Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin's Proof of Work has been seriously criticized in the past years for its high energy consumption. While the CBECI (https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index) index from the University of Cambridge is most likely overestimating the electricity consumption, it cannot be negated that the problem would be substantial if this electricity was generated majorly from fossil fuels, primarily from coal (although numbers are disputed*, see below).

Some jurisdictions, primarily the EU, have considered severe restrictions for Proof of Work cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. The EU proposal, which was rejected in early April, aimed at banning trading and other services for PoW currencies for EU companies, which would have forced all EU exchanges to delist Bitcoin (and other PoW currencies like Litecoin and Monero).

Often in the justifications for the regulation Proof of Stake is mentioned as a "better" and "more environmental friendly" consensus method. However, PoS has a number of severe disadvantages, and relies on what's called "weak subjectivity (https://academy.binance.com/en/glossary/weak-subjectivity)", what means that the consensus is never completely objective and could be theoretically "faked" with sophisticated methods. It also favours centralization in much more direct ways than PoW.

So a "PoW ban" or even a "PoW restriction" would threaten one of Bitcoin's main innovations.

But instead of banning or restricting PoW currencies like Bitcoin, there is actually a much more promising alternative: Large-scale miners should have to demonstrate real carbon neutrality.

This could mean miners could have two alternatives:

1) Mine disconnected from the grid with exclusively own renewable electricity. (For example they could use a solar park or wind turbines, and store the energy accordingly).

2) Mine connected to the grid with a "100% renewable energy tariff", but ensuring they don't rely on fossil electricity in cases of scarcity of renewable electricity. This could be achieved a) powering off the mining equipment in these situations, or b) investing directly in new renewable generation. Miners would have to be equipped with smart meters, so the authorities could ensure they obey these rules.

The word real is emphasized because it wouldn't be enough to simply buy CO2 certificates (like some experts have proposed); they'd have to directly contribute to carbon-neutrality.

This kind of regulation would have at least three effects which would help combat climate change:

1) it solves the problem of miners competing with households for renewable electricity, as this wouldn't be allowed anymore (they can only mine connected to the grid as long as there is no renewables' scarcity, i.e. they can use "surplus" electricity),
2) provide a strong incentive for economies of scale in the renewable generation and storage industry,
3) provide a strong incentive to move to places where renewable energy is abundant (Sahara desert, some regions in South America like Patagonia, Brazil and the Altiplano, North American desert regions, Scandinavia/Iceland)

Feedback is much appreciated! The idea is to create an article about this topic in several languages (above all, EU languages as there the discussion about a de facto PoW ban hasn't stopped) to contribute to the discussion in a constructive way and preventing catastrophic decisions by politicians, without negating the problem.

*Estimations diverge, a recent one from the Bitcoin Mining Council claims 58% (https://bitcoinminingcouncil.com/q4-bitcoin-mining-council-survey-confirms-sustainable-power-mix-and-technological-efficiency/) is coming from renewables, but this would be still 42% from fossil fuels and (probably on a much smaller scale) nuclear energy.

I never understand why users of electricity should be criticized about how that electricity is produced. It is the producers' problem not the consumers. For example you never see anyone bashing the average Joe for using electricity that was created by burning fossil fuel! Or bash one of the factories that are not only wasting a lot of electricity but also polluting the environment in a million different ways!

The point is that it would be naive to think countries that are using the term "ban PoW" are concerned about environment or are banning "PoW". The truth is that they are banning "decentralized" bitcoin that they can not control. I assure you if bitcoin wasn't even using a single megawatt of electricity they still would want to ban it.

With all that said, it is good to move to greener energies and try to preserve the environment but let's not lose sight of what the real problem is, it is the authoritarians being scared of the slow loss of control. :-*

The problem in many countries are not the high consumption of electricity by PoW mining, but rather the local governments incompetency to provide enough power to their citizens. In some countries where Coal mining are being used as the primary source of electricity, the government gave State entities the monopoly over electricity generation.

So you will find that only a small percentage of "Green" power are outsourced to Private companies to allow them to generate electricity from other methods. (Wind/Solar etc...) Those governments want to have control over Power generation, because it provides work for corrupt officials and also opportunities for those officials to get Billions of Dollars in tenders. (where they receive kickbacks and bribes to give those tenders to specific companies that are willing to pay these bribes)

So this is not going to work in all countries, because the governments are corrupt and they are not going to allow for "Popup" Green projects ::)

Renewable energy being abundant in the Sahara Desert?Are you kidding me?
Are there any big solar power plants in the Sahara desert?
Do you know why there aren't any big power plants in the Sahara desert?
1.Nobody wants to work in the Sahara Desert.Such big solar power plants will have to be maintained by people.
2.The solar panels will have to be cleaned from all the dust on a daily basis.There is a lot of dust in the desert and there are desert storms as well.Good luck making a solar power plant in the Sahara desert.

Anyway,I'm not going to repeat the same thing over and over again,when it comes to this topic.
All this "environmental-friendly regulation of Bitcoin mining" is a big pile of s*it.

The topic of Bitcoin mining energy consumption is becoming a boring topic to me, this is because the EU who is in the frontline on the proof of the work ban Crusades has failed to properly investigate the actual energy consumption and the negative impact of POW Model of mining on the environment and another point that makes this so-called pow ban crusade look childish to me in the inclusion of a ban on the trading of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that use the proof of work method, this leads me to ask this novice question, does Bitcoin trading consume electricity and what is the direct connection between trading and high energy consumption or negative environmental impact?
This and many more are questions that need urgent answers from the EU authorities, in most countries like the US energy generation and distribution is the sole responsibility of the government and the consumer of those energy pay bills on the amount of energy consumed which generate huge revenue for the government and in this way the government sees energy consumption as a way of income generation for the government so mining farms contribute largely to the revenue generated from energy sales since Bitcoin mining consume high energy. This whole energy consumption and environmental factors raised by the EU as it relates to proof of work (pos) mechanisms to me look like corrupt policy aimed at weakening the overall dominance of the Bitcoin algorithm and giving support to a less trusted and centrally aimed proof of stake algorithm. This move trick is a sponsored politically motivated policy to me other than environmental issues because there is no correlation between the two main subject matters which are a ban on (pow mining and trading of currency that uses POW)

Apart from the other issues raised above, i also wonder how you'd do this on a technical level without touching the core values of bitcoin.

