Bitcoin could consume as much electricity as Denmark by 2020

[alyssa85]

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/bitcoin-could-consume-as-much-electricity-as-denmark-by-2020

I’m an engaged environmental researcher and have recently become a bitcoin enthusiast.

These are two possibly conflicting fascinations, as previously pointed out by Christopher Malmo here at Motherboard. That’s because bitcoin is incredibly energy intensive: at the time of Malmo’s piece, he calculated that a single bitcoin transaction requires as much electricity as the daily consumption of 1.6 American households, and that number has increased since then. “Adopting Bitcoin as a major currency anytime in the next few decades,” he wrote, “would just exacerbate anthropogenic climate change by needlessly increasing electricity consumption until it’s too late.”

As I have some experience in developing energy scenarios, I wanted to see how this could develop into the future. My findings weren’t much more encouraging. According to my calculations, if the bitcoin network keeps expanding the way it has done recently, it could lead to a continuous electricity consumption that lies between the output of a small power plant and the total consumption of a small country like Denmark by 2020.

[apoorvlathey]

That was a new fact to know. Its obvious that mining consumes a lot of electricity but didn't thought that it would add up to the total electrical consumption of the whole nation ( Denmark ). This is one of the draw backs of bitcoins as compared to fiat.

[pereira4]

That was a new fact to know. Its obvious that mining consumes a lot of electricity but didn't thought that it would add up to the total electrical consumption of the whole nation ( Denmark ). This is one of the draw backs of bitcoins as compared to fiat.

Well you are comparing something that is just random 0s and 1s backed by nothing, centralized and closed source, with a decentralized system backed by the biggest network on the planet.
If you want top tier security you are going to need a lot of power, it's just physics.

[ronaldinho_07]

Well one thing is sure bitcoin is making not only the miners getting an extra income as energy companies are selling more energy ,that could be wasted,soo bitcoin bills is making the economy grow,sure china is the main taking the best fee from it,soo why people wanna to kill bitcoin,since we are supporting the economy on the last 7 years with our miners.

[unamis76]

So how much energy does regular banking consume, again? Yeah...

Still, Bitcoin is very energy expensive. But I don't think it will increase this expense much more as difficulty rises and chips are more efficient

[pereira4]

The error is comparing Bitcoin to a centralized state issued currency... this is not the right comparative. You should compare how expensive mining gold is, compared to Bitcoin. Then you would see that not only Bitcoin is a better money in all aspects than gold, but its also way cheaper and environment friendlier.

[Snail2]

Well if they don't like that they can opt in for PoS coins anytime . BTW maybe I'm wrong but I have the feelingthey are expecting an at least  linear growth of energy consumption with the spread of bitcoin, what make me suspect they have some odd ideas about how the bitcoin network working and what's the direction of the latest asic developments (decreasing energy consumption while increasing hashing power).

[pedrog]

With another reward halving in 2020 and on chain transactions being limited by the development team, how much are they predicting 1 bitcoin has to worth in order to pay for all that electricity?

[unamis76]

The error is comparing Bitcoin to a centralized state issued currency... this is not the right comparative. You should compare how expensive mining gold is, compared to Bitcoin. Then you would see that not only Bitcoin is a better money in all aspects than gold, but its also way cheaper and environment friendlier.

Correct! Which reminds me about the amounts of paper needed to print fiat...

[poupatudo]

Very interesting study.

This network of so-called bitcoin “miners” ensures the security of the system, but unfortunately also consumes a lot of electricity—currently about 350 megawatts according to my own calculations, which is roughly equivalent to the electricity demand of 280,000 American households.

 

[alyssa85]

Well if they don't like that they can opt in for PoS coins anytime .

I must admit I read the article and thought that maybe PoS was the future too...

[DimensionZ]

I have never thought about how Bitcoin mining is affecting our environment. With the increasing difficulty comes the need for a lot more calculating power and thus increased electricity consumption. I hope researchers will find a better way to power mining equipment that is more efficient and doesn't affect the global warming situation.

