Bitcoin Forum

Hey
We all know how the year had been :( , unfortunately we have seen worst case of bush fire in Amazon , in Australia , environment is changing drastically , not so long enough we used to have snow here and now it's already January , no sign of snow ...
In certain places where it was supposed to be winter , it's raining there tremendously and it's something that am seeing from my own eyes.
I think this 2020 we should focus on reducing the carbon footprint of bitcoins , reduce the energy minning takes ND the pollution it generates .
Hopefully the community will come forward and the creators will also look out for this .
If you are in the IT sector please spare some time and brains for this problem and try finding a way out .

P.S. people please understand that I do not mean they cause bush fires !! It's all about environment change :)

I'm afraid the problem is much more complicated than you think. In general, I positively welcome your position on this but I think that people who make decisions won't do anything about that right now. There will certainly be more effective ways of mining bitcoin, but not in the foreseeable future.

You really think that Bitcoin is to blame for the fires in the Amazon or Australia, or for the snow not falling in the winter like it used to? More than once in this forum, the thesis about Bitcoin as the cause of the problem has been taken down to the ground. More than 2 thirds of the energy used for mining comes from renewable sources, mainly hydropower. I don't know what more the crypto community should do to prevent global warming or all the catastrophes happening in the world, they are the consequence of what began after WW II, and the consequences are visible today, the progress and civilization we have today have their price.

Good post to see how insignificant the impact of Bitcoin mining really is.

Yes of course I understand but at the same time the damage it's doing is irreplaceable :( ,
Maybe after the whole Bitcoin is mined,we won't have that problem anymore but still there are some years left and maybe there could be a law like ,
People who wanna mine should actually just you know use the renewable sources of energy for the 80% of part .
This would obviously require input at first but after that it could prove to be very cheap for the user too.

Omg it's completely hilarious how you interpreted this , it's like how we could as a community make bitcoins environment friendly and self sustainable .
You think Bitcoiners went and lit the fire is what I meant?
Dude , every step counts !
EVERY !
Wether it's growing the community in a greener way or looking for other sources ..
Please take an account of what you really think people mean and what they actually mean :) .

Unfortunately the source you stated is something I already read , you should understand that different scientists and different forums are displaying a different result everywhere

For example :-

Depending on the energy source, researchers estimate that crypto-mining can produce 3-15 million tons of global carbon emissions.


This !
It's an estimate but one should understand that countries like China and others where the mining hub is located are not using the renewable sources that much .
People are doing it illegally in developing countries too , it's not as easy as you would read.

Bitcoin will never have an environment friendly PoW algorithm.

The power you spend to mine bitcoins is the price you pay to secure the system. The huge amount of electricity being spent on the bitcoin network just shows how much people willing to spend to keep the blockchain secure.

And it is still more environment friendly than the whole central banking scam.

1. mining is already becoming more sustainable. the hashrate/watt is getting more efficient all the time. imagine hashing 100exahash using GPU and you will see that if we didnt develop ASICS the electric use would be much much much much(not exaggerating) higher
take for instance 9GPU rig vs a antminer s9 . (same electric use)
900mhash(gpu) vs 14thash
yep ASIC is 15,555x more efficient than GPU

2. bushfires are not caused by mining... if it was then china and georgia would be on fire. not the amazon/australia.
the reason the amazon and australia burn is due to the lack of water. carbon is a lung health issue because the 'greenhousegas' actually shows the upper atmosphere is cooling. yep its cooling. heat rises and more is getting released into the atmosphere rather than being reflected back in.. because the greenhouse affect is not reflecting much back.... at ground level the reason why not as much heat is getting evaporated into the air is lack of water. yep the water cycle has more problems than carbon.

3. snow at christmas... i think you have been watching too much cocacola adverts and fairy tale books making people think they remember snow at christmas every year.. truth is snow is more of a february period.
in england we have historical data that in the last 60 years we only had 9 times of a white christmas but many more of a white february. even things like the london 'frost fair' in the 1800's was in february.
what you find out is things like the cartoon 'the snowman' (nothing to do with christmas the author says) is featured on tv at christmas. even things like the movies 'frozen' 1&2.(again nothing to do with christmas) are released around the november/december period.
did you know most christmas movies are not filmed at christmas. but filmed using fake snow and people celebrating christ while outside the studio its summer. yep snow on TV is usually fake snow.. paper mache

...
summary. dont take media's opinion on how things are. actually do the math find the stats and actually really think about whats being presented to you

Okay I do agree Bitcoin does contribute to pollution but, that is negligible.