If a miner (wether it be a big or a small one) finds a block header whose sha256d hash is under the current target, but he/she hasn't registered with some sort of central authority (that verifies the "green" status), will other nodes be forced by this central authority to reject the perfectly valid block? How can you do this in a way that does not introduce any form of centralisation, control, censorship,... and in a way that the "new" consensus rules are accepted by the majority of the network?

As it currently stands, a miner can mine completely anonymous. He only needs the block header of the previous block (and maybe some unconfirmed transactions, but this is not completely necessary), he does not need to verify himself or let the network know he is mining... Only when he solves a block, he has to broadcast it (but the other nodes never know if he was the one that solved the block, or if he's merely relaying it).

no.. what would happen should any government decide to regulate mining .. is much more simple.
any asic mining farm mining in a residential area using more the X kw/h would be fined/asics confiscated/facility shutdown/facility taken off the grid
any large asic mining farm using x MW/h in a region reliant on fossil fuel will be punished in the same way

many countries are not trying to control the flow of block confirmations/rejections as that near impossible. instead they will follow the flow of electricity and punish the asic farms in the physical world. via fines/shutdowns of their equipment

Even if this was true (I believe there are two factions: authoritarian/"old-banking"-lobbyist politicians, and actual eco-idealists with poor formation in computing/blockchain - this proposal is aimed at the second group), then it would be strategically intelligent to make proposals which actually achieve the goals they claim to achieve with their "PoW-ban" regulation ideas. A mining regulation requiring them to be carbon-neutral would act directly against the carbon footprint of the industry, while a ban would not (because crypto industry would simply move into other countries, and in Europe you would trade wBTC instead). So it would be the better alternative for everybody ... with the exception of the authoritarians.

You're wrong: Ouarzazate power plant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouarzazate_Solar_Power_Station)

There are actually people living there already. :) (Or: If you go a little bit east, you have places like Dubai with a similar climate. It's not necessary to go into the deepest Central Sahara, southern Morocco/Tunisia is also ok.)
True, but there are solutions for that, there's also a big solar plant in the Atacama desert in Chile. Anyway, I think the Sahara desert isn't the ideal place (the South American Altiplano is better, for example, due to lower temperatures) but a good one close to Europe, which has some advantages (fast internet connections nearby, etc.).

So you prefer a Bitcoin ban? ;D

This is not a technical proposal so the Bitcoin software would not be affected at all. It's an idea how governments, if they're really concerned with environment and climate, could regulate the mining sector in their jurisdictions. Instead of outright banning it like China did, this is a possibility to make it 100% carbon neutral, without affecting the operation and decentralization of Bitcoin at all.

While I don't agree with the largely unjustified criticism that Bitcoin has received with its energy consumption, at least when you compare it to other industries which are using a lot more. I do agree that we probably should be looking to do something about it regardless, since it not only reducing the chance of a ban, but it also will increase adoption, since our world is definitely going down a certain path, where being green is seen as a good thing, and people automatically support you more if you look like you care about the environment. I use look like, since I do believe a lot of the companies are using it as a marketing tactic rather than actually caring.

Anyhow, would this be something that you believe would be required to be proven before being allowed to mine? The only issue I see with something like this, is largely the problem of centralisation, which obviously goes against what Bitcoin stands for. We would need a central authority to verify that the miners are using green energy, but also they would need to do it without bias, and would actually need to be able to verify it. How do you verify that you're using green energy? Would it be photos which could easily be manipulated or would it be a in person visit, which could potentially anonymise anyone wishing to stay anonymous.

While, on the surface level I think something like this would be good for adoption, it opens a can of worms in terms of privacy, centralisation, and also probably prices out a lot of people, which further increases centralisation to the richer miners.

Right, going by this it wouldn't be a requirement to mine. The only problem with that, is are miners that can't afford the necessary equipment to use green energy, going to go through all that expense just to prove to a government, that they likely aren't big fans of. I don't think so, either this becomes a requirement, which has its own downfalls highlighted above or miners just carry on how they are due to the expense.

I'm not an expert in this field but I'm not sure if we can call these plants "green". They are burning 19 ton of gasoil per day (stats are from 8 years ago) and produce lots of Sulfur dioxide which is far worse air pollutant than CO2!

What's the purpose of this? To act in accordance with politicians, whose intentions are clearly against the ideals of bitcoin, and to zip the lips of the greenwashed who're misinformed of the way bitcoin works? I don't care.

Have we observed the same attitude towards the banking system, which is far more environmentally damaging? No. They're ignorant when it comes to JPMorgan, CITI, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and 32 others who've poured $2.7 trillion into fossil fuels (https://www.ran.org/campaign/stop-banks-funding-climate-chaos/) and are responsible for most of the deforestation and the climate destruction, but hey, bitcoin? Shut that thing down at all costs. What a hang-up, gosh. 

Bitcoin has proven to help in reducing CO2 emissions. Gazprom Neft[1], in West Siberia, mines bitcoin instead of flaring the unwanted gas to the atmosphere. Furthermore, Crusoe Energy[2] uses the natural gas, which was intended to be flared, to power mining rigs. Ultimately, bitcoin can be used to deploy the use of renewable sources and to help transiting to a cleaner and more resilient electricity grid, while playing the role of energy storage at the same time[3].

