Bitcoin Consuming Too Much Energy?

[Cactusizer]

Hello,

First I would like to address the issue:

I think that bitcoin mining as a whole (all the miners in the world) are consuming a lot of power and all we are doing is creating another currency that is going to be so regulated soon that it could be pointless.

Before you say that other things require a lot of power:

Lets take the US dollar. It is not based solely on using your computer/hardware to mine which is consuming electricity rates. It has jobs that you earn the dollar without using electricity or limited like using a computer then doing other stuff.

I do not hate bitcoin and love the idea but I keep getting this idea in my brain that the world is already starting to get more demand for these supplies (fossil fuels) to get electricity. I do not want this to happen but I would like to keep bitcoin alive. I am not a hater but rather someone who looks at the whole thing. Yes the future is going into technology but do you think it would be possible to wait till the world has found a reliable power resource that will generate enough power to feed the hungry demand before we dive into the future.

Main questions
Is bitcoin a big contribution to energy consumption?
Is bitcoin = the amount of electricity used?
Will this be used as a way that people/regulators can shut bitcoin down?

My main hope is that we develop ASICs that are really efficient not per gh/s but for the world or that people find a really good way to use solar energy or other times of energy to power these electricity hungry machines.

I do not hate bitcoin.

[jabo38]

Or how about design a system of "mining" that doesn't large computation capacity to do what amounts to "busy work".  If you have a job, and your boss gives you busy work, which is basically work that is being done just to say you "worked", you would probably hate the company and call it inefficient.  Yet bitcoin is based off of miners doing a HUGE amount of busy work.  If that computer power and electricity was reallocated towards actually working towards maintaining the network, well, we would have the fastest most robust decentralized network in the world.  Why not design a system that gives rewards to miners who actually maintain a network instead of doing busy work?

[joshv06]

I haven't done the math. I know there is more hashing power than ever and keeps going up. But at the same time, efficiency is going down.

Go blame Alt-Coin miners :

I use 47 KW/hr. between Scrypt and ASICs. My earnings are the same on both.

Scrypt: 42 KW/hr
ASICs: 5 KW/hr

[davidpbrown]

Look Inside America's Largest Bitcoin Mining Operation 

[BitOnyx]

Well everything consumer a lot of power. Creating decentralized international monetary system is worth it. There are also more cheaper sources of energy.

[Maxxt]

I quite the the hybrid systems that Ppcoin and Novacoin proposed. The best solution in my opinion is: Mining (and possibly Auroracoin-like "Airdrop") for the initial distribution for 1-5 years, afterwards mining is replaced by POS mechanism. Scrypt / Dagger is prefferable over SHA because it will allow for more even distrubution, giving no advantage to ASIC-like hardware.

[Ekaros]

Efficiency is cancelled by difficulty increase...

Mining will end in parity where over long term produced coins value is reaching equality to OPEX/CAPEX...

And in near future that might be a rather wasteful state...
 
OFC there is systems to offset the OPEX, like selling waste heat in cold seasons, but that doesn't change the picture much...

True question is energy/coin mined over whole lifespan...

[DannyHamilton]

I think that bitcoin mining as a whole (all the miners in the world) are consuming a lot of power

"A lot" is a relative term.  The entire combined power of the entire bitcoin network is "a lot" compared to the power necessary for me to make myself a piece of toast in the morning, but for a secure global currency and electronic payment system it is quite efficient.

and all we are doing is creating another currency that is going to be so regulated soon that it could be pointless.

That is an interesting statement.  What sort of regulation do you think is going to happen that will make it pointless, and what makes you think that particular regulation will happen?

Lets take the US dollar. It is not based solely on using your computer/hardware to mine which is consuming electricity rates. It has jobs that you earn the dollar without using electricity or limited like using a computer then doing other stuff.

You are talking about "earning" a US dollar.  You are not talking about "manufacturing" a US dollar.  Bitcoin also has jobs that you earn the bitcoin without using electricity or limited like using a computer and then doing other stuff.  Manufacturing and transporting the physical US dollars uses significant amounts of energy in various forms. Multiply that energy per US dollar by the total number of physical US currency notes that have been created in all of history, and I think you'll find that the dollar has "wasted" MUCH more energy than bitcoin.

Main questions
Is bitcoin a big contribution to energy consumption?

In comparison to its value and usefullness?  No.  It is much more efficient than Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, and Bank Transfers. Therefore, if you can replace all of those with bitcoin, you will reduce the world energy consumption.

Is bitcoin = the amount of electricity used?

I'm not sure what you are trying to ask here.  Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency.  As such it is both a currency and a payment system.  Bitcoin is a concept and a protocol.  Are you asking if the exchange rate of a bitcoin is equivalent to one-twentyfifth of the value of the electricity necessary for the entire network to mine a block?

Will this be used as a way that people/regulators can shut bitcoin down?

How would you shut down bitcoin?  What would you shut down?

[DannyHamilton]

Or how about design a system of "mining" that doesn't large computation capacity to do what amounts to "busy work".  If you have a job, and your boss gives you busy work, which is basically work that is being done just to say you "worked", you would probably hate the company and call it inefficient.  Yet bitcoin is based off of miners doing a HUGE amount of busy work.  If that computer power and electricity was reallocated towards actually working towards maintaining the network, well, we would have the fastest most robust decentralized network in the world.  Why not design a system that gives rewards to miners who actually maintain a network instead of doing busy work?

I don't think you understand what mining accomplishes.  It is not "busy work" or "wasted".  It performs a very useful function.

[descarte]

thats where solar energy comes in

[merockstar]

Look into Peercoin/Primecoin

[ning]

Let the market decide.

