Bitcoin is now consuming 1% of the world's electricity. Is that sustainable?

[odolvlobo]

Electricity is not a finite resource, so it doesn't matter whether Bitcoin mining is 1% or 10% or even 99% of the total consumption.

The real issue is the effect of power generation on the environment, and at only 1%, Bitcoin cannot be considered to be a significant contributor to that problem. Furthermore, there are better ways to address the environmental problems than to prohibit certain types of consumption.

[darkangel11]

I also doubt that it's already at 1%, but even if it's true it doesn't change anything. This power is being bought and sold, it's tradable. Since some countries are willing to sell this power it means that they have an excess, right? I believe that this excess is large enough to sustain bitcoin mining, but what does it mean for the economy? It's of course a huge boost because this excess energy would otherwise be wasted. Since it's being used and paid for, the power companies will have additional funds to expand. The economy will always regulate itself.

[gentlemand]

According to a recent article I read, there are 100,000 bitcoin miners in operation throughout the world.

I seem to recall that article saying miners as in people, not machines. I've seen estimates of there being 3 million machines running which sounds conceivable considering how much profit Bitmain pulled in last year and how much the hash rate has been rising. It's anyone's guess though.

[dothebeats]

To know that not all the sources of energy we're using is carbon-free, it's worth noting that the burning of fossil fuels even up to this day is still what's running most of our industries and not only bitcoin. Once we shifted into something greener, efficient and cheaper (like hydro or nuclear), I don't see the need to discuss the same power consumption all over again. There are other industries that use more power and emits more carbon than bitcoin, but have we turn a spiteful eye into them? But one way or another, we might have to look into other algorithms which could drastically reduce the power consumption needed to run the network, perhaps PoS or any other better alternatives.

[Bgbolahan]

I believe that solutions is coming on the ways as we can see many projects who are pursuing alternative ways of mining with less electricity.

[mojo2208]

At the moment, yes, that's fine. In the future, perhaps this number will increase significantly, but now there are many projects that are aimed at reducing the consumption of electrical energy when working with crypto-currencies

[odolvlobo]

It is a common misconception that making mining more efficient will lower the overall usage of electricity. The truth is that overall electricity usage is determined by the value of the block reward primarily, and making mining more efficient will only result in a higher hash rate.

[renemagritte]

I believe sooner or later most coins will have to change from proof of work(mining) to proof of stake. Nodes can do better. I feel like "mining" is an old way to run a chain. We need to find different and more "green" options. Pos is one of them.

[d5000]

One year ago Bitcoin's network was consuming as much energy as Ireland. Now it has apparently doubled and now it is consuming 1% of the world's total electricity consumption.

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

The Digicoinomist Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index has often been critisized as "flawed". It is based on annual mining revenues - so it's largely based on the average Bitcoin price in the last 365 days. If price goes up, it will grow - until the next halving.

A better estimation, in my opinion, is this one, based on data about mining hardware. Unfortunately it is outdated. But it regularly had results of between a third and half of the consumption the Digicoinomist index claims.

Imo, it's not a topic that we should ignore, but it has solutions. Other posters (here and in another related threads) have already mentioned renewable energies. Solar energy costs of planned plants in Mexico and Chile are estimated to be as low as 0,02 USD per kWh, so it is very likely getting competitive with Chinese coal-based electricity. Probably soon we'll seen a massive shift to renewable-based mining.

[bitcoindusts]

Point well taken there, and we can not shy away from the truth that bitcoin does consume a lot of electricity.

But as others said, i doubt bitcoin's carbon footprint is more than the consumption of all banks globally put together. You see, it became easy to declare the consumption of electricity for bitcoin because the nodes are all visible. Whereas it would be difficult to calculate the same for all the banks.  And i am merely basing this comparison against the banks because it is the sector that bitcoin is up against.

Besides, imagine how many trees bitcoin saved as it never needed any printed material to denote its value unlike the endless printing of fiat currencies.

[Raggie]

One year ago Bitcoin's network was consuming as much energy as Ireland. Now it has apparently doubled and now it is consuming 1% of the world's total electricity consumption.