[1] https://jpt.spe.org/gazprom-neft-mines-bitcoin-as-an-alternative-to-flaring-unwanted-gas
[2] https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/2021/04/13/north-american-crypto-miners-prepare-to-challenge-chinas-dominance
[3] https://assets.ctfassets.net/2d5q1td6cyxq/5mRjc9X5LTXFFihIlTt7QK/e7bcba47217b60423a01a357e036105e/BCEI_White_Paper.pdf

Didn't a study (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5325350.msg59036866#msg59036866) in the US demonstrate just that a few months ago? Perhaps this study is not good enough for European bureaucrats who are so intelligent as to advocate a ban on Bitcoin mining while at the same time making statements like this:


From this it is clear that it is not a matter of fighting pollution, but they use this argument to attack Bitcoin on a completely different level, and that is the ban on trading. We may have wondered when China did this, but let's not be surprised if the EU decides to do the same - because European politicians are not too different from their Chinese counterparts.

This picture speaks more than a thousand words, because if someone cares about 220 TWh more than the 50 000 TWh lost every year due to inefficiency, then I can only conclude that not even 100% green Bitcoin would have any effect on their thinking.

https://i.imgur.com/o1sCwL1.jpg (https://bitcoinminingcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2022.01.18-BMC-Q4-2021.pdf)

In addition to this, there is also a development by one of the well known US oil producing company Exxon Mobil which has plans in place to begin the use of petroleum refining waste energy towards the productivity of bitcoin mining in some of it satellites stations in Germany, Nigeria, Argentina, Alaska and Guyana respectively. they come into conclusion after series of consideration has been given on how the flare gas waste energy could be used to facilitate power supply for bitcoin mining activities.


Their invention is bringing two notable solution to the  energy challenges in bitcoin mining, first is the use of the waste energy from carbon waste against the environmental hazard and secondly is the conversion of those waste energies to source and power the bitcoin mining, the environmental impact assessment of bitcoin mining is providing a lasting solution to the accumulated inefficient global waste  energy from oil and gas products to effective use in bitcoin mining and this is another alternative solution for the source of energy challenge in bitcoin mining.

reference link:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.interestingengineering.com/exxon-mobil-gas-bitcoin

Let me tell you how this will end.
It will kill all bitcoin mining in Europe and North America and Australia and it will move all of it back to some country that doesn't give a damn about the environment as long as coal-produced electricity is 3 times cheaper.
This whole thing is doomed to fail just as how every single thing eco terrorists have tried to do in the past has come back to haunt us and hurt us ten times more. Let's cut the polluting industry in Europe, let's move it all to China and India, let's not give a crap how things are working there as it's no longer our problem, and let's also pay three times more for the stuff while creating more pollution by just shipping the damn products back and forth.


Why hasn't this happened to date?
Why haven't miners flocked to the deserts of Nevada and run their own off-grid panels? Because $ that's it!
The only way miners are able to get cheap renewable energy is when this energy can't be moved somewhere else, take Iceland for example.


One of the main members of the BMC is the Marathon group. They run all their 3 exa on coal, dirt-cheap coal.
When asked to prove what their main source of energy was every single one of them failed to answer, and everybody knows it because coal and gas are cheaper, and if you try to buy directly hydro energy you have people that will outbid you in the same quest to look green.

BMC is playing the same narrative as Musk, electrical cars are good, better for the environment all green, too bad they still use more energy to build, a ton of mining equipment and energy for batteries and in most cases, the electricity used is produced with more pollution than a combustion engine. Why isn't BMC showing us their solar and wind farms, their source of green energy?

As much as I hate that %$%$ Warren , she was right on the money when she sent this letter
https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2022.01.27%20Letters%20to%20Cryptominers.pdf
Why hasn't anyone from the BMC come to debunk it?
Because they know the whole 70-80-90% green energy is just for show, just like Google lies about going 100% renewables.

The trick for all those is in the way you present it, look how Google does:


So they just pay for green certificates that magically make your coal energy solar because you paid money!


That's not a study, a study has data and numbers, that's just the greenwashing brochure every company does because they know, you have to show your efforts to save the world or you're doomed in today's world.
If they would have had the numbers they claimed they would have responded to that letter, but they went full head in the sand mode.


LMFTFY!
All this "environmental-friendly regulation of everything" is going to kill us all before we manage to destroy the Earth.

Op, I like your idea, but I have another thought. I do agree that ecology is important, and that fighting climate change is a legit task that should be taken seriously. At the same time, I think that all businesses should face similar regulations in that regard. Why are miners blamed for using not eco-friendly energy, but others are not? So I think the regulations should target all large eneergy consumers, and set some limits and requirements based on, say, a certain amount of terrawatt hours or something, after which requirements to demonstrate carbon neutrality should come in place. Then, maybe, there can be some exceptions if there are truly critical industries of ensuring the basic needs of citizens are met. But all other businesses, including miner farms, should follow environmental regulations, the burden should not fall only on crypto miners. This would both be fair and more efficient to fight climate change.

The proposal would be aimed at large scale miners, not so much to the Bitcoin nerd who mines some alts with GPU or Bitcoin with a handful of miners - i.e. when you need an industrial-scale power connection, then you would be affected by this regulation. In most countries these miners have actually already to be registered with the authorities to be able to do their business legally, so I don't see major issues here. Monitoring would take place via smart meters, so the availability of renewable electricity would be compared in realtime with the consumption of the miner.

For privacy concerns, I think the (already common) housing model - where the mining hardware is inside a data center but managed by a third person - is good enough. The data center would then register for the mining permit, but the persons investing the money (and collecting rewards) can stay anonymous. Of course this would lead to a specialization of data centers who allow mining and those that do not (and don't need the permit) which would increase costs, but all this could generate is a slight difficulty increase.

I think that's the study by the Bitcoin Mining Council I cited in the OP, where 58% of mining energy was estimated to be renewable. The problem is that 1) 42% are still a lot of fossil electricity and 2) most of this fossil electricity is likely to be used in timeframes where there's a general renewable energy scarcity, i.e. in winter nights without much wind.