Major concern is vehicular pollution and industrial pollution. Third world countries have started working on it but, industrial power giants like America are ignoring it.

Things have to change and change can come only when big leaders agree and not disagree. I live in acoutry where plastic bags have been banned completely, more and more innovative ideas are being implemented to reduce carbon footprint. Like subsidizing electric vehicles and promoting it in large scale.

Hopefully my country Neill achieve the target within the next decade.

P.S I live in a third world country.

I agree with you that every step counts, but Lucius and the post of mine he quoted are still accurate. Bitcoin is a tiny proportion of global energy usage. If you somehow managed to make bitcoin 99% more efficient, you would still have saved far less electricity than if you made TVs (or cable boxes, or computers, or light bulbs, etc.) 1% more efficient.

Again, a tiny fraction. Based on the research I have seen, even the higher figure of 15 millions tonnes of CO₂ is total current emissions from cryptomining, so works out at less than 3 million tonnes per year. Global CO₂ emissions are currently over 40 billion tonnes per year, meaning cryptocurrency is less than 0.01%. For comparison, console gaming (not including mobile or PC gaming), accounts for 30 million tonnes per year, and streaming online porn accounts for 100 million tonnes per year. If everyone in the world watched 3% less porn than they currently watch, it would offset the entire bitcoin network and more.

I just answered what you state in your post, and you link the fires in Amazonia, Australia and the lack of snow with Bitcoin mining? We all got the impression that you thinking is going in that direction.


Please take into consideration that I and other members of the forum cannot read your thoughts and that we are only responding to what you wrote.


You completely ignore the fact that almost all major mining farms in China use hydroelectric power, and that carbon emissions from mining is so insignificant that it's not worth discussing it at all. So-called experts and scientists who make some kind of calculations are mostly ignorant or paid to create a false image of Bitcoin. I believe more in what o_e_l_e_o post, then into all their nonsense.

Sichuan beckons power-hungry cryptocurrency miners to the home of the pandas with cheap and plentiful hydroelectricity (https://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/3035665/cryptocurrency-miners-tap-sichuans-cheap-hydropower)

Electricity is the most important problem for making mining sustainable. Electricity consumption is already a general problem. Bitcoin mining needs to be done with renewable energy sources. Bitcoin production is also very expensive equipment.

in my opinion bitcoin mining is not only the cause of that pollution maybe it just adds a little because it also use electricity
there already a lot of pollution in the world before bitcoin is created it's also increasing because power demands continue to rise
the main cause of pollution is the new building more population that use a lot of electricity
if you want to change maybe start from yourself and show us some examples like stop using gadgets and devices that use electricity

It's a noble thought! Even though bitcoin mining uses a very small fraction of world energy consumption, but we need to start taking baby steps! I believe the only way to make bitcoin mining sustainable and to reduce carbon emission, is to move to alternative energy source. So solar power is a very good alternative for all small bitcoin miners. Yes, it is expensive but also it is a one time cost! Usually each solar panel comes with 10 years lifetime so the investment towards solar panel also gets a bigger payback period. As of now, I don't see any other viable options to make mining sustainable. let me know your thoughts!

              Regardless of whether we mined or not, still the electricity consumption does have negative effects on different areas that is also why I agree with your opinion, and the excessive usage of electricity coupled with different machines and technology for mining it is much more of a headache than to reduce the pollution. Basically it would also result your idea into adapting renewable resource of energy which is up until now scientists keep researching ways to achieve it. For example is the nuclear source which is commonly heard, but the problem is that, it is like a double edge sword, which is if the government officially supports its usage and provides funding it is also way too risky and could also potentially harm the environment. In the end we could just only bare with it and keep on transcending and researching new ways which has  lesser harm with great benefits, but I think it is quiet impossible as of now. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Well if anyone sticks on these “it is better than it was” / “others do worst” kind of arguments we are in bad shape.
As a mother, I use bitcoin because I think it will bring a better world to my children.
At the same time, as an engineer, my opinion is that it will be an epic failure if such hashpower can’t do more than just secure bitcoin blockchain.

I'm in IT, and I have already devised a master plan that will effectively reduce mining footprint (actually Satoshi did): Do NOTHING.

Yes nothing. Because the halvings ensure mining becomes less and less profitable overtime, the large mining you see today will be gone tomorrow. You are only watching the last leg, until it becomes unprofitable to mine at any electricity price.

Exactly how you should always consider the State intervening in the economy: Don't. Just wait it out and see how it solves by itself due to free market forces.

