Bitcoin & PoW is a waste of energy & destroys nature

[FalconFly]

I think the OP is missing a small detail here :

Even if you combine the energy used for all the Coins being mined and even added the combined, entire energy used for designing, manufacturing and shipping the hardware...
This figure is still ridiculously miniscule compared to any reasonable industry (i.e. steel mills worldwide) or vehicle traffic. Absolutely neglectable in the big picture of things, like mosquito shit on the windscreen of a 600ft container superfreighter.

So if protecting nature is the OP mission, Bitcoin is by far the absolutely least area of priority that should get his attention...
Even PC/Console gamers playing games just for their pure entertainment are presently using up far more electricity and resources than all coin miners combined. Stop gaming to protect nature... ?
Heck, mothers/grandmas cooking for their families every day probably dwarf the Bitcoin energy consumption every day. And don't even think about prohibiting that, they usually cook very good food

[treviso32]

In the years to come ENERGY WILL MATTER FOR EVERYTHING so using less of it is needed.

guys at the top(btc miners,nxt shareholders) will always make a killing so the most efficient and less energy sapping system
for the masses is best.

I thought LTC was faster than BTC to use but NXT is even faster.

Of course, you will have to get your wallets out folks.....the MIGHTY 'NEM' will be arriving soon......DONT MISS OUT  !!!!!!!!!!

[Adrian-x]

It is insane to waste energy on mining bitcoin in the age of peak oil where greedy energy companies destroy nature for profit.
Canada, before and after tar sand mining:

Shire v Mordor,

Shire
Using a fixed money base requires consensus before you can raise capital to invest in destroying your environment.

Mordor
Using elastic Fractional reserve Fiat system allows you to amass recourses without consent, and exploit the environment and pay back an artificial money supply with interest.


As someone who has invested over a decade in solving environmental problems, deflation is the necessary market driven tool that can encourage environmental sustainability.  

The Bitcoin mining problem you see is a result of high profitability, and waste heat when the mining becomes less profitable in 2016 will be an output for a new industry, there will be a huge shift to being efficient, the mining waste will be put to use and only the sustainable will win in the end.  

I have used suppliers in other parts of the world whose only profit comes form recycling 100% of their waste. These are the people who are more productive in the long run, they are the ones who take jobs from the more wasteful.

Our way of live is driven by 2.5% targeted growth, despite our needs; our monetary system incentivises corporations to employ people like me to create more want to keep consumption at a steady 2.5% growth, this growth is just another form of malinvestment.  

[Littleshop]

Let's not forget that in Canada, I use my rig to heat up the house in winter.

During the winter, 100% of my rigs are offsetting heat. 

[Littleshop]

Canada, before and after tar sand mining:

Sure, this sucks but it has NOTHING to do with Bitcoin. 

Most electricity in the USA comes from nuclear, natural gas and coal.  Tar sands is oil and that is less then 1 percent of US electricity. 

[Adrian-x]

Let's not forget that in Canada, I use my rig to heat up the house in winter.

During the winter, 100% of my rigs are offsetting heat. 

I only run my rigs in the winter now. I'm using old tech GPU's and my electricity heating bill is 48% subsidized by Bitcoin.

[Xyver]

Here's my analysis.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Lb_iLMmH5sIiYfGeHr9tCTnaoWjK25zDlvO0nXXgEng

TL,DR is that we're fine now, but in the future we may be sucking a whole lot of power.

[Adrian-x]

Here's my analysis.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Lb_iLMmH5sIiYfGeHr9tCTnaoWjK25zDlvO0nXXgEng

TL,DR is that we're fine now, but in the future we may be sucking a whole lot of power.

If you scaled the Bitcoin networks current transaction be kWh you will be using more energy than is produced in Germany to just match the transaction volume of Visa and Master Card.  

To justify that amount of energy consumption, the price of Bitcoin would need to be in excess of $1,050,000 per Bitcoin at the current efficiency.  

By contrast if the cost of 10,000 Bitcoin was worth $1, it is likely difficulty would be but a fraction it is today and a single high end PC, could run the Bitcoin networks it is today.


Once an optimal distribution and use case is established in Bitcoin, mining profit will come from using your by-product heat efficiently; there will be very little waste.

People only mine Bitcoin and wast the heat because it is insanely profitable to do so.

[btc4ever]

We humans exist in and are a part of nature.  Everything we do is governed by the laws of nature and is by definition natural.  We could no more destroy nature than a javascript app could kill javascript.

I think you are equating nature with pre-existing conditions.  Anyway, your argument doesn't interest me.  If you have a better way of building a cryptocurrency, just go do it.

It is insane to waste energy on mining bitcoin in the age of peak oil where greedy energy companies destroy nature for profit.