The purpose is to state an alternative for regulators which would avoid further damage to the Bitcoin ecosystem - which is already happening by the action of countries like China, and is likely to worsen if the EU enacts similar laws, as a lot of countries could follow their example. Instead, the idea is to further boost a change which will need to happen if Bitcoin does't want to collide with efforts to improve environmental friendliness. The development is already going into the right direction but 1% improvement in the renewable/non renewable rate per quarter (according to the BMC study) is too slow. The examples you point out of course should also be considered sustainable sources.

If this happens, I doubt these countries will stay behind and not enact a similar regulation. You cited China which has already banned mining, and India has considered ultra-hard anti-Bitcoin regulation.

The choice at the end will be: 1) Bitcoin/PoW ban or 2) transition of mining towards 100% renewables. Of course it would be better if 2) is achieved without any regulation purely by market forces. But the danger of 1) becoming widespread is real. See this thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5395541.0).

Exactly. That's why perhaps regulation is needed and market forces are still not strong enough. A further 30-50% cost decrease for renewable energy could make regulation unnecessary, but it's perhaps too slow.

I actually don't see a big difference between both situations. The goal of the proposal is to get the "renewable mining cost < non-renewable mining cost" equation to actually work, which still isn't always the case. In the case of this proposal it would be a relatively "authoritarian" measure towards miners, but still much better than the Chinese or proposed EU normative.

I completely agree with you here that a lot of greenwashing occurs, and that's why in my proposal in the OP CO2 certificates would not be allowed; there would be a direct control by smart metering.

There are already regulations of this kind for industries with a large energy consumption. For example, in France almost every winter there's electricity shortage and some industries are then cut off the grid for some hours of the day. There are also countries where there's an "opt-in" regulation like in Argentina: if you agree to reduce your consumption in times of shortage, then you pay less for your electricity.

So the basics of that concept aren't that new. An opt-in regulation like in Argentina but with carbon neutrality requirement would actually also be interesting, but it would be more complex.

@pooya87: 19 tons/day is nothing for a 500+ MW plant. It's comparable with the consumption of a single aircraft. A Boeing 747 consumes 10-11 tonnes per hour!

@Lucius: See my answer to BlackHatCoiner.

@Dunamisx: Thanks for the examples, as I wrote to BlackHatCoiner these techniques are obviously sustainable, although their potential isn't as big as renewable energies (and will likely decrease over time).

I agree to OP that Bitcoin's electricity consumption could be easily solved by appropriate regulations, not a ban.

Introducing a special large-scale mining license required to operate a certain number of MW should be quite effective to solve the problem of dirty mining.
If a big miner is mining without license, he will get his plant shut down until he has a license and pay for his wrongdoing for mining without license.
Small hobby / private miners should be excluded because it would be pointless and build up too much paperwork.
It's important to get the big fishes.

Just a suggestion how I would do it.

Banning would be completely pointless as miners would move somewhere else, where electricity is cheap and dirty.
Every Bitcoin mined off renewable energy is an important step to make Bitcoin more renewable and it should be our goal to make as many Bitcoins mined off renewable energy.

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I wouldn't engage in whataboutism, it's quite pointless because using whataboutism could suggest we have no real arguments. But we surely have.
I don't need to list all arguments here because it should be clear.
Our focus should be: improve Bitcoin's carbon footprint.

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If that would "kill" mining in Europe, it would mean that renewable mining is not profitable at all. I'm in doubt if that is true. Renewable energy can be quite cheap when it's available in large numbers and that's where it's especially available in a surplus.
In addition, using wasted energy for mining could also make renewables more competitive in some cases.

Even if my consideration above is 100% wrong, if mining in Europe would be "killed" from such regulations it would mean that the US and Canada would do nothing similar like Europe, which should be quite unlikely. There will be similar mandates and we should add them as part of the Paris climate deal or similar. Ok, maybe if Trump should get elected again, he would do his own thing because it's benefitting him at cost of the planet.  :D
But renewable mining in Texas is already a large (and obviously competitive) electricity source for mining.
And I'm sure there will be some (appropriate) mandates for mining in a Paris climate deal.

I don't deny that we should put pressure on China and India to do more to prevent climate change but doing nothing and just pointing at China and India etc. won't solve anything.


I don't know on which facts this opinion is based on but climate change could make large parts of our planet uninhabitable (https://www.wur.nl/en/newsarticle/Near-unlivable-heat-for-one-third-of-humans-within-50-years-if-greenhouse-gas-emissions-are-not-cut.htm) end of the current century, no doubt here if we are lazy.
If not our part of the planet will get uninhabitable, a big chunk of people will be forced to leave their country and cause a mass-scale refugee crisis, including civil wars and unrest of all sorts.
But that's off-topic here I guess.

Our option to make Bitcoin renewable are quite big, there are already solutions and there will be even more. Renewable mining has a chance to be very beneficial overall, also for renewable energy itself.

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That's true but there's another part referencing this and it's total a total BS claim (Alex de Vries has very low understanding of the issue):

The argument from de Vries goes like this: if the rice of BTC is lower, less mining would be done because it's less profitable and therefore, there would be less pollution.
It's technically somehown true: Yes, if the price of BTC would be lower, in theory, less mining would be done as miners need to be profitable to pay for electricity bills, staff, equipment.

However, his argument is pointless because it doesn't make mining more ecological.
And very likely, the price wouldn't even go down, nobody can guarantee that, maybe it will even go up as people are forced to HODL because selling is restricted and mining isn't based in EU.
Maybe miners wouldn't decrease mining power for whatever reason; maybe because fiat gets inflated even more, so miners take a fiat loan and start mining? Nobody knows!
It's a pointless BS argument from des Vries because it's based on pure speculation and doesn't make even one Hash more ecological.