As for bush fires, i think Australia (the World actually) should somehow start a massive reforestation campaign.

I also think that Mining for Bitcoin will not last long it has an end after the last block had been mine all mining procedures will also come to a halt, but not to mention the past mining that had to happen and it already contributed to the population and I think it is already too late the damage had been done,

But in my opinion, don't blame it all in the mining of the block there are much bigger things that make the environment and our world into global warming and I think we can sure focus on that because I truly think that mining is just a small portion of that problem so just chill.

If that becomes the case, then bitcoin's future existence is at risk. Even once the block reward is zero, we still need miners to be operating and sustained by transaction fees, or else the hashrate falls to zero, no new blocks are found, and therefore transactions aren't possible. Of course, that would never happen because the difficulty would readjust and so it would again become profitable to mine with less powerful hardware using less electricity.

There is no "last block", or at least if there is, it's because bitcoin is no more.

To reduce the footprint we should first get to consensus on where it currently stands. I agree that it's important to help our environment and that the beginning of the year already shows the serious consequences of previous policies. The problem is that I've seen conflicting research about Bitcoin mining's impact on the environment. There's been data saying that it's mostly clean energy that's used, and some suggest quite the opposite. So which one is it?
Secondly, it's, unfortunately, something very hard to control. I  don't mine, so I'm not a part of it, but when I use electricity in a flat I rent (or even when those who own flats in my country do that), it's not up to me what is the source of that energy and how clean it is. It's up to the government. So how can this be changed by miners?

Too much electricity is consumed to produce Bitcoin. I agree with this situation. But is the production of other swap vehicles very cheap? Bitcoin is a result of the current economy. The economic impasse led people to Bitcoin. A solution based on solar energy will be developed.

Something everyone would want. But I don't think it's easily achievable. For this to happen, we must first experience an extraordinary improvement in mining equipment. ASICs, GPUs ... Better and less energy consuming. But more importantly, more people are supporting Bitcoin.
This has nothing to do with the bushfire in Australia. But of course it would be great to protect nature.

GPU prices are very expensive. When Bitcoin or Ethereum mining is popular, hardware prices rise immediately. If there isn't any difficulty, there will be loss of value. Gold is very difficult to reach and very costly, even if there is plenty of similar thing available in it.

Last block no, last coin yes.

You say (now) its at risk, but this has always been Bitcoin's design. Take a look at some of the altcoins that people don't care mining anymore, then you can have an educated guess to what will happen.

Fact is Bitcoin miners will greatly diminish, but not disappear. It might go back to what it used to be in the first few years, this time only people that want to do it out of their own pocket. If you think (now) that this is a mistake, you never learned Bitcoin's design.

Since the beginning, Bitcoin (network) doesn't care if 10 or a million miners exist. The blockchain is still safe, and the nodes work and ensure things for everyone. And yes, expect the number of nodes to be higher than the number of miners, when it becomes completely unprofitable to mine in the future.

If you have free electricity, for example because you invested in renewable generation, it would be technically profitable, or perhaps if there is some market for the so called "virgin" coins, which are rapidly diminishing in production.

After 10 years you never saw this coming? What have you been doing? This is NOT a problem, it is doing as intended. Less miners do NOT put Bitcoin at risk, and there is never going to be a complete stop in mining, there is always enthusiasts that don't care.

Now you might remember Cannan's idea of putting asic miners inside household appliances, this is probably something that will be revisited. Canaan simply acted a bit too soon, but Asic miners inside TVs, Wifi routers or even simple heat spreaders will cater to these people, that will want to keep Bitcoin's network running, or the merchants that have already embrace it and are running nodes too.

The hashrate will reduce, but not as much as you think. Because the more efficient asics compensate the situation. However, later it won't be that profitable to manufacture those asics, and much less devote so much money in r&d to improve them as much as with the market in 2016. Even Bitmain will have to reconsider their core business if they want to remain around.

This could take the next halving or two, but it is coming, like it or not. The theory is that at the end Bitcoin transaction fee provide the incentive, i guess so but LN threatens those fees to be negligible anyway so it will be mostly enthusiasts many in from this forum (i expect the large Chinese, etc. miners to leave).

This is the point I was making. If mining is unprofitable and miners leave, then the difficulty readjusts until mining again becomes profitable.

