What is the power needed to complete one transaction? (aka CO2 footprint)

[postcd]

Someone said: "The current transaction fee for BTC is over $6 per transaction. Only supported by the large amount of inflation BTC currently has."

So i see one transaction might be CO2 emission intensive task..

What is the kWh electricity consumption of one BTC transaction?

https://s20.postimg.org/8ts7gv9zh/bitcoin_electricity_consumption.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DIFC8qdXoAAmnzI.jpg

Above image (src) shows that electricity consumed by a single transaction is 166KWh. Another source claims 94 kWh.

A new index has recently modeled potential energy costs per transaction as high as 94 kWh, or enough electricity to power 3.17 households for a day. To put it another way, that's almost enough energy to fully charge the battery of a Tesla Model S P100D, the world's quickest production car, and drive it over 300 miles.

According to this calculator, 10kWh is 4 kg CO2e

If we count one transaction needs 100 kWh, then it is 10x4=40 kg CO2, happy global warming.. But not only that but also health impact of the coal burning and CO2 to mine and transport it. To create solar panels and recycle them at the end of the life.

Another quote:
"Doh | Each bitcoin transaction is backed by approx 90% of an American household's daily electricity consumption"

Googling "average household electricity consumption daily" i see numbers of around 10-30KWh/day for a household electricity consumption.

[jonnybravo0311]

That statement is patently false.

Average transaction fees are about 0.0001BTC per kb.  Average transactions are about 225 bytes, so an average transaction should run about 0.0000225BTC (or about $0.01).  Obviously, you can add as much of a fee as you want.  When writing this post, my Bitcoin Core recommends paying a fee of 0.0007BTC per kb if I want to expect a confirmation in the next block.  Yes, that value is always changing, and is not a guarantee.  Even if I were to use that value, I'm only paying about $0.10 per transaction.  Nowhere near the claim of $6 per transaction.

I'm not sure how you want to calculate the CO2 emissions of a transaction.  Creating a transaction costs exceedingly little computational power.  Including that transaction in block template is also minimal work.  The real work comes in finding the hash that satisfies the network difficulty to add that new block to the chain.

To estimate that is to guess.  You'd have to guess at the total power consumption of all bitcoin mining equipment.  Then you'd have to use an average power cost, and an average number of transactions per block to take a stab at how much power one transaction in a block would cost.

[xhomerx10]

Someone said: "The current transaction fee for BTC is over $6 per transaction. Only supported by the large amount of inflation BTC currently has."

So i see one transaction might be CO2 emission intensive task..

What is the kWh electricity consumption of one BTC transaction?

According to this calculator, 10kWh is 4 kg CO2e

The energy required for each transaction is miniscule.  Transactions cross the network at light speed with very little energy required so I would imagine the cost of every transaction every conducted on the Bitcoin network wouldn't have contributed even 1 kg of CO₂ to the environment.  You're barking up the wrong tree.
 
The real cost of Bitcoin is in the securing of the block chain.  Without that ongoing security, there would be no Bitcoin.  My guess is that 99.9999999 percent or more of the energy expended by Bitcoin is for security.

You can take the number of transactions and divide it into the energy required by miners and nodes to get a figure but that isn't representative of a Bitcoin transaction.  This is only a representation of your short-sightedness and your desire to malign Bitcoin.  What is your motivation?  How much CO₂ have you generated penning this ridiculous and poorly-researched question?

[philipma1957]

The minimum size is 225 for 1 transaction.

Many transactions are huge  with  200 or more transactions within the transaction.

so  a 200 transaction filled transaction would be 200 x 0.0001 or 0.0200

0.02 btc = 13 dollars   so lets find out how many  big ass transactions  happen each day.

not quite the right charts

https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-per-block
https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-block-size

[jonnybravo0311]

This might be arguing semantics, Phil, but a transaction has inputs and outputs.  It isn't composed of other transactions.  The number of inputs and outputs determines the size of the transaction itself.  The size of the transaction determines the fee one should apply.

In other words, you might be a miner that receives many small payments from a pool... let's say you get 0.01BTC per block.  If you wanted to send me 1BTC, that would require 100 inputs and 1 output (assuming no change).  It's a single transaction, not a transaction composed of 101 other transactions .  The hundred transactions that sent the miner 0.01BTC each have already been accounted.

[postcd]

I added several new images and quotations about Bitcoin electricity usage into the first post.

Code:

Energy Source               Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr)
Coal – global average         100,000    (41% global electricity)
Coal – China                         170,000   (75% China’s electricity)
Coal – U.S.                               10,000    (32% U.S. electricity)
Oil                                               36,000    (33% of energy, 8% of electricity)
Natural Gas                                4,000    (22% global electricity)
Biofuel/Biomass                    24,000    (21% global energy)
Solar (rooftop)                              440    (< 1% global electricity)
Wind                                                 150    (2% global electricity)
Hydro – global average          1,400    (16% global electricity)
Hydro – U.S.                                     5    (6% U.S. electricity)
Nuclear – global average              90    (11%  global electricity w/Chern&Fukush)

In the USA about 30,000 deaths/year from coal pollution from 2000 TWh.
15 deaths per TWh.
In China about 500,000 deaths/year from coal pollution from 1800 TWh.
278 deaths per TWh.

Source: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html