In my opinion it's very important to debunk that argument because it's completely BS and very damaging for Bitcoin. If de Vries continues his wrong talking points and gets some endorsements from politicians, Bitcoin will have a very hard time in Europe and innovation would go somewhere else. I don't even know how he wants to implement it and at what cost.  ::)
He has a lack of knowledge and seems even proud of it.

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tl;dr
Yes, we need to target miners by appropriate regulation and encourage or mandate to use renewable energy. Bans are not a solution because bans don't solve anything; the problem is just getting banned until it comes back or arises elsewhere.

You can't really begin to compare the highly efficient and expensive fuel used in an airplane like Boeing 747 with the lowest quality dirt cheap gasoil with a lot of impurities used here. Not to mention that the plane would emit CO2 while this is emitting SO2 which is worse.

well it always come to my mind to be honest :D

even tho we stop burning fossil fuel to generate energy and do it for mining, the government will still critized mining because of waste energy

the will stop critized bitcoin or other crypto mining if the gov ifself got the money from it like tax for miner etc.

if the gov dont get any penny from crypto no matter who clean the energy it still be controversy (just my opinion)

I think first is more than enough. Just make it a self sustainable place and that's more than enough.

However, what I wonder is that why do we not ask for the same thing on other companies? There are so many companies that destroy the world, even before crypto was a thing, even before mining was a thing, we had so many companies in the energy sector destroying world, why didn't we ask them to be self sustaining in energy? We didn't because we needed them, and that's why they were let go.

Just Texas energy companies alone destroy the world in a horrible pace, do not get me started on china pollution as well. It's obviously one sided to ask for bitcoin to be getting better when everyone else goes on regularly.

And I don't engage with eco-propaganda, that's why I sounded a whatabout. We already have a long list of arguments (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5325350) and that's just one of the many threads in bitcointalk. It is already well-known that there's a significant usage of renewable sources for generating bitcoins.

The only ones who aren't convinced yet, are either those who have no idea how the system works (see cleanupbitcoin.com) or those who want to diminish decentralization.

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Bitcoin and regulation don't go together. We're perpetually seeing this with carbon footprint awareness and with the KYC & AML nonsense.

SERIOUSLY? this is your defensive proof of bitcoin going green
you really need to do some research because yet again your defense can be ripped apart in seconds and become meaningless and then be used as a counter statement to suggest bitcoin is not green

firstly that particular gas is flared because its not pure..
this small trial you linked is no different. they do not purify the dirty gas to then mine with.. and "flaring" is the burning of dirty gas..
mining with this same gas is also burning the same dirty gas. so again there is no change to what gets pushed out into the atmosphere.
also this is a small trial of one small gas plant. and not a prime example of any significant change to the % of cleaner energy production aimed towards bitcoin mining. nor is it any change to even 0.00XX% of the CO2 levels of the atmosphere

EMPHASIS of the article you linked:

its like you want to use a small example of a 0.001% to suggest it proves the 60%+ you are not talking about.
why use this example at all. especially without doing the research on if they even cleaned up the exhaust..
here is a hint. its the same dirty gas being burned. cleaning the gas is too expensive.. thats the whole point of flaring it rather then letting it through the pipeline

your basically using the silly argument of (analogy time)
telling a native indian that white people hunting buffalo for sport(poaching), wasting the carcass has been solved because you witnessed one hunter take the skin off and use it as a rain coat..
pretending that using just the skin somehow makes the wasted meat and bone not part of the argument. and also that your one small example is a example of the whole practice of buffalo slaughter

ignoring how smarter people for years chose to domesticate some buffalo and breed them, humanely slaughter them, where by every ounce of meat and bone and skin enters the food and fashion industry using the meat and skin 100% more productively and humanely thus not requiring the need to rely on the acts of the wasteful poachers

what you have failed to announce which would be a stronger debate is these things:
A. even since 2014, the majority of large mining farms have chosen to set up asic warehouse farming in regions with hydroplants. thus even from the start of the asic revolution from GPU, bitcoin has been going green.
far more hashpower is green due to these choices than the silly small example you are choosing to announce instead,

B. also comparing to other algo's of POW which are more cpu/GPU based mining. those have less control on the source/location of electric for mining. because they are more hobby miners in residential area's of impoverished countries that have less choice. meaning that there are many other crap coins that are more dirty than bitcoin

C. also unlike those other PoW dirty/crap coins. bitcoin has put significant investment into the efficiency of hashpower. meaning more security of the network and utility of electric makes every watt of electricity used for bitcoin more valuable.
imagine say 10 PC's doing CPU/GPU mining at 350w each (3.5kw) in residential area's with no control of power source.
VS a single bitcoin ASIC of 3.5kw(same as 10 pc's) in a hydroplant region.
same power amount. but bitcoin gives:
100% renewable
10,000,000% more hashing security

if you had the choice between
a coin that has 1ghash for 3.5kw of fossil fuel
a coin that has 110thash for 3.5kw of renewable..
which would you say is better

D. also many of these large farms also do large contracts with power plants to use up their 'excess' power that is 'wasted' ((unused)far more then the flared example)
yep even the solar and hydro industry has "waste" electric that goes unused.. but atleast its clean
so by using this energy is like the same as using the flared. but using CLEAN energy that would have gone to waste
where by this funding can help speed up the power industry to get extra income to invest into building more renewable plants
adding an emphasis to this. far more contracts exist for this excess hydro energy use than your silly flare use example.

basically. flaring gas does not make the exhaust of that gas any better. instead it just 'uses' that gas for a purpose.
thus its still 'waste' as in 'dirty' just not 'waste' as in 'unused'
but then actually using that dirty gas. is not causing any significant financial benefit to then have power companies get enough extra income to then invest into converting to more renewable means of power production
..
in short. by thinking the argument can be settled by the use of a petty small 'flare' example that has been unresearched. you have actually probably opened the argument up even more to make bitcoin look bad by you ignoring the major green activities bitcoin has actually done on large scale

This solves nothing because there is twisted plot here.