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

This, in a time when the world is trying to reduce carbon footprints to avoid or slow down global warming.
Is Bitcoin sustainable as it is?
I don't think so - in fact I'm sure it is not. There is a limit to insanity.
More data here:

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

What is likely to happen next? Which are your thoughts?

Why do you think bitcoin is not sustainable ? It would be gone if bitcoin was not sustainable from the start.
we know the whole world not just only mining bitcoin, we are mining many cryptocurrency coins.
but i think we still can sustain the crypto mining, as long it still profitable to do.

[Onah]

I just feel bad about this situation.
Cryptocurrency is good, but the fact that it is heating our globe everyday is just sad.
This is also a reason why I dont like mining, and I also think we need better mining algorithms that help us with the situation. Algorithms that dont require much energy but still have the same functionalities, security and efficiency to contribute to blockchain world.

[d5000]

But as others said, i doubt bitcoin's carbon footprint is more than the consumption of all banks globally put together. You see, it became easy to declare the consumption of electricity for bitcoin because the nodes are all visible. Whereas it would be difficult to calculate the same for all the banks.  And i am merely basing this comparison against the banks because it is the sector that bitcoin is up against.

We have already discussed that in this thread.

And the problem is: Banks may consume more today, but they have also a much higher transaction volume.

At least according to this stackexchange post, SWIFT alone handles 11,5 millions of transactions per day, with a transaction volume of 1,25 quadrillions of dollars per year.

Bitcoin handles less than a trillion per year (~2 billion daily, with peaks up to ~5 billion during the last bubble). So SWIFT's transaction volume alone is no less than 3-4 orders of magnitude higher than Bitcoin's.

What we should compare, instead, is the hypothetical Bitcoin consumption if it becomes used at least as much as SWIFT, for example. If we now have about 0,5 %, then if the price is 1000 times (3 orders of magnitude) higher, then we can assume that Bitcoin would consume a very significant part of the world's electricity.

[Crypto24hrs]

That is not a problem because a lot of organisations are currently working on providing the world with an alternate source of power supply that is even air pollution free and environmental friendly using blockchain technology see WPP ENERGY for more details

[tsinelas]

The biggest obstacle to increasing bitcoin prices is mining and energy consumption. I think it is not possible to go far without finding a solution to these.

There are many alternative source of power that can help us sustain the need.  There is geothermal, hydro, wind and solar, each miners should have( i suggest) s have individual source so that the needs of the people will not be affected. We are the new technology.

[rasulibragimavic]

I believe that this figure will not grow anymore and now there is a decline but if the gold rush goes again on bitcoin then it will spend more energy !

[Photographer]

Electricity is not a finite resource, so it doesn't matter whether Bitcoin mining is 1% or 10% or even 99% of the total consumption.

The real issue is the effect of power generation on the environment, and at only 1%, Bitcoin cannot be considered to be a significant contributor to that problem. Furthermore, there are better ways to address the environmental problems than to prohibit certain types of consumption.

"at only 1%, Bitcoin cannot be considered to be a significant contributor to that problem" is a funny statement, considering that the remaining 99% of consumption is what makes the whole human civilization possible and it's what is keeping 7 billions of people alive. If of course the 1% is correct.

[Satosho Kakamolto]

What we should compare, instead, is the hypothetical Bitcoin consumption if it becomes used at least as much as SWIFT, for example. If we now have about 0,5 %, then if the price is 1000 times (3 orders of magnitude) higher, then we can assume that Bitcoin would consume a very significant part of the world's electricity.

This is exactly the point, and such numbers are clearly unsustainable. This leads to the conclusion that something has to be changed in the way of Bitcoin to work, or it will change by itself in a more catastrophic way at some point. That's plain logic.

[Cruxer]

Bitcoin is now consuming 1% of the world's electricity. Is that sustainable?

yes because there is economic reason for sustaining it, it pays its electricity bills and earninig money for miners
so there will be build new power plants if miners will need it
look at that perspective, its amazing

[Ausgewielt]

Even if Bitcoin consuming 10% of electricity, bank is consumes more. Bank's office need electricity, maintaining of fiat money also need electricity (they burn old fiat money to create new one), transferring money also need electricity. We can make a conclusion that banks expenses more resources than bitcoin.