[NickPortland]

Everytime you mine a satoshi, a baby polar bear drowns 

[Lauda]

Everytime you mine a satoshi, a baby polar bear drowns 

I'm not the one who is building coal and nuclear plants just because they generate more $/energy than solar and wind.

[coinnewbit]

It's not a 'waste'.

The work of PoW is work to create a currency that can not be counterfeit,  fungible,fast, and can not be created out of thin air like fiat.

And there are alternatives. Both in the PoS coins , like Hobonickels which make me 6% interest, and many others. Such as coins that ontribue computing resources to projects, like CureCoin.

If you want to talk about waste, how about the money and energy involved in building America's latest supercarrier. Or the Olympics.  Bitcoin has a lot of value and is useful.

You mean bitcoin has a lot of HUMAN value? Afterall, it is how, as a collective whole, we perceive bitcoin to be worth anything for it to be worth anything, just like other forms of currency

[NickPortland]

Everytime you mine a satoshi, a baby polar bear drowns  

I'm not the one who is building coal and nuclear plants just because they generate more $/energy than solar and wind.

Their blood is on your hands.

Besides, if the US would massively employ wind/solar (80%) instead of nuclear/coal electricity would be so costly cryptos, at the very least, wouldn't exist.

[gollum]

Imagine bitcoin becoming the no. 1 currency of the universe:
Eventually every atom would be used as a miner, accelerating the distribution of heat in universe and faster reaching heat death.
If we are lucky the gigantic miner will turn into a huge black hole, making the universe collapse, starts a new big bang and universe is reborn.

The heat death of the universe is a historically suggested ultimate fate of the universe in which the universe has diminished to a state of no thermodynamic free energy and therefore can no longer sustain processes that consume energy (including computation and life)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe

The novel "The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov is about the subject of universal entropy.
http://www.physics.princeton.edu/ph115/LQ.pdf

[theecoinomist]

Everytime you mine a satoshi, a baby polar bear drowns  

I'm not the one who is building coal and nuclear plants just because they generate more $/energy than solar and wind.

Their blood is on your hands.

Besides, if the US would massively employ wind/solar (80%) instead of nuclear/coal electricity would be so costly cryptos, at the very least, wouldn't exist.

Nuclear is fine, uranium isn't
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

[NickPortland]

Everytime you mine a satoshi, a baby polar bear drowns  

I'm not the one who is building coal and nuclear plants just because they generate more $/energy than solar and wind.

Their blood is on your hands.

Besides, if the US would massively employ wind/solar (80%) instead of nuclear/coal electricity would be so costly cryptos, at the very least, wouldn't exist.

Nuclear is fine, uranium isn't
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

Oh, I didn't know we were discussing sci-fi in this thread also,
then I say who cares? Vulcans are gonna make first contact in just 70 years from now, and solve all our problems.

[justusranvier]

Nuclear is fine, uranium isn't
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

Uranium or thorium are both fine.

The problem is solid fuel reactor designs.

We can thank Kirk Sorenson's branding plan for muddying up the issue.

[Adrian-x]

 We could no more destroy nature than a javascript app could kill javascript.

sure but we can make nature a hostile place that look like the tar sands.

[gollum]

Some of you guys take my words out of context, I don't say bitcoin in itself is a waste of energy, it is not.
Any asset that we want to keep needs energy for maintenance and security.
Even gold costs money (energy) to keep secure, since you need to pay for vaults, guards and insurance.

Just because a lot of industries waste huge amounts of energy doesn't mean bitcoin should do the same.
We should lead by good example and develop the currency of a sustainable future.

The current method of bitcoin mining is very inefficient in comparison to Proof-Of-Stake.
Im not an expert in cryptography and cannot say if PoS is as good as Proof-of-Work, but it is worth evaluating for you guys that have the skills.
Bitcoin should evolve and use the most energy efficient method possible when we are confident that the new method provides an acceptable level of security.

[Adrian-x]

Some of you guys take my words out of context, I don't say bitcoin in itself is a waste of energy, it is not.
Any asset that we want to keep needs energy for maintenance and security.
Even gold costs money (energy) to keep secure, since you need to pay for vaults, guards and insurance.

Just because a lot of industries waste huge amounts of energy doesn't mean bitcoin should do the same.
We should lead by good example and develop the currency of a sustainable future.

The current method of bitcoin mining is very inefficient in comparison to Proof-Of-Stake.
Im not an expert in cryptography and cannot say if PoS is as good as Proof-of-Work, but it is worth evaluating for you guys that have the skills.
Bitcoin should evolve and use the most energy efficient method possible when we are confident that the new method provides an acceptable level of security.

Bitcoin isn’t a ( or doesn't) waste of energy. When it becomes energy inefficiency, market forces will cause a change.
If it turns out to be a waste of energy, (however unlikely) you can already invest in alternates now. Quark comes to mind when doing PoW energy evidently, and and NXT for PoS