So if miners need to switch to a green energy grid then we will need to invest into lands, power wind fields, ocean mills, solar panel. For large corporation who has thousands of miners running, I am way doubtful that it will full-fill the need in very short area.

The electricity generated with the renewable sources is not steady and it highly depends on atmospheres and climate change.

There would be catastrophic failure to the network if big rigs keep rebooting due to power shortages all around the globe.

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Secondly, why are we forcing bitcoin mining in the direction of renewable energy tariffs again?

Fuel prices are soaring up, and there is new craze of Electrical vehicles these days. Its not in buzz right now but somehow it will be in demand.

This means there would be Electrical Stations all around the national grid eating huge energy. Well I love the idea that Cars will be environmental friendly but is the electricity coming from those station is entirely  coming from renewable energy plants? I dont think so?

If this is really a concerns, then I am pretty sure they should be focused too.

No. It's a defensive proof that it's potentially green.

There is, because if they flared the gas, they would have to use electricity if they wanted to mine. They wouldn't do this in the first place, but now they're converting their waste to money. Isn't less waste beneficial?

Sure, I know I haven't mentioned almost anything and thanks for bringing these up. However, it's my turn to say that this is whataboutism:

How are miners that are forced to buy more expensive electricity or pay some fees for using dirty electricity are going to successfully compete against miners who use cheap fossil fuels? A more sensible approach is to just tax miners and use that money to combat climate change directly, but taxing miners can be a bit tricky, because they don't make any profit until they sell their coins, so there's a potential for some loopholes.

Add Russia which has tons of oil it can't sell, Nigeria has the same problem, Indonesia which is the biggest coal exporter...
Plenty on the list, it doesn't have to be India and China and it doesn't have to be energy produced there, just like the eco-friendly batteries or other products Europe imports.

Let's do a two in one here:



Renewables are profitable only with subsidies. /end
It's just like me claiming my Easter expenses were zero since we used my wife's cc card all day.  ;)

Let's take for example the above-mentioned Ouarzazate plant 510 MW,  $3.9 billion.
Watts Bar Nuclear Plant nuclear plant, 2332 MW  $12 billion.

On paper, the nuclear plant has a bit of advantage, nearly 5 times the capacity with just 3 times the cost.
But the devil is in the details:
Annual net output   13,650 GWh vs 1.430 GWh.
And suddenly you need to spend 39 billion to achieve the same electrical output as a 12 billion nuclear plant + batteries costs.

Should we do the math on how much Germany spent on solar panels that haven't seen the sun for 6 days in January and had a zero energy output?

If renewables would be cheaper we wouldn't have to subsidize them while taxing fossil.
If renewables would be cheaper, I wouldn't have to quote myself this over and over again:



I've been asking for proof of a large farm using only renewables for years, I've seen only claims and no factual data, do you have that?


In Sri Lanka, Organic Farming Went Catastrophically Wrong
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/05/sri-lanka-organic-farming-crisis/


Two years later
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/sri-lanka-crisis-sri-lanka-parliament-speaker-warns-crisis-risking-starvation-2866042



He is perfectly right, if the price goes down less energy is spent, Bitcoin can perfectly work with 100 exahash, consuming 50% of the energy used now. And it's not "somehow" true, it's the reality, proven numerous times if we look at the charts of the price and hash rate.
For example at 10k is highly likely I will shut down my miners for 60$ a month, it's just not worth it, I'm better off offering that energy for people to charge their cars at my door.

you need to do alot more research..
you must have forgot the YEARS of many many examples of large asic farms mining in hydro electric regions.
how about the icelandic geo-thermals.. oh you forgot them too.. ?

here is a big hint
forget wasting time research solar.. its just not economically sound. never has been
the ROI of solar is decades. but the lifecycle of an asic needing solar is 2 years. meaning with the hashrate competition you are upgrading asics and needing more energy to power more asics to match new hashrate before you even broke even on the first round of investment in solar. and it will always be the case.

im not sure why in 2022.. being 8 years after ASICS started mining farms. your still even trying to bring solar into the conversation as an option....
asic farms learned in 2014 that hydro and geothermal were the way forward

so dont waste another second thinking about solar. as it seems to have been a entire waste of years of your life..
instead spend those years you wasted on volcanic, geothermal and hydro power.. thats where you may learn some stuff

I'd just like to see some basic regulation making every large mining company have to report their percentages for energy use. I'm pretty sure if you're running a big operation you can get this data and figure it out. Require them to post it on their website and include their quarterly energy use breakdown in quarterly financial reports. Something like that.

That way it is all transparent. Of course there needs to be the ability to explain whether or not they use wasted energy even fossil fuels as well. Like some mining operations use fossil fuels but like at the actual power plant and they just use excess wasted energy when there is excess and they don't use energy when the grid needs the full resources of the power plant. So I guess that sort of thing could be added to the energy breakdown as well.

Once these big mining operations energy breakdowns are all required to be public, then just have a basic regulatory economic incentive to gradually push them towards renewables and already produced wasted energy. Like have a percentage of their mining that needs to be renewable or wasted energy and if they are below that they get dinged on taxes or have to pay fees toward renewable energy production or something like that. Or do it the other way where is they are over the percentage they get tax breaks. And have it so every couple of years that goal percentage of renewable + wasted energy goes up a bit, to gradually help guide even mining owners who don't give a damn about the environment toward clean energy.

Bitcoin mining is a hugely beneficial thing for humanity, but there needs to be some basic regulation that'll help change the optics of mining that the average non-bitcoiner has about it since there is a very strong negative narrative by uninformed people, which is nearly everyone. Transparency is important, because if US mining companies, for example, could say hey we collectively use 60% renewable energy and 20% wasted already produced energy, while the US as a whole only uses 30% renewables that would be an indisputible positive narrative for Bitcoin mining that even the staunchest or most uninformed critics couldn't argue against.

