Bitcoin & PoW is a waste of energy & destroys nature

[thedarklight]

It is insane to waste energy on mining bitcoin in the age of peak oil where greedy energy companies destroy nature for profit.
Right now all bitcoin miners consume the amount of the energy produced by an average US nuclear power plant (30 million KwH/day), or the total oil production of Phillipines (12,000 barrels of oil per day)

The mining of bitcoin uses PoW (Proof of Work) to secure the network, which leads to an exponential growth of energy spent on mining.
All miners compete against each other and must increase mining power (energy usage) to increase their chance of being rewarded in the mining process.

But there are other models to secure a crypto currency without the need to waste energy: The security model of PoS (Proof of Stake) relies instead of the ownership of coins.
The reason is simple: the more coins you own, the less is the risk that you wish to damage the coin for short term profit, since you would lose the value of your current holdings.

So I hope Bitcoin evolves and starts to use PoS, or similar methods to save energy and save the nature.


Sources:

Proof of Stake
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_Stake

Bitcoin Mining Uses $15 Million's Worth Of Electricity Every Day
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/12/03/fascinating-number-bitcoin-mining-uses-15-millions-worth-of-electricity-every-day/

How much electricity does a typical nuclear power plant generate?
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=104&t=21

List of countries by oil production
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production

Canada, before and after tar sand mining:
http://www.ecoearth.info/shared/alerts/img/tar_sands_before_after.jpg

Totally agree, Bitcoin is like Myspace, there'll come a cryptocurrency that'll totally obliterate Bitcoin from the markets. Soon.
All everyone in this thread is doing, is comparing Bitcoin to other things such as how much electricity is used by banks etc etc, Stop comparing and realize that Bitcoin is just Contributing to the problem... Really guys..this makes me loose faith in humanity lol.

Solarcoin actually promotes decentralization of Solar electricity generation. Distributed generation will disrupt the utility industry. Eventually we wouldn't even need to pay for electricity.

[Beliathon]

Spoiler: "Nature" will be fine.

Mankind is only fucking itself.

[Boussac]

Bitcoin according to some estimates uses up to 130,000 megawatt hours a day, and that is only going to grow.

Its actually very difficult to estimante because of the continued progress made in ASIC design.
A good portion of mining happens at home and not in data centers.
Power dissipated by mining can be used for heating in the winter, the majority moving from Northern hemisphere to the other over the year.

This is why Gridcoin came into existence. To divert a portion of the mining power towards science projects!

You can turn around the argument: finance the computing needs of your science projects with mining a new kind of coin..
Using the hashing power for a purpose other than the prevention of a 51% attack is actually reducing the opportunity cost of such attack.
It defeats the very purpose of mining !
Pretty soon you will have the most popular science project (not necessarily the most promising or desirable project) take over your network.
A network centralized around one project is dead, not because of the project but because its centralized.

[5flags]

Are there no alternatives to PoS and PoW? I like neither of them.

Currently working on an alt which uses PoA - Proof of Awesomeness. The algorithm is in development, but looks sort of like this:

if(User.Current.Name == "5flags")
{
     RewardWith(100);
}
else
{
     RewardWith(1);
}

It will need some tweaking to get it right, but it's approximately OK.

[S4VV4S]

Are there no alternatives to PoS and PoW? I like neither of them.

Currently working on an alt which uses PoA - Proof of Awesomeness. The algorithm is in development, but looks sort of like this:

if(User.Current.Name == "5flags")
{
     RewardWith(100);
}
else
{
     RewardWith(1);
}

It will need some tweaking to get it right, but it's approximately OK.

Try this:

var headsToget:Number = 0;

if("S4VV4S" == "awesome"){
 // give this guy a blowj*b
 rewardWith("ablowj*b");
 headsToget++;

}else{
if("S4VV4S" == "too awesome"){
 // reward this guy with two blowj*bs
 rewardWith("twoblowj*bs");
 headsToget += 2;

}

for(i=0; i<headsToget; i++){
 
 trace("S4VV4S got" + i + "Blowj*bs");

}


Does that help?  



 
 

  

[5flags]

Does that help?  

A whole set of images I didn't want.

[S4VV4S]

Does that help?  

A whole set of images I didn't want.

Hehe, Javascript right?
My point was that you should keep a record

headsToGet  <----

Store that for later use

[warpio]

Bitcoin's not a waste of energy at all. Think about it. How much power do you think every single bank facility and banking-related office building in the world uses up each day?

I'd wager if you were to see a direct comparison between the total daily power consumption of Bitcoin's PoW and the average daily power consumption of, say, Goldman Sachs... you would then find the statement "Bitcoin's PoW is a waste of energy" completely laughable.

