Bitcoin Forum

The old hardware used and thrown will also be another envronmental problem because the metals and plastics are made of precious and limited resources from the Earth.

All developers should do their due diligence on the energy and hardware efficiency of Proof of Capacity and help to make it more secure from grinding attacks and time memory trade off attacks. Doing nothing and killing the Earth is the alternative lol.

Bitcoin is consuming more energy than Denmark, study (https://www.dailysabah.com/energy/2018/11/06/bitcoin-is-consuming-more-energy-than-denmark-study-claims)

• Mining virtual currencies with a real-world value, in other words, carries a hidden environmental cost that is rarely measured or taken into account.
  
  
• "We now have an entirely new industry that is consuming more energy per year than many countries," said Max Krause, a researcher at the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education and lead author of a study in the journal Nature Sustainability.
  
  "In 2018, bitcoin is on track to consume more energy than Denmark," he told AFP.
  Denmark consumed 31.4 billion kilowatt hours in electricity in 2015. As of July 1 of this year, Bitcoin mining used up approximately 30.1 billion kilowatt hours, according to the study.
  
  
• For the study, Krause and Thabet Tolaymat, an environmental engineer based in Cincinnati, Ohio, calculated the average energy consumed to create one US dollar's worth of four top virtual currencies -- bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin and monero -- over the 30-month period up to June 2018.
  
  That amount was 17, 7, 7 and 14 million joules, or megajoules (MJ), respectively.
  A joule is a unit of energy equivalent to the work required to produce one watt of power for one second.
  
  That is up to three times the energy needed to excavate gold, platinum or copper, they found. Of the metals examined, only aluminum -- at 122 MJ per dollar's worth -- was more energy intensive.
  
  
• A complete calculation of the environmental cost of virtual currencies would take into account the banks of computers used to mine them.
  
  "The computers are made with gold and other precious metals," said Krause.
  "They are run aggressively, which means the hardware is destroyed much quicker than you or I would expect for regular use -- maybe a year instead of five or ten."

Humans waste an awfully lot of energy, and unlike Bitcoin, most of that energy comes from coal.

So energy is just one more of the "goods" we "produce" and waste. The bigger the need, more the pressure to harness more energy from regenerable sources, more efficient and also store it and transport it better.

Once again, there was an opponent of technology development. I wonder why all these environmentalists think only about banning, but no one thinks how to improve? Because it is harder to create than to destroy. And to attract attention to such topics is easier, people like such news more.

I don't see the relationship between consuming more energy and actually destroying the environment.
Bitcoins energy requirement is not taking out of any one's home ratio or a companies mega watt, so no one can say they are depleted thanks to bitcoin mining.
The energy comes from reserves and excess energy.

This is one of the serious problems of Bitcoin. The miners exploited too massively and greedy. I've seen a miner's Bitcoin machine. This system can earn its owner a lot of money every month, but the electricity consumption is really terrible, about 30 times the normal people.
This is one of the negative aspects of Bitcoin. I think there should be control over the exploitation of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is one of the rare technologies turning green. Many new businesses are installing solar panels essentially to generate electricity which is way more safe for the planet than other industries  ;)

The old hardware can be recycled,instead of "thrown".
Metals and plactics can be recycled as well,the arguement that they are "rare" just doesn't work.It looks like this article is written by a jerk,who doesn't know that the recycling industry already exists and just wants to talk trash about bitcoin.

much easier method of calculation bitcoin
average hashrate is 50exahash always running
thats 50,000,000terahash
thats ~3571429 asics (14thash each)
thats ~4642857kw/h (each asic uses 1.3kw/h)
thats ~4642857143w/h
thats ~16714152mj  the actual mining power of bitcoin mining in total per hour
thats ~2785692mj per block (/6)
thats ~222855mj per btc  (/12.5)
thats ~34mj per $1 (/6400)

the important part
thats ~4642857kw/h (each asic uses 1.3kw/h)

~4,642,857kw/h
=111,428,571kwh a day
=40,671,428,571kwh a year
=40.67twh a year
real funny thing.
international currency(BTC) using ONLY the electric of a small country...

however
a national currency like USD uses EVEN MORE electric than international currency(BTC)
meaning USD wastes even more than denmark

(v   note sarcasm attitute, but factual data  v)
must kill USD as its only national not international but wastes more electric
(^  note sarcasm attitute, but factual data  ^)

come on.. wheres the racist folks about "china"
oh wait. china does 6000TWH per year.. so that doesnt suite the narrative that "50% of mining is china" (20thw a year)
..as thats only 0.33% of china's production

We've been doing this for decades now, and most of the world's waste end up on the great Pacific garbage patch or somewhere else. Oddly enough, it's always bitcoin that receives the backlash whenever the talks about energy and conservation of environment is brought about, while there are more violators out there doing their thing freely without garnering any negative attention from these "environmentalists" (lol). Instead of going after industries that rely on the products of fossil fuels to generate power, why not go after the power companies that can up their game and resort to cleaner and greener methods of producing energy? Oh right, they won't, since coal is way cheaper and produces more profit compared to nuclear energy.

