Is bitcoin mining environmentally responsible?

[decentral]

Just wondering what peoples thoughts are on bitcoin mining.

In a simplified case, say you mine with your pc 24 hours per day you are more than doubling your power usage (increasing carbon footprint) compared to if you used it for 12 hours or for an 8 hour working day.

[hughperman]

Nope, it isn't. But then most money comes from trees and a huge industrial process surrounding their production, too.

[yayayo]

Nope, it isn't. But then most money comes from trees and a huge industrial process surrounding their production, too.

+1

I suppose because of competition on efficiency, Bitcoin is even more efficient than existing electronic payment systems.


ya.ya.yo!

[Gabi]

CO2 is good for trees 

anyway, traditional banking/economic/financial system is much much more inefficient

[decentral]

Fair point, to a newbie it could seem like such a waste of energy to get no physical return.

So as efficiency increases, more devices get used, will power going into mining (globally) decrease or increase ?

[decentral]

CO2 is good for trees 

lol

[pascal257]

The system is not responsible. I agree that typical currencies also have an environmental impact, but with increasing difficulty you need more procecessing power which consumes more energy. In the end the exchange rates regulate the environmental impact.

[yayayo]

CO2 is good for trees 

rofl


ya.ya.yo!

[101111]

You would need more qualitative data to know for sure. For instance some countries have a high or even 100% green energy. Some individuals use solar power. Some might use off-peak which would otherwise go to waste. etc.

[Foxpup]

I suppose because of competition on efficiency, Bitcoin is even more efficient than existing electronic payment systems.

This. Because energy consumption is pretty much the only cost of bitcoin mining, the only way for miners to increase their profits is to become even more energy efficient, either by developing more efficient mining hardware (eg, ASICs) or by using renewable energy sources (eg, solar power). In fact, if Bitcoin becomes widely accepted, it will directly monetise research into new forms of energy production. If the inventor of fusion power says they did it just to get free energy for their mining rig, I wouldn't be at all surprised.

[SusanaMenor23]

we have to plant trees then

[Akka]

No it's not.

I for one think the process of "generating waste heat without any real use, in order to secure the network" called mining is the creates weak spot of Bitcoin.

Hopefully at some point someone will come up with a better way to make it financially attractive to secure the network.

Imagine all this money spend for "mining equipment" would be used to actually contribute to the network, something like "proof of bandwidth" or something, which would also help to ensure that it could handle increased transactions in the future.

PPC is close, but it's not quite there yet.

[yayayo]

"Waste heat" could be used for heating, too.

Maybe in future most miners are located in the polar regions...


ya.ya.yo!

[pascal257]

I suppose because of competition on efficiency, Bitcoin is even more efficient than existing electronic payment systems.

This. Because energy consumption is pretty much the only cost of bitcoin mining, the only way for miners to increase their profits is to become even more energy efficient, either by developing more efficient mining hardware (eg, ASICs) or by using renewable energy sources (eg, solar power). In fact, if Bitcoin becomes widely accepted, it will directly monetise research into new forms of energy production. If the inventor of fusion power says they did it just to get free energy for their mining rig, I wouldn't be at all surprised.

I think the impact is only determined by exchange rates.

Increasing effiency will result in higher network speed and thus higher difficulty. And with higher difficulty, you will get less BTC over time.

First CPU then GPU then FPGA them ASIC, but BTC mined remained the same. You only made profit if you were early adopter of new technology or with increasing exchange rates.

So only higher exchange rates make wider adoption possible and thus the environmental impact is higher.

[amiracle2]

CO2 is good for trees 

haha... perhaps too much CO2 on earth.

[montdidier]

I don't think it's very environmentally great, but then nothing much we do is as humans. Probably the newer tech like ASIC will be more energy efficient which will be good. Factoring the environmental cost properly into the cost of generating power (taking into account the type of power generation i.e. coal, nuclear, solar etc) and passing that cost on to the power consumer is probably the best way for the market to correctly rate their particular scale of mining operations impact on the environment because it will be reflected in the bottom line.

Where I live solar is common and grid power is not especially cheap, so it become more sensible to mine during the daylight hours only and use just the solar power. Though it slows things down considerably, if your power costs are substantial it can make sense.

[supdoodz]

If you trace back all wealth to its origin you will find some sort of exploitation of the environment/natural resources.
Its the foundation of all economies since the dawn of humanity, its what we do, and a large part of how we determine that something has value, bitcoin is just carrying on in this long tradition.

[Foxpup]

First CPU then GPU then FPGA them ASIC, but BTC mined remained the same.

Yes, the number of bitcoins is the same, but the cost (in terms of both dollars and energy) certainly isn't. Which bring us to the next point:

You only made profit if you were early adopter of new technology...

It's not enough for the technology to merely be new. The new technology must also be more energy efficient than the old technology in order to make a profit. Bitcoin gives miners a direct monetary incentive to adopt energy efficient technologies. Sure, everybody can pay less for electricity by being more energy efficient, but bitcoin miners don't just pay less, they actually make money by being energy efficient. That's a much stronger incentive.

[montdidier]

Bitcoin energy usage is tiny compared to the energy used by the fiat system too, ATM machines alone consume at least 150x as much as the Bitcoin network.

I'm not sure it's a fair comparison. The amount of bitcoin in circulation isn't all that much.

[decentral]

....Where I live solar is common and grid power is not especially cheap, so it become more sensible to mine during the daylight hours only and use just the solar power. Though it slows things down considerably, if your power costs are substantial it can make sense.

You would need more qualitative data to know for sure. For instance some countries have a high or even 100% green energy. Some individuals use solar power. Some might use off-peak which would otherwise go to waste. etc.

Interesting, so depending on the power source, a 12/24 rig could be much more than twice as environmentally friendly (and cost effective) than a 24/24.