The only point I was disagreeing on was that I don't think we will reach a point where mining is unprofitable at any electricity price. Blocks currently have fees of somewhere around 0.02 - 0.2 BTC, meaning in about 20 years' time we are going to hit the crossover point between fees and block reward (provided these fees stay constant, which is a big assumption to make on a 20 year timeline). What will the price per coin be in 20 years? How popular will bitcoin be? How many on-chain and off-chain transactions will there be? There are too many unknowns to make a reasonable prediction. But given that the world is moving towards electricity which is free to produce after the initial set up cost, I struggle to see a future where both bitcoin is successful but mining is unprofitable.

Sure, but the lower the hashrate the higher the risk of a 51% attack. The network maybe doesn't care if there are only 10 miners, but the users certainly will.

Again, this is the point I was making. Perhaps I didn't express myself clearly enough in my previous post.

See above. If in the future LN takes the majority of transactions off-chain and makes transaction fees per block negligible, and the block reward has halved enough to also be small enough so that mining truly is unprofitable and is only done by a small number of enthusiasts, then what protects us from one of the large mining companies booting up all their ASICs again and 51% attacking the network?

I really doubt LN transactions will fully replace onchain transactions, since onchain transactions will always be viewed as more secure and simple. If Bitcoin in general will be popular enough, mining will be sustained with onchain fees, but in case it won't, we'll have no choice but to introduce inflation.

this is the reason why using renewable energy sources is one of the best solutions to attack this situation. solar or wind energy for those areas that have plenty of it. and fortunately, a lot of areas can offer this source of energy. around the globe, you can use both of these sources.
but unfortunately, those blockchain projects that were introduced to explore solar energy seemed not to prosper with their objectives.  but if you are a solo miner, you can start by investing on solar panels or combi of wind turbines and solar panels. this combi is getting cheap already. and in the long run, you can earn a decent profit out of it...

I think mining activities will continue even if there is a great forest fire. We know that Bitcoin has several large mines, but all of that is electric power which I feel will have very little pollution.
The biggest pollution at this time is still caused by transportation activities. Therefore sometimes it would be wise if we reduce the use of transportation in our daily activities.
For example by moving from gasoline-powered transportation to electricity-powered transportation. All to reduce dirty exhaust emissions. Start with yourself first.

if it really affects nature, then it must be done, we must move together to prevent greater disasters from happening, I think it's our job, not just the work of people who mine bitcoin .. !!

I think mining activities have been greatly reduced since 2018. So this should not be the main issue about the cause of the problem. And besides, why does it have to be Bitcoin? Though not only bitcoin can be mined.
And one more thing, maybe you say that you don't blame BTC for the problem. However, you only underline the carbon footprint of BTC.

When in fact the most basic problem is not this, but more complex. In fact, it was not a forest fire but the burning of the forest by an irresponsible person. For the sake of what? The fire was carried out for the sake of widening their business.

I think there have already been several steps taken to promote green energy as compared to the use of traditional non-renewable energy. Mining must have also taken steps albeit little by little to start converting into the renewable energy utilization. And others, I only know ETH to be exact, are also shifting to PoS. That must be saving a lot of future emission.

Currently, mining is not profitable in most of the countries except few regions where electricity is cheap and anyway most of the miners have stopped it due to huge loss incurred and I am one of them as we had set up a small mining farm with around 60 GPU but ended up with huge loss which is yet to be recovered. We need some innovative machines for mining as you have described but this is not the reason for climate change.

sometimes when talking about the environment then this industry is one of the places that require a lot of energy that should think about the impact of the use of energy with the surrounding environment. may require renewable technology so that the impact on the environment also continues to circulate properly, because excessive use of technology will worsen our environment.

This was in fact one of the reason why they are discouraged to continue mining business these years, because of the excessive amount of electricity needed for them operate and from my own opinion, requiring mining facilities to have their source of electricity is quite necessary. Especially, to have reserve not specifically to rely all the energy requirements but to help reduce the burning of fossil fuels and carbon by huge electricity companies. In addition, our system could probably adjust in its codes and structures to use different consensus in verifying transactions.

I don't know man. As far as my research goes, the environmental impact of Bitcoin is basically nothing compared to the environmental impact of the cash system. There's already an increasing and improving way for Bitcoin to be mined without causing much to the environment so it won't really matter.

Instead of asking those mining enthusiast to come up a way or a solution to the problem (which I think they are doing already), why don't you do something yourself? Maybe plant a tree or something. Maybe donate to those environmental charities. Because no matter how many rants you make here in the forum but as long there is money, miners will mine they want even if the cost is a slight change in the environment.

Maybe make a movement yourself about helping the environment. I'm sure some of the members here in the forum will be willing to help you.