Hoping that maybe someday they can discover new things to gather energy that will not destroy our environment so that bitcoin will have a better image.

People will find a ways on how to solve the problem. Hopefully they will discover much safer method on how to conserve energy and recycle the discarded hardware and be eco friendly.

It will be a win-win situation for the people and environment if the wastes are properly discarded.

and that how many people consume energy nobody takes into account? practically everything, even in your house consumes energy. unfortunately few people think of how to reduce consumption in everyday life.

Yes, I agree that electricity is also a natural resource. A lot of power consumption will also indirectly damage the environment. Bitcoin mining did not consume electricity like this a few years ago. I think it is because bitcoin is being mined and the fierce competition in the process has caused people to constantly replace higher-energy hardware for mining, thus causing the mining cost to rise.
This is certainly helpful for the price of Bitcoin, but I hope to see a more economical way of mining. After all, electricity is also a very valuable resource in many poor countries.

like always the source is not reliable and bitcoin isn't really consuming that much energy. it is just that these days we are seeing another wave of attacks against bitcoin with the same old topic about bitcoin's energy consumption whereas nothing has changed. and all these sites are only repeating the same thing by adding their own drama on top of it.

Its consuming increasing amount of energy every year. If it doesnt stop where will it be in 10 years? It will be consuming more energy of more nations and will be part of the cause in destroying the environment.

Its the right time to explore other low energy algorithms other than the power hungry PoW to mine coins.

yes, bitcoin can damage the earth in the coming year. Electricity consumption for bitcoin mining is very large, and if miners increase every year, then electricity consumption will also increase and can damage the earth.

It will not stop. Is this a race of who kills our planet first?

Energy cost of mining Bitcoin more than copper or gold (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/05/energy-cost-of-mining-bitcoin-more-than-twice-that-of-copper-or-gold)

no it is a race about who can make the most outrageous claims about bitcoin's energy usage and the business is good these days. they come up with these exaggerated numbers that they keep feeding people trying to undermine bitcoin. the fact is none of these websites like "theguardian" which you quoted give a shit about planet and environment otherwise they would have spoke more about the real polluting industries that are causing global warming and killing us all not the tiny energy consumption that is the most constructive and clean thing you can find.

we need other devices that can save electricity. when the block puzzles are more difficult to solve and difficult to mine, then electricity is getting bigger and longer, so electricity costs will be more expensive.

ASIC innovations, hydropower electricity, solar power electricity, steam power electricity, and rubbish power electricity can help to save the country's electricity.

There are so many alternative forms of energy that mining can be done cleanly with the right equipment. Solar energy is becoming popular but hydro and geothermal are perfectly viable options as well

The environmental and natural resources have a variety of sources, not just from the exploitation of bitcoin, which is a commodity to trade, and we now have solutions for using surface energy. Heaven to exploit bitcoin

Isn't it that banks consumes more energy than bitcoin? Why are those environmentalist not attacking them? Ah because they have their own agenda from behind.

And yes, miners are using renewable energy like solar, geothermal and hydro but still is not enough for those who wishes to attack bitcoin mining for their own benefits (whatever/whoever they are).

First of all, you don't need to copy the entire OP, it's annoying. Especially since you're still at the first page of replies.

Second, can you back those numbers up? It sounds like you're just making stuff up when you say 'but the electricity consumption is really terrible, about 30 times the normal people.'
Why should there be any control over the mining of Bitcoin? That completely defeats the purpose of Bitcoin mining.

You'd want as many people as possible mining Bitcoin, not just a couple of huge corporations.

There is no limit to the amount of electricity I live in. You can not actually ban or punish a person when they use too much electricity. Bitcoin extraction consumes the same amount of electricity as other plants, with factories at risk of damaging the environment. Why these things are not prohibited or condemned.
I think condemning Bitcoin to use more electricity or damaging the environment is because governments do not like Bitcoin so badly about it.

I understand the concern about environment, this is very important to me too.
But I don't think that consumption of electricity related to Bitcoin is something we should be worried about. It's not that high percentage compared to some other consumers and industries. Also there are renewable energy sources that could be used and that are available for miners.
Anyway, I would like to see some figures from reliable sources, not just guessing and theories.