Argument that if one shit requires a lot of electricity then Bitcoin is not a waste of energy is quite... illogical.

no it's really not in this case. I am directly comparing the power consumption of one method of financial bookkeeping (the banking system), with another method (bitcoin). In this comparison, bitcoin clearly is the far more power-efficient way to go.

Do you need to be reminded of how many different, competing bank companies there are? and that EACH of them separately uses up about as much, or more power than the global Bitcoin PoW system uses each day? There's not even room for argument, Bitcoin is far greener than any other alternative we have at the moment.

[spazzdla]

This could have been (yet another) thread to discuss PoW benefits and drawbacks. However OP made sure this wouldn't be the case.


"Electricity consumption is estimated based on power consumption of 650 Watts per gigahash" *

 


/thread





* for the newbies: that's 3 orders of magnitude larger than the present rates

650W a gig/hash..

All of my WTF's

[kooke]

You do have a point that mining consumes a lot of electricity. But 100% PoS doesn't seem like a good solution because it will just make the rich even richer by simply holding their wealth.

[crazy_rabbit]

So are people on this earth, yet here we all are. PoS only enriches the rich. It's like if gold bars could have babies.

[Ruthful]

so is cutting down trees, making paper, and stamping them with dead presidents.

Paper  money aren't made from papers, they are  usually made from flax/ cotton blend(although other material are/could be used as well).



Yeah,I know I'm nitpicking here.Sorry for that.


Carry on.

[ashapasa]

It is insane to waste energy on mining bitcoin in the age of peak oil where greedy energy companies destroy nature for profit.
Right now all bitcoin miners consume the amount of the energy produced by an average US nuclear power plant (30 million KwH/day), or the total oil production of Phillipines (12,000 barrels of oil per day)

The mining of bitcoin uses PoW (Proof of Work) to secure the network, which leads to an exponential growth of energy spent on mining.
All miners compete against each other and must increase mining power (energy usage) to increase their chance of being rewarded in the mining process.

But there are other models to secure a crypto currency without the need to waste energy: The security model of PoS (Proof of Stake) relies instead of the ownership of coins.
The reason is simple: the more coins you own, the less is the risk that you wish to damage the coin for short term profit, since you would lose the value of your current holdings.

So I hope Bitcoin evolves and starts to use PoS, or similar methods to save energy and save the nature.


Sources:

Proof of Stake
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_Stake

Bitcoin Mining Uses $15 Million's Worth Of Electricity Every Day
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/12/03/fascinating-number-bitcoin-mining-uses-15-millions-worth-of-electricity-every-day/

How much electricity does a typical nuclear power plant generate?
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=104&t=21

List of countries by oil production
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production

Canada, before and after tar sand mining:

that a very compelling picture

[ashapasa]

it has been calculated that las vegas, with all its bright lights and stuff uses more electricity then bitcoin.... and all they trade is plastic tokens that can be replicated.

it has been calculated that new york financial district uses more electric then bitcoin... and all they trade is paper IOU's that can be reprinted.

... need i say anymore?

Yes, because its a very narrow way of looking at things. "He is doing it so I will do it as well"  this kind of attitude will destroy this planet

[gollum]

it has been calculated that las vegas, with all its bright lights and stuff uses more electricity then bitcoin.... and all they trade is plastic tokens that can be replicated.

it has been calculated that new york financial district uses more electric then bitcoin... and all they trade is paper IOU's that can be reprinted.

... need i say anymore?

Yes, because its a very narrow way of looking at things. "He is doing it so I will do it as well"  this kind of attitude will destroy this planet

Exactly, we should work for a sustainable future instead of doing the same mistakes as the established industries.

[Singlebyte]

Printing fiat is FAR more wasteful of energy....But I don't see the OP complaining about that!!  

* Energy used in Harvesting trees/silk/cotton (massive resource expenses)
* Cutting/processing/transporting these natural resources
* Energy for Printing Presses
* Energy used for mining metals like copper/zinc/nickel (another massive expense)
* Energy for Heating/Air conditioning of buildings
* Energy for Powering phones/lights/computers
* Transportation of money to banks
* Workers Transportation to/from work
* Costs for Reprinting replacement bills
* Security costs like cameras, guards, police resources
* Energy used to manufacturer presses/computers/equipment
* Resources used for dies and chemicals
* Resources used to stop or arrest counter-fitting
* This list goes on forever............Year after Year

And remember, every country that has a currency is doing this list over and over...

This thread started by OP is a FUD.

[Singlebyte]

Right now the power of the Bitcoin network is in the range of a small nuclear reactor (see my post here) : 600 MW.