Electric vehicles are only greener than gasoline if your country has the infrastructure to support them with green energy. Charging an electric vehicle from an electricity grid which is in turned powered by burning coal only shifts the emissions from your car to the power station. For electric vehicles to be really beneficial, you need to be buying your electricity from renewable sources or generating it yourself.

Exactly. Think of all the cash being printed and reprinted, all the metal being mined for all the coins to be minted, all the armored vehicles moving it around, all the electricity for all banks, the computers, the servers, the ATMs, and so on. Bitcoin is orders of magnitude less than that.

Because it's easier to just complain than actually do something. Bitcoin is a poor target for their anger, though. As I said above, online porn generates over 30 times as much CO₂ as bitcoin, but no one is rallying against PornHub. Dogs have bigger carbon footprints than SUVs, but no one is suggesting we should make dog ownership illegal.

I am really agree to this. I am suggesting that the crypto team should put a certain schedule for mining because if some of the members here will continously mining over and over for the longest time with no limit,  as what you have said it will give us hazardous effects. We should be balance in using electricity to avoid casulaties.

Indeed, if only renewable energy is a bit more accessible and rampant then we won't have to worry about mining and the bad implications it brings. hopefully the future at the very least bring good news to cryptocurrency mining as it is one of the most potent cryptoccurency earning methods out there.

Changing onto PoS will not itself solve this problem. There should be huge projects supporting renewable energy which might include thermal plants, solar panels, windmills, etc in order to create a stable source of energy to run the miners and generate the hashes. This might not cause any global harm to the community no matter how large miners we run on our farm.

This would even be profitable for the individuals running such mining farms as the electricity charges would be 0 in this case. Only they need to manage investing some capital to start using and setting up the renewable sources. We could use the renewable sources continuously without any interaction so why not do so?

The means for making mining sustainable are there. Small and large mining facilities can purchase solar, eolian and hydro based energy systems that could save up both on their energy cost and efficiency. The only downside is the initial investment which could maybe ROI faster using that money to buy more equipment.

You cannot just implement a system where the miners who use green energy receive higher rewards or incentives... especially on a decentralised network.

I commend you being concern on what is happening here in our planet, Climate Change, but you, roasting mining bitcoin is the reason of what happened in Amazon and in Australia is so ridiculous. Climate Change is a very alarming matter that we should all focus to solve, yet the Government seems to ignore this matter and still continuing building stuffs that make climate change even worst.

The ice in the antartic is also a very good example that we should not ignore what is happening in our planet, we are the one who are destroying our own kind slowly.

Even if we convert mining into sustainable then I do not think it would have any much of the adverse effect on the environment as there already are a lot of pollutants which are freely being operated without any restrictions. Most common cause can be the pollutants from the residents of the vehicles. Vehicles are on an ascending graph from the time they were created and hence there are thousands of millions of vehicles freely roaming on the roads today.

Can you even imagine how much pollution they might be causing. We have changed the environment and only the human race is responsible for whatever is happening now. But there are few campaigns who are trying to make everything back normal. Let's hope so it happens and we could see our mother earth back as she was in the past.

Indeed most people able, should plant a tree. Not just one, many, make it an activity and do it from time to time. Just make sure to use a local species, don't want to make the problem worse.

You could argue modern lifestyle is making this irreversible. The weather patterns are changing worldwide, and solutions are not coming from the top, the politicians are worthless.

I'm not a fan of donations, for all you know, they might be misused (which is why i warned NOT to give anything for the Amazon). Get involved and plant a tree yourself, how hard can it be? And then do it again, and again, and again. Make it a social activity.

If its close to the place you live, try to take care of it as well.

Truly disappearing Bitcoin won't change things, and as explained before the market itself is solving this issue on its own.

You could also change some habits, reduce, reuse and recycle; cycle to work, invest in renewable: buy a solar panel with a grid tie inverter, etc.

I wonder if modern society is sustainable. Are you willing to change some habits? Americans have a huge problem, they went to live too far away from work, and waste too much commuting. Telecommuting may help. One of the reasons USA is one of the top polluters is their car dependency, while its perfectly fine to live in countries in Europe and Asia, the typical sub-urban American cannot think of living without owning a car, and they even designated a car type for this lifestyle (which happens to be a fuel waster).

Unfortunately China is copying this bad example, what Americans did in the 50ies (the freeways program) has been reproduced in China, complete with the madness car production, as a "means to push the economy". These two countries alone are the most responsible.

