Of course, it has some impact, but it is so negligible with other factors that affect the climate and the environment. If we were to shut down all the mining farms at this point, would that mean anything in total for the climate? Of course not, but if we taught people not to leave electronic devices on standby how much energy would be saved and not wasted literally in vain?
Not much, I daresay. Most electrical appliances are actually well designed to be consuming as little power as possible. Your study was from 2004. But, that's not the point.
I totally agree that Bitcoin won't be the significant factor in climate change. However, the rhetoric is that, mining is a frivolous and wasteful use of electricity. The research aims to find out how much electricity Bitcoin really consumes, I'll be happy to have something to show the skeptics and it would provide a way better visualization, and also a far more accurate estimation than most other sources.
I wouldn’t say I’m cynical, I just don’t see the point in going in this direction at all when it comes to researching the impact that BTC has on climate and the environment. The footprint that BTC leaves in that segment is so small and insignificant at the moment that I think is not worth discussing at all.
How exactly would any one be able to determine how much electricity Bitcoin uses? Such research aims to determine the energy consumption, just see their FAQ (
https://cbeci.org/faq/). If anything, research proves that Bitcoin doesn't contribute too much to climate change. Objective research is necessary; no one would really have a decent gauge of the energy consumption if research like this doesn't exist. No one cares if people say Bitcoin doesn't contribute to climate change, they want concrete data, which is provided by the research in the thread.
I don't think research are necessarily pointless, if at all. No matter how useless people think they are, the data collected and/or the conclusion drawn can be used as a reference in other papers.