Bitcoin's huge carbon footprint - deal breaker

[RawDog]

Well, in this world where people actually care about the planet - you can't say this is any good...
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/14/tech/bitcoin-carbon-footprint-trnd/index.html

Bitcoin is definitely spewing out WAY TOO much carbon dioxide and is going to kill us all.  Can't fix it either because the entire notion of blockchain requires competitive mining.  It is only going to get much worse as Bitcoin value increases.  Total ruin. 

I really think this is the death knell for Bitcoin.

[funchiestz]

Well, in this world where people actually care about the planet - you can't say this is any good...
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/14/tech/bitcoin-carbon-footprint-trnd/index.html

Bitcoin is definitely spewing out WAY TOO much carbon dioxide and is going to kill us all.  Can't fix it either because the entire notion of blockchain requires competitive mining.  It is only going to get much worse as Bitcoin value increases.  Total ruin. 

I really think this is the death knell for Bitcoin.

Yes, Bitcoin's current energy consumption and expected future consumption figures are slightly higher. But there seems to be more ways to go around the world than unnecessary energy consumption. Carbon emissions have been increasing every year on earth. This carbon release was increasing before bitcoin was present. With Bitcoin, this figure continued to increase, of course.

Carbon emissions are increasing rapidly as countries prioritize their economic interests in industrial production. Moreover, although environmental pollution reports indicate certain countries, those countries do not make any regulations.

For Bitcoin and other crypto assets, a solution should be sought. But every individual, every company and every state in the world has to act jointly on carbon emissions and carbon footprints.

[RawDog]

Carbon emissions have been increasing every year on earth. This carbon release was increasing before bitcoin was present.

With a car that consumes 1 liter of fuel, 30% of the energy goes to useful work - the car goes forward, while 70% goes to waste heat.

With Bitcoin, for every liter of fuel burned 99.999999999999999999999999% goes to waste heat.  Only .0000000000000000000000001% goes to the miner that guessed the correct number and made the next block - which is the 'useful work' being done by mining.  

It would be VERY, VERY hard for you to invent a less efficient machine than Bitcoin mining.  It is a most spectacularly horrible idea.  Well, only horrible for those who like the planet.  If your goal is to fuck up the Earth, then Bitcoin mining is your best friend.

[squatter]

Power generators always generate much more electricity than actual demand requires to maintain grid reliability and prevent blackouts. They sell that excess electricity cheap -- as long as doing so nets more than the costs to store the electricity. Since Bitcoin miners are incentivized to find the cheapest possible energy, it's a match made in heaven.

If some combination of large scale load balancing and renewable/green energy sources could be used to secure trustless money, that would be pretty great.

[RawDog]

Power generators always generate much more electricity than actual demand requires to maintain grid reliability and prevent blackouts. They sell that excess electricity cheap

As long as we have people this dumb in the Bitcoin community, it won't matter at all about global warming.  Carry on!!!

[franky1]

raw dog thinking electricity is generated by rubbing 2 raw lumps of coal together and blowing the carbon dust into the air

by the way the 45twh is based on if the network was hashing at a constant 50exahash
only problem is that winter 18-19 the hashrate was down at 35exa.. meaning the twh would be much lower.

also new asics use less electric this year for the same exa.. so again the twh used is less than 45twh

but atleast at the exaggerated numbers of that article..
bitcoin uses similar electric to ONE CITY (Las vegas)
bitcoin uses less electric than keeping bottles of pepsi chilled

just to show how naive and outdated/innaccurate the articles 'research is'.. here is a quote from the source report

"but there is a wide scale ranging from students who do not pay for their electricity (some of whom applied to support this research)16 to gamers who leverage their graphics cards whenever they are not playing (as reflected in Nvidia’s volatile sales allocated to crypto"

P.S. even back in 2011-2013 days of GPU mining. EVERYONE knew never to buy Nvidia... if people were not mining with ATI then they might aswell not bother

[Wind_FURY]

Yes! You know that Bitcoin is finally in full bull mode, when the fudsters start coming out from the rocks they call their homes.

Kwukduck next?

[Red-Apple]

"Bitcoin" is not the name of a power company that is burning fossil fuel releasing pollution in the air. bitcoin is the name of the currency that is mined with miners that use the electricity that the power companies provide them.
it is not in control of bitcoin where that power comes from and how these electric companies pollute the environment. if you are such a lover of environment then go to these big billion dollar worth power companies and complain why they are doing that.

