Bitcoin and global warming

[benjiw]

I think our main problem is the huge electricity expense induced by mining and its noxious effect on the climate. This is, to my mind, the only serious argument against Bitcoin.
Alleviating the electricity expense should be one of our priorities. If we do not do it for the sake of the Earth (which we really should) we should at least do it selfishly because governments will not tolerate this forever and they will be right. The more the exchange rate increases, the worse it gets, of course.
Some solutions exist though: first there is proof-of-stake, of course. This technology may be too young to be deemed reliable enough but we should at least start considering it.
If we do not like proof-of-stake I think we could drammatically decrease the electricity expense by stopping monetary creation now. Nowdays Bitcoin is famous enough to remain secure even if miners earned transaction fees only. And if as a whole there are 16.5 M coins instead of 21 M, this does not make much of a difference. That is even good for holders. To make miners agree with that solution, they must be compensated for their lost income.  More precisely, active miners must be compensated because they have already bought ASICs. Futures miners do not need to be compensated. Since mining is a competitive industry, future miners will make no profit on average, whatever the reward scheme. To compensate active miners we could decide that the next 2016 blocks yield, say, 100 new coins and then 0 forever. Everybody would win and the Earth above all!
There are probably many other solutions and I wish the community cared a little more about this fundamental issue.

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[Zendalet]

The whole global economy is based on mining and burning energy resources that have been stored within the earth for millions of years. Bitcoin is based on the one reliable thing in life: greed. It is foolish to expect people not taking the shortest (-sighted) route to monetary wealth. That is why I am suspicious about crypto energy projects.

[howard.ashoul]

You could say it about everything.

Gold mining is causing global warming and is harming environment.
Money printing is causing global warming and is making rain forest to disappear.

...


We would have to go back on the trees.. .

[qwertyup23]

The idea of switching into a cryptocurrency payment may sound good, but the drawbacks are highly toxic especially when it comes to hacking and scamming due to its nature. You may be right that the process of making fiat and gold mining harm the environment but if we adapt the system of payment into digitalized forms, this would create chaos into the economies of countries around the world. We may lessen the the impact of pollution around the world slowly, but in an economic perspective this would destroy markets and may cause hyperinflation in some countries.

[Zendalet]

if we adapt the system of payment into digitalized forms, this would create chaos into the economies of countries around the world.

Why would that create chaos? Are you talking about banking the unbanked?

How is whatever you said related to switching from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake?

[jseverson]

I do think this will be addressed in the future. It's not talked about much yet, but if this blows up and the social justice warriors get a hold of it, Bitcoin will have another reputation problem in its hands. This would give governments around the world another excuse to tighten mining regulations, or ban Bitcoin altogether. I don't think its impact is significant in the grand scheme of things yet, but at the rate the consumption is going, it will only take a few years.

I should also note that this is yet another area where Bitcoin falls behind other alts. Some openly use energy efficiency and green initiatives as selling points. They're not a threat now, but they could very well be in the future.

[Saifher]

This subject has only surfaced very recently and i think it could be a big problem in the future as bitcoin price surges (and hashrate along with it). Right now it is estimated that it costs over a thousand dollars to "mint" a bitcoin, its an insane amount of electric power.

For this reason i believe PoS or DPoS might be the best approaches in the future (or something better will be invented)

[Zendalet]

If energy isn't used by Bitcoin it will be used by something else. The whole economy is based on infinite growth, so it'd be extremely altruistic to reduce energy consumption for the greater good. What's really needed is clean energy research.

[kueyen]

Does anyone know/have any figures about the total power consumption that bitcoin requires currently? It should be high I'm sure, and should also go even higher in the future. However, compared to other industries, where does bitcoin rank exactly? I would assume bitcoin's power consumption still ranks lower in comparison to most of the business sectors.