Give a satoshi to plant a tree? No, go plant it yourself, you lazy couch potato.

While I agree that everyone should do their part in making all things sustainable and eco-friendly, I think that putting the blame solely on bitcoin mining for what's happening on our climate isn't fair at all. We know that 65% of mining bitcoin comes from China (at least once, though), and the whole of the bitcoin network consumed  30-terawatt hours of power in 2017 (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/27/bitcoin-mining-consumes-electricity-ireland), but this doesn't mean that all of it came from fossil fuels. Also to put that into perspective, in 2016 alone we managed to consume 21-petawatt hour of electricity (https://www.statista.com/statistics/280704/world-power-consumption/), and out of that number, the 30-terawatt hour consumption of bitcoin is a mere 0.14%, and it's utterly ridiculous how much stones are being thrown at bitcoin mining when the banking sector itself uses more power. (https://www.meulenhoff.org/blog/2018_07_16_energy_consumption_of_banking.html)

As for CO2 emissions, we have been doing horrendous on that area, but certainly not far-off from historical figures even as far back as 800,000 years ago. Interglacial periods sits our asses off at 300 ppm of CO2 in the air at its warmest, causing a 0.5-1.1 degree Celsius increase on global average temperature. Take note, this is way even before humans existed; only volcanoes, oceans and other natural players were the main factors as to why CO2 concentration on the air was rising.

https://i.imgur.com/xWfBtRI.gif

While even up to this point we might be one of the largest artificial contributors of CO2 in the atmosphere, nothing beats land and ocean CO2 reservoirs in contributing to the CO2 in the air--though I'm not saying this as a justification of our improper use of the natural resources around us. I'm just saying that there are other things way beyond human activity that even the best of our technology cannot control. We cannot control earth's axial tilt, precession change and eccentricity, can we? That's one factor missing on global climate reports as of late, which baffles me since it's a scientific fact that the the Milankovitch Cycles (https://www.livescience.com/64813-milankovitch-cycles.html) is an observed, recognized and a proven cycle due to the abundance of data that we have here on earth.

https://i.imgur.com/1omiWNo.png

Just like looking at a trading graph, the cycles match that of what we see on each of its heating and cooling periods (stages of glaciation), hinting towards a possibility that we are actually heading towards our heating phase of the cycle. Why aren't we considering this possibility at all?

Anyhow, we might not have the means to control our own planet's motion which is synced with the sun's, but the least we can do is mitigate the effects of it by reducing our CO2 emissions, and it starts off with using clean energy, if possible, and reducing our own use of excess electricity as well. Recycling also helps, plus planting some trees every now and then which I think should be mandatory per person.

The mining sector of bitcoin has been aging pretty well since people are actually shifting from coal-based energy sources to natural ones, just like what they have in Iceland and some provinces in China. Vilifying other sectors of the economy doesn't help at all if one does not even tend to his/her own garden aptly.

Of course shifting into PoS is not enough to solve this problem. Other projects remain with PoW. But the reality is that there is no single solution to this. And it does not take a single project alone to effectively get away from the possible effects of mining to our climate and our environment. But at least it lessens instead of increases the emission of green house gases. Every initiative counts. Every step toward the use of renewable energy and away from the opposite is a progress worth appreciating.

what? Is bitcoin mining affecting the environment? I have never thought about this and actually it is not related. Mining bitcoin is done through GPUs and large mining factories both have their own areas and are air-conditioned to prevent rising temperatures in the factory. In addition, it does not cause dust or increase the surrounding temperature, because if it rises too high, the factory will burn first. In fact, we should be environmentally conscious from stopping using plastics and being more concerned about trees, and being a volunteer to plant forests. But for bitcoin mining is to create money, and only money can mobilize people to plant trees.

Thanks for bringing this topic. Honestly, this hasn't come to my mind and all I know is how amazing mining rigs are. Somehow this thread is like an eye-opener to everyone not just for miners but for people like me also.
I really hope we could do something about this so we can help the Mother Earth not destroy it.

It absolutely isn't, and not just from an energy point of view. Everything from processed foods to processed plastics. We consume far too much and throw most of it away. We spend hours pumping out exhaust fumes stuck in traffic commuting to and from jobs so we can buy more unnecessary junk which will end up in a landfill.