[Cactusizer]

I think that bitcoin mining as a whole (all the miners in the world) are consuming a lot of power

"A lot" is a relative term.  The entire combined power of the entire bitcoin network is "a lot" compared to the power necessary for me to make myself a piece of toast in the morning, but for a secure global currency and electronic payment system it is quite efficient.

and all we are doing is creating another currency that is going to be so regulated soon that it could be pointless.

That is an interesting statement.  What sort of regulation do you think is going to happen that will make it pointless, and what makes you think that particular regulation will happen?

Lets take the US dollar. It is not based solely on using your computer/hardware to mine which is consuming electricity rates. It has jobs that you earn the dollar without using electricity or limited like using a computer then doing other stuff.

You are talking about "earning" a US dollar.  You are not talking about "manufacturing" a US dollar.  Bitcoin also has jobs that you earn the bitcoin without using electricity or limited like using a computer and then doing other stuff.  Manufacturing and transporting the physical US dollars uses significant amounts of energy in various forms. Multiply that energy per US dollar by the total number of physical US currency notes that have been created in all of history, and I think you'll find that the dollar has "wasted" MUCH more energy than bitcoin.

Main questions
Is bitcoin a big contribution to energy consumption?

In comparison to its value and usefullness?  No.  It is much more efficient than Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, and Bank Transfers. Therefore, if you can replace all of those with bitcoin, you will reduce the world energy consumption.
Yes I have to agree.

Is bitcoin = the amount of electricity used?

I'm not sure what you are trying to ask here.  Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency.  As such it is both a currency and a payment system.  Bitcoin is a concept and a protocol.  Are you asking if the exchange rate of a bitcoin is equivalent to one-twentyfifth of the value of the electricity necessary for the entire network to mine a block?
I am asking if its worth to have another concept/protocol because of the usage of power rather than just using existing markets to pay each other and buy things.

Will this be used as a way that people/regulators can shut bitcoin down?

Well they have started ratting that its dangerous they could say that its wasting power and stuff. They have their ways.

How would you shut down bitcoin?  What would you shut down?
Ban everything to do with it.

Underlined ones are the answers to some questions. I think that you have basically combatted all the questions but we already have all those payment protocols/ways to pay others so why have another. Its efficient yes but sometimes its not worth it. I have to agree that bitcoin is good but the power cosumption is quite worrying. Its not equal to the rest of the world but it just adds more.

I advise people to start looking into solar panels and other ways to power your machines as well as buy from the companies that are best for the world.

[gollum]

What you guys miss is that even if you use sun power, you spend that energy on something that should not be needed.
If bitcoin used Proof-Of-Stake, the power consumption of the network would go down with up to 95%.
Instead  that energy could be used to replace nuclear power plants for the rest of society.

[bountygiver]

I am thinking of this idea.
You guys remember folding @ home?
What if we can make a crypto algo which also simulates the folding at no big additional effort?
So you can mine coins and contribute to mankind at the same time (as such contribution requires computer running and consuming power as well)

[DeathAndTaxes]

If we assume the network is heading towards ~1 J/GH then we are looking at 1MW per PH/s.  That puts us at 30 MW or 263 GWh annually at current network size.  Now that might sound like a lot but the human race uses about 150 million GWh annually (all forms of energy not just electricity) making the Bitcoin network a rounding error (0.0002%) on the energy usage of the human race.

How efficient Bitcoin becomes relative to established monetary systems will depend on how large its user base becomes.  There is a non-linear relationship between the number of users and cost of the network.  The hashrate is likely to rise over time but this will be partially offset by increased hardware efficiency (J/GH).  Also as the cost of ASICs decline (and power costs dominate) we may the emergence of energy offsetting applications.  Dedicated ASIC heaters could be built specially designed for domestic heat and hot water applications.  ASIC arrays could be used on a part-time basis as power shunts to soak up excess electrical capacity instead of 100% loss waste load circuits.

[g4c]

miners are fancy house heating systems for some.  they produce as much heat per watt as a standard electric heater. the computing power happens for "free" in a way.

of course if you're running big mining operation in hot climate and using air-con to cool miners then that's quite a folly.

i wouldn't worry about "global warming" the biosphere is hungry for more carbon and it gets gobbled up and integrated into life very quickly. you know that if you grow plants in enriched CO2 atmosphere they thrive. and of course all that oil trapped below the surface wasn't down there all the time you know, in times gone by all that carbon was above ground. some large event must have buried it because in the natural decay mechanism old dead life gets completely used and depleted of chemical energy, think chalk deposits. we do life a favor by re-integrating trapped carbon reserves into the biosphere.

[g4c]

Also dont worry about fossil fuels running out.

you only need worry about our star going out.

the amount of energy incident on our planet from the sun is MASSIVE.

very efficient photovoltaics will happen right around when the fuel tails off, but until then though you best keep paying your taxes goddamit.

[anonerd]

hey guys, gridcoin is directing the network-computation to benefit scientific progress
other than PoW-coins it doesnt waste but rewards Proof-of-BOINC.

[bitsmichel]

Is bitcoin a big contribution to energy consumption?

Define 'big' ?  Given the amount of energy that exists in the visible universe (or even our solar system), its almost invisible.

Will this be used as a way that people/regulators can shut bitcoin down?

Regulators cannot shutdown bitcoin.  Shutting down works in server-client architecture, but not in decentralized architecture. To simplify:

You could make an analogy with the government trying to restrict peoples freedom to listen certain music (this actually happens in some countries):
How you can do it? Music can be played everywhere, in a central building, in a home, in a toilet, on the street.. anyone can have portable player. Even if the government tries to take everyone music player, there would still be a black market. And music can be downloaded from the internet, stored encrypted on disks etc.

It will stay.. and likely get bigger. Governments would do better to make investments into btc.
Like they say 'if you cant beat them, join them'