[iamTom123]

I think our main problem is the huge electricity expense induced by mining and its noxious effect on the climate. This is, to my mind, the only serious argument against Bitcoin. Alleviating the electricity expense should be one of our priorities. If we do not do it for the sake of the Earth (which we really should) we should at least do it selfishly because governments will not tolerate this forever and they will be right. The more the exchange rate increases, the worse it gets, of course.
Some solutions exist though: first there is proof-of-stake, of course. This technology may be too young to be deemed reliable enough but we should at least start considering it. If we do not like proof-of-stake I think we could dramatically decrease the electricity expense by stopping monetary creation now. Nowadays Bitcoin is famous enough to remain secure even if miners earned transaction fees only. And if as a whole there are 16.5 M coins instead of 21 M, this does not make much of a difference. That is even good for holders. To make miners agree with that solution, they must be compensated for their lost income.  More precisely, active miners must be compensated because they have already bought ASICs. Futures miners do not need to be compensated. Since mining is a competitive industry, future miners will make no profit on average, whatever the reward scheme. To compensate active miners we could decide that the next 2016 blocks yield, say, 100 new coins and then 0 forever. Everybody would win and the Earth above all!
There are probably many other solutions and I wish the community cared a little more about this fundamental issue.

The amount of energy used in mining Bitcoin is a valid issue that should be addressed head-on and there are many ways we can mitigate this challenge. One, if possible the source of the energy should be renewable as much as possible like those coming from the sun, wind, water and even geothermal since these are considered to be greener and have less impact on the environment. Second, we need to support the research on finding new technology (or improving the existing ones) so that mining equipment are requiring less power and along this line there are already some companies or business racing to be the first to introduce the products on the market.

We have to remember that Bitcoin mining is an economic activity just like any ordinary business all around us and it is requiring electricity to run and be successful. Well, the same thing with any other industry so this is nothing unique to Bitcoin. We are then hoping that sooner or later a better technology can be introduced that can be run with less power requirement and that renewable energy sources would also be accessible by the whole industry.

[redcucumber]

their is an ICO that is focused in making our environment clean and is concern in protecting the environment such a great project that is more meaningful and great for profiting in trades.. its the Earth Token much broad than ecobit i saw this in the alts section and with this bitcoin community can be both rich in money while having a clean environment, hence i was not promoting but the idea is really good try checking it

[ir.yance]

I think our main problem is the huge electricity expense induced by mining and its noxious effect on the climate. This is, to my mind, the only serious argument against Bitcoin.
Alleviating the electricity expense should be one of our priorities. If we do not do it for the sake of the Earth (which we really should) we should at least do it selfishly because governments will not tolerate this forever and they will be right. The more the exchange rate increases, the worse it gets, of course.
Some solutions exist though: first there is proof-of-stake, of course. This technology may be too young to be deemed reliable enough but we should at least start considering it.
If we do not like proof-of-stake I think we could drammatically decrease the electricity expense by stopping monetary creation now. Nowdays Bitcoin is famous enough to remain secure even if miners earned transaction fees only. And if as a whole there are 16.5 M coins instead of 21 M, this does not make much of a difference. That is even good for holders. To make miners agree with that solution, they must be compensated for their lost income.  More precisely, active miners must be compensated because they have already bought ASICs. Futures miners do not need to be compensated. Since mining is a competitive industry, future miners will make no profit on average, whatever the reward scheme. To compensate active miners we could decide that the next 2016 blocks yield, say, 100 new coins and then 0 forever. Everybody would win and the Earth above all!
There are probably many other solutions and I wish the community cared a little more about this fundamental issue.

Briefly The whole global economy is based on the source of the mining and burning energy that has been stored on Earth for millions of years. Bitcoin is based on one thing that is reliable in life so so I know about this

[Carlton Banks]

I think our main problem is the huge electricity expense induced by mining and its noxious effect on the climate. This is, to my mind, the only serious argument against Bitcoin.

Unfortunately, anthropogenic climate disaster is based on bad science, deviously fabricated by corrupt scientists and (bug surprise) the world's most honest profession; politicians.


It's not a scientific movement, it's a religion. Because the people involved do the precise same thing that religious zealots/fundamentalists do; when their beliefs are questioned with rationality or empirical evidence, climate disaster believers simply attack the person saying it. Which is not science.