And you can literally run a PoW network off of ASCIs connected to solar or hydro only. In fact, the most up to date data we have suggest that up to three quarters of bitcoin mining energy is from renewable sources, which is about four times higher than the global average of renewable energy use. (Source: https://coinsharesgroup.com/assets/resources/Research/bitcoin-mining-network-december-2019.pdf)

there are now sustainable mining forms that people do like mining using the wind , water , heat and other forms of energy  .

miners themselves are the ones that are responsible to do this kind of practice but for us that arent miners all we can do is to encourage miners to do this kind of mining instead of the traditional ones as it causes harm to the environment   .

Of course, we are making our surrounding worsen day by day, by our daily activities environment is getting affected and this type of natural disaster has occurred now and then,  in recent time, International politics also getting involved to make reduced the environmental impact, but individual awareness is must needed for this purpose, it's very sad to see that we are still not aware of this effect so it's high time to make our thinking level should be changed, if we are not like this then nothing would be sustained for the future, so I agree with your proposal which is the present demand for our ecological aspect.

PoS is not a cure. It adds so many more problems that I don't see much viability in the concept. Another thing is that most people only care about PoS because it allows them to earn passive income. They do not care about anything else as long as they see that yield. Admittedly, I like the idea of passive income as well, but I'm glad that Bitcoin isn't following that route.

If Ether ends up transitioning to PoS and there is some decent incentive for me to stake, I might seriously look into it, but purely from a profiteering perspective. I'll explore any possible trustless way to get more satoshis in return.

With that regard, what we need to adjust and to improve is the source of electricity and resources we need to use in order to mine bitcoin. Me too, I do not think what's best for a particular cryptocurrency would also be the same when applied to others. We can see, the efficiency we need to figure out is through the power consumption and rewards, and bitcoin surely does have its own protocol for that, let's just trust the system because in the near future, with the POW, miners will be happy to sell their bitcoin at huge price.

We know that bitcoin mining consumes a lot of electricity.  Of course for these reasons, the future survival of Bitcoin can be jeopardized.  Bitcoin mining should be done using renewable energy sources as a major solution to the electricity consumption problem....

Except that's not how it works at all.

Most mining pools can be joined by anyone, and conversely, left by anyone. The mining pool operators do not own much of the hardware which is mining in their pool. It is owned by other people and simply directed at that mining pool. If a mining pool was to plan a 51% attack, the likelihood is that all the third party miners mining on that pool would leave - they have nothing to gain and everything to lose by lending their hashpower to somebody else's attack. It is more profitable for them to mine honestly than it is to try to prop up somebody else's 51% attack.

The exact same logic applies for trying to get 4 mining pools to coordinate a 51% attack. Even if one of the big pools with 15-20% of the hashpower wanted to perform a 51% attack, and even if all the miners mining on that pooled didn't leave, for the duration of their attempted attack they are now no longer mining blocks on the main chain. This makes it even more profitable for the other 3 big mining pools in your hypothetical scenario to stay honest and mine on the main chain.

I agree, we cannot blame Bitcoin when what we are seeing right now are consequences of what happened years ago. We are primarily responsible for what is happening today. And it hurts to see how these fires have ended up with big green lungs, but we can improve it, do you know the story of the couple that planted 2 million trees in a destroyed jungle?
And they achieved an excellent change, because this is what I think we can do, we must not blame or have regrets, we must begin to execute changes.

https://i.ibb.co/2YBpXtm/n79dzqzqxr2edtgr84fe.png (https://ibb.co/fG7TmpB)

I think that in the situation with bitcoin mining, it is unlikely that anything will change in the future. Perhaps there will be less harmful production, but not significantly. Unless other computers will be invented that will perform this work better, but it is not known whether the production of these computers will not harm nature.

We know that energy consumption in miner activities is less if we compare it with large industries. Today there are also many alternative energies but because of the expensive needs so it does not solve solutions for industry and business activities. And no one has tried alternative energy for mining activities, because they need stable energy to prevent the possibility of damage to the equipment.

There is some energy as a substitute made by some people, there is even energy from animal dung, a matter of expensive cost. We have not yet found energy that is environmentally friendly and inexpensive. In a business organization profit is the most important, there are rarely organizations that see the future life. and finally something like this happened.

Interesting to keep the environment clean.
But there are a lot out there which needs some focus first before going for bitcoin.
How old bitcoin is? Why is it questioned now with pollution?

At what time is cigarette created? How the hell is that thing cannot be stopped from creating more?
How about the pollution of vehicular things?
Let us not go with factories too.

This world will be abused by human no matter what goal we look to save it.

Miners will realize immediately that they are no longer mining on the main chain and can switch to honest pools. You are also assuming that somehow these 4 mining pools (which as we established are comprised of thousands of users) will be able to co-ordinate a 51% attack in complete secret without a single user deciding against it, bearing in mind that any user who continues to mine honestly will make much more money than if they take part in the attack.