Why focuses on bitcoin as an destruction of environment. There's a lot of severe causes that hurts our nature, it can be a human waste, polutions, illegal logging and other practices that severely destroys the nature. It consumes too much electricity but it does not destroys the nature that much than other ways. I don't think that this one matters. If you wanna say that you're an environment-friendly person, tryna focus on the other things not here in the cryptoworld.  ;D

In my opinion, we are currently in a state of times full of sophisticated technology. There have been a lot of renewable energy that are environmentally friendly, indeed all technology is indeed not in all places. But I am optimistic that this can happen in the next few years. If analyzed, cryptocurrency is very suitable with the situation in the future, when technology is growing, we need financial transaction media that also have support. For me Bitcoin and Altcoin can be a strong financial system and also have many benefits compared to the conventional financial system at the moment.

I think that such news is customized and directed against cryptocurrency and Bitcoin.

Alternative energy sources can give cheap mining, while equipment can be upgraded.

Many investors just put their profits ahead. They do not realize that bitcoin mining is consuming too much energy and is destroying our environment. We need more ideas to limit this. if it continues. I do not know what our planet will be like. Bitcoin owners will sit on a coin from profit from bitcoin extraction and live in a heavily polluted environment.

partly is because of escalating electricity bill... using green tech reduce overall cost in long term.

You forgot to blame bitcoin about global warming...  They just not only consume all that energy, but they also transform the energy to heat and that heat goes to the environment.

But the question here is; if we stop all miners what would happen with that energy, and that's the point. We already produce enormous amounts of energy, more than what we want, and if we don't use it we are not saving it, because lets remember the energy conservation law:


So, better to use it on miners than waste it.

Metal and plastic can be recycled and the amount of products used to construct mining hardwares is nothing compared to the amount of garbages used in other industries.
What really damages our envirenment in the minning cycle is electricity consumption wich uses alot of natural resources.

I don't understand the connection between bitcoin mining and the destruction of the environment ! For bitcoin mining only need a socket and electricity that it does not produce but only consumption.

But there are many companies using more energy than bitcoin mining companies.
Bitcoin mining just using electricity and mining equipments ofr mining, it doesn't produce a lot of waste, only heat.
Unlike other industries in the world that produce waste products which are can harm environments.

Meanwhile its helping destroy our planet as it consumes more energy and increasingly adds to the pollution thats already there. We need an answer or an exploration of an answer to PoW's wasteful use of energy.

Having that said, I know the answer will become the future of mining.

that's because there really isn't any connection between the two. and if we start thinking about the damage that bitcoin inflicts on the environment then we have to start thinking about all the other damages that WE are daily inflicting on the environment too. for example OP's computer that is using electricity to come here and make posts is also inflicting damage on the environment!

the thing is, nowadays there is an attack against bitcoin in a new way and that is the electricity usage of it. they can't accept that this global payment system is growing.

Is okay for BTC miners to add more power until it uses as much energy as 20 small countries? How long can PoW mining be sustainable? Can it last as long as 1000 or more years?

Having that said, wont it be good to explore other forms of mining thats cheaper and use lower amounts energy?

In the 90's the media claimed the internet wouldn't scale because it would use half the worlds electricity. These headlines are oddly similar.

Over the next decade, with all of the mining around the world, it's quite believable that solutions will be found to consume less energy.

yes bitcoin mining does harm the environment because whenever you use you devices such as computers , mining hardware , etc . they release negative energy or waste energy like for example the smoke that comes out from your mining devices is already considered a polution ( smoke pollution ) which is verry harmful to our environment and also to the person that inhale's it .

but bitcoin itself isnt consuming any energy or can cause harm to the environment or  to the people but rather it can help the overall comunity because bitcoin is a one of a kind useful tool .

From what I have red and know, there is no way to store most of the forms of energy. At such, bitcoin mining does not do any harm to environment Banning bitcoins just because of this aspect does not sound very much rational to me because we need to weigh in the benefits of crypto as well.

The use of energy by industries such as those that are even used in crypto mining usually has adverse effects on the environment and even humans. In this technological era, as the world develops through the industrial revolution in technology, there is the need to preserve the environment from the harmful effects that the use of energy resources comes with.

I believe that Bitcoin consume a lot on the electricity because it eat up more energy in blockchain technology where it allows people to be able to transact with each other whereas I'm quite unsure why or how it will affect or even destroy the environment.

But is it really those mining companies fault? Our whole society needs a complete overhaul to be able to curb climate change.
There needs to be a change from the ground up, it's not individual companies that should shoulder all the additional costs of getting to a point where they're carbon neutral.

Western civilizations are always bragging about how good they're at recycling for example. Until you find out they're sending the majority of their trash to third world countries.
Now that China has stopped accepting their waste, they're looking at other countries, where there's even less regulations.

As long as we can't work together on this, on a world-wide scale, nothing will be fixed before it's too late.

I know that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies mining consume a great deal of electricity but I have never for once thought about the possible hazard the wreck and discarded mining hardware could cause to our dear environment. This a wake up call.