The "End of the World" has been predicted by charlatans selling something fake to foolish adherents since time immemorial. For some strange reason, these people never go out of business

[stompix]

1. I think our main problem is the huge electricity expense induced by mining and its noxious effect on the climate. This is, to my mind, the only serious argument against Bitcoin.
Alleviating the electricity expense should be one of our priorities.
....
2 .To make miners agree with that solution, they must be compensated for their lost income.  More precisely, active miners must be compensated because they have already bought ASICs. Futures miners do not need to be compensated. Since mining is a competitive industry, future miners will make no profit on average, whatever the reward scheme. To compensate active miners we could decide that the next 2016 blocks yield, say, 100 new coins and then 0 forever. Everybody would win and the Earth above all!
There are probably many other solutions and I wish the community cared a little more about this fundamental issue.

1. Not even close. If you compare bitcoin mining to the electric consumption for the biggest malls in China you will be amazed how puny the numbers behind bitcoin mining are. If you're going to compare the pollution and add naval shipment in the equation you will find out that bitcoin is the LAST of our problems.

2. Involvement in the distribution of the future bitcoins would mean we have yet again come closer to a centralized coin where somebody is taking decisions as he sees fit.

3. What have you done yourself to save the Earth?

[bloodyvio]

I think our main problem is the huge electricity expense induced by mining and its noxious effect on the climate. This is, to my mind, the only serious argument against Bitcoin.

I think mining cryptocurrency activity is still not comparable with carbon monoxide gas from motor vehicles, greenhouse effect, forest destruction, industrial electricity usage etc.

[leonair]

Bitcoin mining is really contributing in the global warming but as others are saying even banks are doing the same maybe when the time comes that bitcoin replaced the currency fiat system then it will be an acceptable use of energy and contribution to the global warming.

[soham]

I think our main problem is the huge electricity expense induced by mining and its noxious effect on the climate. This is, to my mind, the only serious argument against Bitcoin.

Unfortunately, anthropogenic climate disaster is based on bad science, deviously fabricated by corrupt scientists and (bug surprise) the world's most honest profession; politicians.


It's not a scientific movement, it's a religion. Because the people involved do the precise same thing that religious zealots/fundamentalists do; when their beliefs are questioned with rationality or empirical evidence, climate disaster believers simply attack the person saying it. Which is not science.


The "End of the World" has been predicted by charlatans selling something fake to foolish adherents since time immemorial. For some strange reason, these people never go out of business

I do agree with you. It is not right to make only bitcoin responsible for the global warming or the electricity consumption on large scale. Production industries, heavy engineering industries and chemical factories contributes a larger chunk of green house gas emission. Also in the developing countries like China, India and Brazil, a lot of factories are running without proper environmental norms or any proper equipment to filter the polluted air. This kind of factories contribute more in the global warming.

Also it is easy for a miner to move to a different source of energy by investing in solar panels. And most of the miners will have to do it within next few years because global electricity market is becoming costlier day by day considering the depleting natural resources like coal, which is used by all thermal power plants. Installing  solar panels would be costlier initially, but it will increase the profitability of the mining for sure.

[sidebyside]

I think this will happen in the future. Many people will race to get bitcoin. with a high value. Bitcoins are mined in various forms. This is also a good opportunity for criminals to steal fraud. This is not just a matter of a country but of the world.

[TomCrypto]

Indeed bitcoin mining have a quite small impact compared to the industry and the fossil energy used on the whole world. But it's not negligible neither.
In 2017 Bitcoin mining seems to have consumed around 30 TwH of electricity : https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption
This consumption is superior to the consumption of electricity in small country like oman / nigeria....
So it's not really negligible!

This electricity could roughly power up more than 2 million households on the US!!
the ratio cost of electricity used for mining / profit of mining  is around 5!!

There have to be solution to tend to a decentralized crypto but with some energy efficiency and green concept behind it.

[gabmen]

Bitcoin mining is really contributing in the global warming but as others are saying even banks are doing the same maybe when the time comes that bitcoin replaced the currency fiat system then it will be an acceptable use of energy and contribution to the global warming.

I think its very minimal or even neglectable to what really affects global.warming on a major scale. He focus should be in a more bigger scale and mining btc is the least among those.