This calculation only take the electricity spent by the miners. Not the electricity spent by Blockchain.info, Bitstamp, Bitpay or any other part of the Bitcoin economy.

And if we want to be fair we cannot assume that all the electricity spent by the banks is necessary to run "the fiat network". We should only take into account :
- the printing of the paper bills (probably in the range of $0.01 per dollar or less)
- the minting of the metal coins (maybe up to $0.5 per dollar)
- the running of the central banks ($0,0000??? per dollar)
This is what must be compared to the cost of running "the Bitcoin network" (mining costs).

I assure you the amount of energy spent on the production of FIAT way exceeds the bitcoin network power consumed even in proportion to user base.  (I for one hardly ever use cash...I use checks, Credit cards, Direct Deposit and Electronic banking)

Lets just take the "mining of metals" concept for a minute.  The cost to produce a Penny.

How much oil/gas do you think the trucks and tractors consume daily to mine the minerals?
How about the oil and lubricants for the hydraulics/engines/gears?  
How about the the fuel that goes into the workers vehicles to get to (and from) the jobsite?
How about the energy used to produce the tractors/trucks/vehicles the workers use?
How about the energy to manufacturer tires for the vehicles?
How about the refinery power consumption?
How about the power used for the facilities on each site?
How about the energy costs for security and storage?
How about the energy used to truck/ship/train the raw ore?

Then the refined materials go to the mint.

Again, how much oil/gas consumed by the workers daily to and from work? (1845 employees US mint)
How much energy used to make the minting presses and machinery?
How much energy used to run the machinery?
How much paper products/stationary/toilet paper consumed?
How much to heat and air condition every facility?
How much energy now spent on security at the site? (Guards/cameras/alarms systems/etc)

Now let me remind you we haven't even sent the money to the banks yet nor have we produced paper currency yet.  And my list is far shorter than the actual energy consumed in making the currency.  Additionally, every country on earth is consuming energy to produce their form of currency.

As you can see.....the cost to produce one penny would far exceed the cost to produce one satoshi.

And to make my point crystal clear....if the entire world was using crypto currency, the amount of energy consumed would be FAR less than it is today.

[AnonyMint]

The OP is nonsense, and here is why:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=455141.msg5146060#msg5146060

[Soros Shorts]

Proof of Stake
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_Stake

Some argue that methods based on Proof of Work alone might lead to a low network security due to Tragedy of the Commons, and Proof of Stake is one way of changing the miner's incentives in favor of higher network security.

I don't see any "Tragedy of the Commons" happening here at this time. Do you?

[Adrian-x]

This thread started by OP is a FUD.

No it's not. The calculation may be false (because he assumes that the mining efficiency of the miners is still what it was one year ago), but the result is valid : the Bitcoin network consumes a very high electric power for such a small economy.

Right now the power of the Bitcoin network is in the range of a small nuclear reactor (see my post here) : 600 MW.

This calculation only take the electricity spent by the miners. Not the electricity spent by Blockchain.info, Bitstamp, Bitpay or any other part of the Bitcoin economy.

And if we want to be fair we cannot assume that all the electricity spent by the banks is necessary to run "the fiat network". We should only take into account :
- the printing of the paper bills (probably in the range of $0.01 per dollar or less)
- the minting of the metal coins (maybe up to $0.5 per dollar)
- the running of the central banks ($0,0000??? per dollar)
This is what must be compared to the cost of running "the Bitcoin network" (mining costs).

All other actors of the system (commercial banks included) are only "users" of the fiat system. The day they switch to Bitcoin they will spend exactly the same amount of energy than with fiat.

There is an argument to be made that the Fiat system uses Fractional Reserve Banking (FRB) and generally has a minimum 2.5% non negotiable exponential growth target, that results is an exponential environmental consumption tax.

The FRB system favours big business, it loans money pre growth and inflation and profits post growth and inflation.  The result is industry is encouraged to find new and innovative ways to increase consumption. The outcome is disposable 1 time use packaging, built in obsolescence and optimising a cradle to grave use of recourses (he who consumes the most benefits the most)

In a world with a finite money supply capable of functioning without FRB, the result would be akin to a permanent deflationary spiral, this would have a negative impact on consumer goods, (less the essentials people seem to always buy food) people would shift to conserving capital reducing the motive from investing in new recourse extraction, and incentivising thrift and efficiency. (he who delays consumption benefits the most)

This impact could be achieved with finite crypto currencies and the impact on the plaint would be staggering, people would voluntarily offset consumption, to benefit at a future date.

When you factor the environmental effects of our existing economic system (cradle to grave incentivised consumption in the name of economic growth) the cost of securing Bitcoin is insignificant.