Bitcoin has overtaken on energy costs Tajikistan

[jimblasko]

The aggregate energy spent on the production of crypto-currency bitcoin exceeded the energy costs of quite large countries. For energy costs, bitcoin has already outstripped, for example, Tajikistan.

How much electricity does bitcoin consume?


DigiEconomist charts show that to date, the total energy consumption for the extraction of only one of the crypto-currencies - bitcoin - is 14.6 terawatts-hours. By the way, Ethereum consumes three times less - only about 5 TW. Well, Tajikistan consumes slightly less than bitcoin - 13 TW.

And what about other countries?


Well, if you continue the list of comparisons, then, for example, compared with the energy costs of Belarus, this is only half the amount. Or only 10 times less than electricity consumption in Ukraine. Well, 70 times less than the energy consumption of the whole of Russia.

[Emoclaw]

I guess we've started seeing the issue of Proof-of-Work here, which is efficiency (or lack thereof).
Consuming more electricity than an entire country is ridiculous, especially when it's not green.
It'll be interesting to see Bitcoin's impact on the environment in a couple dozens of years.

[Boseda]

This is a great concern for me too. But unfortunately I see no meaningful alternative to mining, both for coins extraction and for tx validation. Maybe just a difficulty reduction could solve this problem... but I'll wait for more experienced people in this field to get a better answer.

[Hydrogen]

To accurately put crypto's energy consumption into perspective, it might be better to look at the quantity of available energy on electrical grids.

In the united states, there are cases where so many people are installing solar panels on their homes the electrical grid is being overloaded due to the sheer surplus of energy. Example:

California’s electrical grid can’t handle all the solar energy the state is producing

In California, solar power is booming: The state leads the nation in solar production, and for a brief period on March 11, California pulled nearly 40 percent of its electricity from the sun.

But the state’s solar boom isn’t all sunshine, as the Los Angeles Times energy reporter, Ivan Penn, laid out in a recent investigation. To avoid overloading its electrical grid, California has actually paid neighboring states like Arizona to take surplus renewable energy — dozens of times this year.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-07-20/california-s-electrical-grid-can-t-handle-all-solar-energy-state-producing

In regions where excess electricity is available on the grid, the consumption of miners might be considered negligible at best.

Scarcity/availability of electricity could be relevent here.

[South Park]

The aggregate energy spent on the production of crypto-currency bitcoin exceeded the energy costs of quite large countries. For energy costs, bitcoin has already outstripped, for example, Tajikistan.

How much electricity does bitcoin consume?


DigiEconomist charts show that to date, the total energy consumption for the extraction of only one of the crypto-currencies - bitcoin - is 14.6 terawatts-hours. By the way, Ethereum consumes three times less - only about 5 TW. Well, Tajikistan consumes slightly less than bitcoin - 13 TW.

And what about other countries?


Well, if you continue the list of comparisons, then, for example, compared with the energy costs of Belarus, this is only half the amount. Or only 10 times less than electricity consumption in Ukraine. Well, 70 times less than the energy consumption of the whole of Russia.

This is impressive, I knew that POW was an energy hungry progress but I never imagined that it was so big but at the same time bitcoin is more valuable than many currencies of the world so I think it is only natural that bitcoin spends that much energy but I agree that something must be done to lower the amount of energy being spent by miners.