The main other thing I can think of in terms of regulation is that local counties and such should put in place basic noise/distance and energy use restrictions on mining farms. Because they more relevant critique of mining farms that I see is that mining farms will set up shop in some town and produce a lot of noise near residential or commerical areas and cause the price of energy for residents to go up. Local municipalities should just implement their own regulations on noise and energy use, limiting a mining operation that is just running on-grid like a normal energy user to a certain amount of energy that won't affect residents energy cost, or charging mining operations a higher cost of energy to offset the price effects of any energy supply shortage they might create. Of course a small local tax could be part of this as well to make sure the mining operation is benefiting the local area economically considering mining operations don't require many jobs. This way towns that decide they don't want Bitcoin mining can implement strict regulations and they just won't benefit from that business, while towns that want to enjoy the economic benefits of mining can have less restrictive regulations that still protect the residents from the negatives and they will attract mining operations.


Bitcoin mining already incentives cheap, wasted, stranged, and therefore often renewable energy use. But the negative narratives and occasionally actual negative effects of bitcoin mining are what gets all the play among the media and the masses. A little bit of smart economic incentive regulation to nudge things further to renewables and wasted energy, along with transparency, would go a long way to clearing up the negative narratives around Bitcoin mining. The main problem with mining are the negative, usually false, narratives that permeate the public consciousness.

Iceland's total geothermal capacity is 755 MW.
Only one of the facilities Maraha has at Hardin is 110 MW and the one in Texa is 300 MW.

Iceland's total production from geothermal is 6,010 GWh, so in best case scenario they could host 150k s9j or roughly 7% of the total hashrate (for now) and only if they shut all the other industries on the island.

Now since you're such a know it all, can you please present some facts and data about how much of the current hashrate is in Iceland?

In the case of Russia you're right but this problem should be temporary (at least I hope so). But countries with a weak power grid like Nigeria wouldn't be very happy with a sudden "invasion" of miners. They could require them to work off-grid but if they use fossil fuel (which would not make much sense anyway cost-wise) and emissions are too high, there would for sure be protests and populist governments in these situations tend to ban or restrict it. Indonesia seems to be Bitcoin-friendly for now but that could also change in such a case. Both Nigeria and Indonesia are densely populated so excessive pollution by "Bitcoin factories" for sure wouldn't be very popular.

Maybe there will be some "regulatory islands" in the world but it will probably be not significant enough to counter the incentives for renewables-based mining if most bigger countries adopt an "miners must go CO2-neutral" policy.

That was the case until a couple of years ago, so it still applies to the Ouarzazate plant which was begun in 2013. But the tendency goes into the opposite direction. From 2013 to now the prices for solar energy fell by more than half according to this source (https://www.irena.org/newsroom/pressreleases/2020/Jun/Renewables-Increasingly-Beat-Even-Cheapest-Coal-Competitors-on-Cost) and this wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source) shows (with many other sources/graphs) that they're increasingly competitive.

There were already cases in some countries where an unexpected (and un-subsidiarized) renewable energy boom was responded with taxation, like in Spain in the early 2010s.

You may be right that the equation "renewables are cheaper than fossil" is still not true in a large part of the world, but the tendency goes clearly into this direction, see above. But until this point has been reached (I expect it to take ~5 years more), if you want miners to be climate-friendly you have to provide them additional incentives. (Small miners don't matter, the proposal is for large-scale operations)

One can of course ignore the problem, or wait for it to resolve. But that would mean to empower the fraction which thinks that a Bitcoin ban is needed (and those that abuse that argument).

And we've already discussed the California graph in another thread. I'm still not convinced. :)

Agree somewhat here, but a tighter profit calculation would also prevent miners to go for renewable energy, as long as they're still more expensive than fossil fuels. So a ban followed by a price crash could actually punish those miners who have invested in ecologically-friendly electricity. Less energy would be used for mining, but the proportion of "dirty" energy would be higher. And I agree with 1miau that a price crash won't necessarily happen after a PoW ban. Bitcoin could even still be traded in Europe, in the form of wBTC-like tokens on PoS blockchains.

They don't need to buy all the infrastructure in the same region. Unless miners aren't the primary electricity consumer of a region there should be no scarcity problem.

Are you referring to the bitcoin network? That wouldn't matter at all, difficulty would become a bit lower only if miners mine a bit less (the nodes that matter for the BTC network are mining pools, not miners themselves).

If you referred to electricity networks (which would be a problem) then thats what I targeted with the second part of the OP proposal - miners would have to mine in a way power grids aren't affected. It's like with a large factory: they must have an adequate connection.

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Because renewable tariffs provide incentives for the expansion of renewable power plants.

Agree in your stance against cleanupbitcoin.com, but not on your conclusion. A transition to a "almost 100%" proportion of renewables would have only advantages (also that you're robbing the anti-decentralization folks one of their arguments) and I don't see where it should be favouring centralization.

The kind of fuel doesn't change much (I'd argue that the burning process in a stationary engine should be more efficient than in an aircraft), the point is that the aircraft provides a service to 300-500 persons a day, while the power plant provides a basic, everyday service for around one million people. It's comparing apples with oranges, such a big plant (as all factories etc.) will always consume some fossil fuels.

@thecodebear, @1miau: Agree with your proposals. These would be a bit less harsh than the one outlined in the OP, and that would be probably better. I also am thinking about opt-in models, with reduced taxes or cheaper electricity in exchange for going 100%-renewable (and shutting down in power shortage situations).