[Kprawn]

Have they taken into consideration how much surplus energy are being produced at the moment and why the Chinese are subsidizing mining to get rid of the excess energy that are being generated by plants?

The current fiat system rely on massive amounts of electricity to have hundreds of ATM's concentrated in specific areas and running 365 days a year. Most of the time, these ATM's are connected to their internal

network and that consumes a lot of electricity too. If you compare both of these industries, Bitcoin still use much less electricity.

[kehtolo]

The error is comparing Bitcoin to a centralized state issued currency... this is not the right comparative. You should compare how expensive mining gold is, compared to Bitcoin. Then you would see that not only Bitcoin is a better money in all aspects than gold, but its also way cheaper and environment friendlier.

This.

Also OP 'assumes' that CO2 causes AGW - but the more i've looked into this.. the more bogus it seems.
Sorry, anything that is touched by claims of AGW is tainted.

[European Central Bank]

This is bad. I don't care how anyone tries to explain it away or justify it. It's still only used by a few hundred thousand people on a regular basis.

[ATguy]

he calculated that a single bitcoin transaction requires as much electricity as the daily consumption of 1.6 American households, and that number has increased since then. “Adopting Bitcoin as a major currency anytime in the next few decades,” he wrote, “would just exacerbate anthropogenic climate change by needlessly increasing electricity consumption until it’s too late.”

Thanks to those who want to keep Bitcoin BlockSize limit artifcally low, single bitcoin transaction has to cost a lot of elecricity. It just show how short sighted the small blockers are, if you increase BlockSize and number of transactions in the block, the electricity consumption stay the same whether you mine 1 MB or 10 MB blocks...

Electricity consumption increases only if Bitcoin price increases more than 2x every four years. If not, electricity consumption has to decrease instead. Considering the same price for electricity worldwide and over long periods.

[bitdumper]

Its time to make Bitcoin Eco-friendly.
Bitcoin price is (in my terms) cost of electricity to produce it.

[vrm86]

4 years for banking system means nothing (or just another crisis), but for bitcoin it's whole era. So many things could happen and there are lot of possible factors to have impact on whole bitcoin ecosystem.

[alyssa85]

he calculated that a single bitcoin transaction requires as much electricity as the daily consumption of 1.6 American households, and that number has increased since then. “Adopting Bitcoin as a major currency anytime in the next few decades,” he wrote, “would just exacerbate anthropogenic climate change by needlessly increasing electricity consumption until it’s too late.”

Thanks to those who want to keep Bitcoin BlockSize limit artifcally low, single bitcoin transaction has to cost a lot of elecricity. It just show how short sighted the small blockers are, if you increase BlockSize and number of transactions in the block, the electricity consumption stay the same whether you mine 1 MB or 10 MB blocks...

I agree with this. But the small blockers have their own agenda - they arn't interested in scaling nor in the environment or anything else. I honestly feel that after the halving we'll see a dramatic decrease in price as people start voting with their wallets.

[KoinKartel]

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/bitcoin-could-consume-as-much-electricity-as-denmark-by-2020

I’m an engaged environmental researcher and have recently become a bitcoin enthusiast.

These are two possibly conflicting fascinations, as previously pointed out by Christopher Malmo here at Motherboard. That’s because bitcoin is incredibly energy intensive: at the time of Malmo’s piece, he calculated that a single bitcoin transaction requires as much electricity as the daily consumption of 1.6 American households, and that number has increased since then. “Adopting Bitcoin as a major currency anytime in the next few decades,” he wrote, “would just exacerbate anthropogenic climate change by needlessly increasing electricity consumption until it’s too late.”

As I have some experience in developing energy scenarios, I wanted to see how this could develop into the future. My findings weren’t much more encouraging. According to my calculations, if the bitcoin network keeps expanding the way it has done recently, it could lead to a continuous electricity consumption that lies between the output of a small power plant and the total consumption of a small country like Denmark by 2020.

There are dozens of more efficient chips being built as we speak to counteract inefficiency as it relates to power consumption

So we should start to see energy consumption levels drop over the next few years