive Nothing-at-stake attacks generally they're dynamic and limited to a percentage of the stake the validator owns - that is basically incompatible with Bitcoin's "21 million cap".

Proof of Space/Capacity in both aspects - "objectivity" and block rewards - is more similar to Proof of Work, so I see it as a more viable alternative for Bitcoin itself (it it's proven to be secure). That doesn't mean that there can be no successful independent blockchain projects (altcoins) based on Proof of Stake. I myself support a couple of them.

About Byteball's algorithm - it has the weakness that it needs some few "known" servers, so it's less decentralized. Would be completely inviable as a consensus algo for Bitcoin - but obviously such "hybrid/distributed" models can also be successful, like Ripple's case shows us.

Now I'm not overly knowledgeable on this matter but I would expect that bitcoin is far greener than usual paper money, of course there is the negatives of the energy consumption used for mining but it does not cut down any trees etc, is there any scientific studies to compare the environmental impacts of the two?

Just take some pictures of a fake satellite full of solar panels and use in a mediocre media campaign. The "greens" are selfish, they are only concerned about their own image of "eco-consciousness". Soon they will forget about it.

That's very cool! How sustainable is it? Does it actually work in terms of heating your home?

I've had thoughts about this, but it seems like it makes more sense in areas that are much colder in the winter. It rarely snows here; there isn't much to justify me buying a load of equipment in the name of saving on my heat bills.

Yes, heating your home does work. I have them in our basement with ducting running to the bottom of our stairs. The heat rises up through the house. Now, this is not the most elegant solution, it is not central heating. I live in a house that does not have central heating. My options are to install heat pumps or use electric heaters. Neither are cheap. So I have a choice, pay to heat my home or fire up the cash back heaters. In the summer I have a ducting system that pushes the heat outside. Additionally in the winter I will have a relatively quiet gpu rig running upstairs to take the chill off. As the miners become obsolete (s9's for example) the equation in the winter becomes ...1 dollar for heat gives X dollars cash back. So perhaps in 6 months in stead of making a profit on my s9's they would heat my home for less than if I was not using them.

I think you will make more money by just investing in coins etc. However for me it makes sense to make a small profit and heat my home. One note. I have made a relatively sound proof room to host them in with dedicated electrical circuits.  Mining can be pretty loud.

That tells me that going green will only work when you can make a profit with it and it does not interfere with our current way of life, people prefer convenience more than anything if going green is more convenient people are going to do it, but it is a chore then the average person is not going to go through all the trouble and will keep their current lifestyle.

we do not need to wait that thing to happen because right now some people already did that,
but think about it carefully,it's enough to do that and also it is worth to do it ?
it's very easy in the theory but it's very hard to get implemented.
using that thing so called 'Greens' thing or 'Solar' or 'Earth' need a lot of room and a lot of preparation.
also it's very risky to do it at the same time,
when we're building our mining farm,we need a lot of energies to operate it 7/24.
which mean we're building our own generator in our mining farm,i believe some people do not want to do that because it's very risky.
(every countries have a different weather and climate,some of them can do it some of them can not)
nothing to worry about actually because everything has its own weakness and it'll not be the problem for the Bitcoin itself,

massive use of solar is coming this for sure

@nikauforest: Nice setup, thanks for your experience.

I want to add to the discussion that "solar energy" for mining - mentioned by many here - is maybe a "greener" solution than mining with electricity coming from "standard" (carbon/gas) power stations, but isn't also that environmentally friendly if you really think about it - because you need a lot energy to manufacture the solar modules. For now, even the Chinese miners that use hydroelectric energy are maybe "greener" than most "solar miners".

The perfect solution - if we keep using Proof of Work- would be something like the "Solar Breeder project (http://www.ssb-foundation.com/)" (where photovoltaic cells are fabricated from sand using solar energy) but it still doesn't exist. However, maybe it's possible to buy photovoltaic modules from manufacturers from countries where electricity comes mostly from renewable sources (Norway, Iceland ...), then it becomes a really "green" solution.

To be honest 'Greens' seem to do all their thinking inside a square box. They hate cars, bitcoin, oil, coal powered power plants etc.
The problem is not bitcoin or cars, the whole system based on is the problem, for example:

"A cow does on overage release between 70 and 120 kg of Methane per year. Methane is a greenhouse gas like carbon dioxide (CO2).
But the negative effect on the climate of Methane is 23 times higher than the effect of CO2."

Source: http://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-meat-methane-CO2 (http://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-meat-methane-CO2)

And I never heard that 'greens' would like to kill all cows because of that...

@Hazir: I also do not like these "selective Greens" that are against certain technologies and not others. For example, many people that label themselves as "Green" are now against hydroelectric power which is one of the cleanest and cheapest forms of electricity generation. But oh, it changes landscapes! (Like most things humans do ...)

But I either do not believe the opposite side (these "global warming is a lie" folks). And the problem of agriculture's methane emissions is well known. It's one of the reasons why some "Greens" are vegans/vegetarians.

And yes, I think the Bitcoin community should definitively think about solutions to reduce the environmental impact of mining.

The ecologist are very minor in term of public opinion, and they basically complain about anything, so I think it is not worth the energy, the money and the time to address their complains. What people must get in their mind is that electricity can not be stored, so if the electrical excedent is not used for something awesome like Bitcoin, they will simply let it disappear for nothing.

We can care about that when bitcoin works as it should and not before, with confirmations so slow and expensive bitcoin developers cannot stop to worry about such a thing, some people may think that is selfish but that is the way everything works, just look at cars at first the most important thing was to create a reliable car now that we have them we can make them more efficient and the same is true for bitcoin only when bitcoin works as it should we can consider to make it more efficient.

to maximize profits of BTC mining, cheapest possible electricity is required. therefore, the problem solves itself. sure, i may not want to drop 10,000 USD (1 btc. :D) on a solar system for my home, but hell, if i run miners as well, they're obviously, unquestionably reach a return on investment, eventually. because if you're not paying for electricity, but just the 1-time cost of panels and miners, they can run forever. even BFL miners could turn a profit under that circumstance.

therefore, eventually the big miners will switch to renewables like solar and wind. to not do so is to waste money.