It's not that I'm wanting to lobby for the OP proposal exclusively. What I want to achieve is a discussion which could lead in to proposals which could be presented to e.g. the EU authorities as an alternative for a PoW ban. I consider PoW an outstanding achievement of Bitcoin and all alternatives until now have severe shortcomings. That's the reason for this thread and I'm quite happy with the development of the discussion, even if many don't agree with me here :)

How about we talk numbers?
Ouarzazate produced 1470 Ghw a year, let's make it 40 years with no operational costs, that's  58 Twh, or 58 billion kWh for a price of $3.9 billion. How much does it make in cents/kwh?  :D

Or let's go for solar panels, average low in the US (cheaper than Europe) get's you $2.75 per watt.
So a 10 KW panel is 27k, which with the average sun in Europe will get you 18Mwh, fast forward 30 years 547Mwh, you're not going to like it when it goes to cents/kwh :).

As for your link..

At those costs, the entire BMC would be bankrupt ;).

Then again, if green energy is so cheap how comes that after burning half a trillion Germany still has such prices and still imports energy from Denmark and Norway whenever there are two days without sun and it's still dependent on gas turbines and coal?

Hydro, that's quite reliable, wind, it can be too but it's pretty restrictive, solar is a joke,  nuclear beats the crap out of every single other form.
 

@stompix: The entire point of the thread is that renewables are still (in many regions) not the cheapest option. So again, miners need additional incentives to change to 100% renewables. But if current tendencies continue, then this will be the case in 5 years or less. So the goal would be to get miners to operate now as if costs were from 2027.

6.8 ct/kWh is indeed a likely correct solar production cost for 2019 (the LCOE calculation includes capital costs and fuel costs, the latter are low in renewable plants as fuel is only needed for auxiliary machinery). But this was three years ago; if we continue with the tendency of 13% price fall per year, then we have 5.91 cents for 2020, 5.15 cents for 2021 and 4.48 for 2022. And this would be the global average, not the price in the "best" regions. The Lazard study from 2020 mentioned in the second link even claimed <4 ct, but that may be too optimistic; these costs may be appropiate for places like Mexico but not for Europe.

Ouarzazate has also the advantage that it's mostly a CSP plant and produces some energy also at nighttime due to molten salt storage. So one can say it's a higher quality electricity than that coming from PV panels or wind turbines with a more uneven production which justifies a higher cost. A more modern CSP plant, Cerro Dominador in Chile (inaugurated in 2021), has already a better efficiency: it costed 1 billion USD for a production of 950 MWh/year. With operation costs and assuming 40 years of operation we're getting values slightly over 4 ct/kWh.

And I'm telling you what's going to happen.
Nobody is going to give subsidies to miners in this energy crisis and no miner will be able to compete with others with unsubsidized green energy.

The outcome will be as simple as the first days of covid when you had to either pay 5 euros for a mask or cut your t-shirt to make one, except that now you're going to have to pay some African warlord or some Asian dictator another fee on top of your bitcoin tx fee so you can get your transaction confirmed, a ViaBtc accelerator mandatory and not free.


And by 2050 we will get paid to burn electricity, right?  ;D


When a 100MW plant produces 380Gwh a year and has storage capabilities for 7 hours, there are 9 hours a day missing from the scheme!  ;)


One of those numbers is definitely wrong.
Also: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chile-energy-solar-idUKKBN1X9132


So 1 billion and then it had to be bailed out by the state. What a surprise.

So there would be no miners left at all?

As I don't think you don't know how the difficulty mechanism works (I thought I read you was engaged in mining, so you should, but I may be wrong), I guess you mean mining power would concentrate in a couple of authoritarian states. Well, this was already the case, from 2013/14 to 2021. As of now a lot is located in Kazakhstan which is also not really democratic.

About the solar/ CSP/Ouarzazate/Cerro Dominador discussion: I've no problem to discuss the dirty details here, even if this means derailing the thread a bit because I don't think CSP is used massively for mining at this moment. CSP is indeed more expensive than photovoltaics like written in the link you posted. But:

Maybe, but the important hours PV can't cover are generally the 18/19-22/23h timeframe where people are returning home from work and eating. This is the main disadvantage of PV solar, and CSP can jump in here, being more reliable for this timeframe than wind (at least in sunny countries). After 23h electricity consumption is usually much lower.

Probably yes, during midday in many regions electricity prices will be near-zero or negative, like it occurs already in stormy conditions in countries with many wind turbines. That's not bad, as it can be used for hydrogen production etc. (we've already discussed that elsewhere ...)

(Edit: Yeah, I know what you wanted to say probably is that the price decrease can't last forever. Here I even agree partially. But currently we're still in a falling tendency in the case of wind and solar, while the price for other generation methods like coal and nuclear are stagnant or even follow inflation.)

Abengoa didn't come close to bankruptcy due to Cerro Dominador but due to problems in Spain.

In the west no, you will have just as many as plastic straw makers  ;)


Of course, I'm not talking about an epoch of block times over 30 minutes or so, I'm talking about the realistic possibility of mining getting far more concentrated in countries and in the hands of people that are not that interested in the concept but the money.

And here we have the slippery slope of totalitarian dictatorship, it's one thing to do business in China, something else in Tadjikistan, and far more "interesting" trying to set up shop in North Korea, and I'm ending this with NK because it fits here perfectly, a country that uses BTC but only for the ruling class interest. Once you have only a few countries left with cheap mining that could bankrupt other mining initiatives, a ton of gear at scrap metal prices, what stops such an individual to gain a majority of the hashrate, what stops his pools from banning tx under x, what stops him from milking everything he can get milked, just as masks at 5 euros.

The security of the network depends right now mainly on the daily reward and the electricity price.
Having the electricity price go up two times means doubling the cost, longer ROI, less attractive as a business, cheaper gear on sale, less hash rate needed to get 51%, not only does it get cheaper to attack it but also the problem of manufacturing the equivalent gear is no longer there.

And risk this in order to label mining as a "green" industry? Fuck no!


And the problems in Spain being subsidies being abruptly cut by the state ;).


We could discuss not hydro /geo renewables that are used by miners right now.
There is only one that is in planning, and it's just a publicity stunt, the 3.8 MW "farm" that will power 1% of the gear Blockstream has.