Given that we mine (on average) 144 blocks a day for a total reward of 1800 BTC, in what scenario are you imagining a pool with 20% of the hashpower wpi;d be willing to give up ~360 BTC a day (~$3 million a day) to support someone else's 51% attack, at no profit to themselves?

Repeating a lie often enough doesn't make it true.

The difficulty will readjust and mining will be profitable again. This is pretty basic stuff.

Same question. It is sad seeing the world on fire now especially in our rain forests, pollution contaminating both water and air but what these things can connect to bitcoin mining? All miners are just consuming electricity power and that has nothing to do with pollution, climate and environment changes. Mining operations uses a lot of electricity because of high capacity chips producing E-waste consuming 54 terrawatt per hour a year and If you don't know how much electricity is that, the average estimated consumed power of mining is the same as what the Switzerland is consuming in a year.

What happening to the world right now is more of like the consequences of modernization. Have you seen the path of bushfire in Australia similar from what the possible loop train project? I'm not sure about this one but I think that's how they deal with the environment. sucks.

There is no doubt that the amount of energy consumed by bitcoin mining is huge, but its energy usage shouldn’t be compared to the power usage of a country. Bitcoin isn’t a country, so it makes no sense. Here's another fun fact to put things into perspective: "The amount of electricity consumed every year by always-on but inactive home devices in the USA alone could power the Bitcoin network for 3.2 years." (source: Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (https://www.cbeci.org/comparisons/))

Cryptocurrency mining is not to blame for the world relying mostly on fossil fuels for its electricity.

one of the things that we really have to pay attention to if we don't want bad things to happen, hopefully we can understand from this problem what we must do so that this does not become a bad impact.

I don't understand what OP mean, is he saying the fire that broke out in Australia was caused by mining bitcoin? Or was caused by bitcoin miner? This is so stupid and hilarious way of thinking  ;D ;D dude what are you thinking?  ??? , people have been mining bitcoin since 2009 including Australia too and fire never broke out since then OMG this is stupidity

Whenever there happens something it'll be related to cryptocurrency in some way. Long back itself there is more controversy regarding the power consumption on mining activities as a major factor for global warming and other climate change. Compared to the pollution happening around due to different sources the pollution by mining is very small. Also the recent market products on mining were very efficient which further reduces its power consumption and makes it more sustainable.

Hmm the main factor of global warming or climate change in my opinion is not just caused by mining, a lot of factors in this world that are not known even greater than a mining. Deforestation, urban development, air conditioning, and many others. In my opinion it has a greater contribution from global warming because there are so many in the whole world even in small or medium intensity.

Bitcoin mining in itself consumes electricity which are generated mainly from the burning of fossil fuels that deplete not only the quality of land but also the atmosphere that we live in. What the author wants is to promote ways that can make bitcoin mining greener by promoting the use of renewable resources and many others. And yeah it could also be because of the Australia Bushfire. Either way this is a good idea.

I'm not contradicting myself. PoS was never on Bitcoin's roadmap and will not be forked in ever (the far majority is actually against it to make it even more clear that it's not going to happen). PoS has been on Ethereum's roadmap for years now, and they might actually get it to work out. Different roadmaps, different niches, different ecosystems. It's just how things are.

PoW is quite powerful as long as the incentives align and the miners are following the rules just the way they are. In Bitcoin it's more profitable to be a brave miner than to be a rogue one. There is always theoretical risk, but that's with anything in life. Nothing is bullet proof. Bitcoin throughout the years has proven to be on the right track with PoW while PoS networks haven't shown much of what they claimed to be or wanted to achieve.

A solution to this is moving to PoS.
We have renewable energy source like solar, wind and water. If we generate more electricity from these resources then we can surely reduce the carbon footprint in the air. Last but not the least, do plant trees.

While it maybe true that mining Bitcoin consumes a lot of energy, it doesn't mean it is the culprit in destroying the environment. Blame the energy producers because they are still producing energy using coal. Also, you may wan't to look into how many old vehicles are out there in the road that produces a lot of smoke which is not good for our health and the environment. Producing power through hyrdo and solar is environmental friendly at least.

I do agree that carbon emission must be kept under check. In my country there is snow emergency because of too much snow this winter. Obviously this is abnormal whether behavior.
The solution to this is only trees. Time is running out and we must plant as many trees as we can to save our earth from disastrous of carbon emission.