[BitHodler]

Yes! You know that Bitcoin is finally in full bull mode, when the fudsters start coming out from the rocks they call their homes.

Yep. Energy consumption is such a non argument that it actually surprises me that people still use it to attack Bitcoin. It's not that what we are going through is new or anything.

It was known from the early days of Bitcoin that mining would become a huge thing the higher the price goes up. If you supported Bitcoin back then but blame it right now for damaging the environment you're just a hypocrite.

As more time goes by, the use of energy per hardware device will go down without losing efficiency. It's called progress. Whatever the environmental impact is of Bitcoin, it won't keep growing but slowly decrease over time.

Kwukduck next?

The last time he used his account was back in February of 2018. I think he's gone.

[CryptoBry]

Almost all industries are consuming power and then all of us are releasing pollution to the Earth. There is no question that bitcoin mining requires a big amount of electricity but blaming bitcoin alone is not fair. There are more industries which can be considered as virtually worthless...why don't we start to list unnecessary industries or businesses and maybe restrict their use of power? Of course, that would be insane. However, I do strongly agree that we need to study, search and come up with solutions and I think some can be forthcoming with more efficient technologies applied to bitcoin mining.

[Nadziratel]

I think there's another point you've missed. Not all of the energy Bitcoin consumes can be produced with a carbon footprint. In other words, renewable energy sources are helping the mining sector. In addition, as I have seen from the comparisons, the oil used by the vehicles is compared to the Bitcoin mining. Shouldn't we include the physical problems given to the world by petroleum products issued for driving?

[SaltySpitoon]

Something to consider, carbon footprint only applies if you assume the power generation method is carbon emitting. Driving an electric car is carbon emitting if the generation station providing the electricity is coal powered. Its a deal breaker to continue burning fossil fuels for a substantial amount of power, regardless of whether its for Bitcoin or your microwave.

I'm not a power hippie, but my point is that its an inherent problem of power production, not Bitcoin.

With a car that consumes 1 liter of fuel, 30% of the energy goes to useful work - the car goes forward, while 70% goes to waste heat.

With Bitcoin, for every liter of fuel burned 99.999999999999999999999999% goes to waste heat.  Only .0000000000000000000000001% goes to the miner that guessed the correct number and made the next block - which is the 'useful work' being done by mining.  

It would be VERY, VERY hard for you to invent a less efficient machine than Bitcoin mining.  It is a most spectacularly horrible idea.  Well, only horrible for those who like the planet.  If your goal is to fuck up the Earth, then Bitcoin mining is your best friend.

The goal of Bitcoin mining is network security, not the block reward.

[avikz]

Well, in this world where people actually care about the planet - you can't say this is any good...
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/14/tech/bitcoin-carbon-footprint-trnd/index.html

Bitcoin is definitely spewing out WAY TOO much carbon dioxide and is going to kill us all.  Can't fix it either because the entire notion of blockchain requires competitive mining.  It is only going to get much worse as Bitcoin value increases.  Total ruin. 

I really think this is the death knell for Bitcoin.

Lol! Mints worldwide are emitting way more electricity that bitcoin consumes. Why should we need physical money after all? If these is your perspective of bitcoin mining, then you should start with mints worldwide. Carbon emission is indeed a challenge which world leaders need to address at some point of time! But targetting Bitcoin mining for that, is not going to help at all!

On the flipside, it is much easier for miners to switch from conventional energy source to alternative source! But it is not possible for big factories to rely on alternate source due to their high consumption!

BTW, do you think thermal power generation process does any less harm to the nature??

[Lucius]

This is really a very good post based on even better article, and together they create one big delusion that bitcoin is problem for the environment, and in the same time OP or article author does not even try to find out who actually contributes to the pollution of this planet.

Even if it is true that bitcoin is using 1% of of total world energy, the fact is that the largest mining farm are located in China, and that most of them use hydro power. About what carbon print we are talking here?

This should be posted in sticky so we can avoid such stupid claims.

It's not 1%.

The report (which was released months ago) is available here: https://www.energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=8A1CECD1-157C-45D4-A1AB-B894E913737D

Their method for calculating energy consumption was to assume everyone is mining using an Antminer S9, which will use 98 watts per terahash. Current hash rate is 60,000,000 TH/s, meaning a global consumption of 5.88 gigawatts. That converts to 51.5 TWh per year.

According to https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/KeyWorld2017.pdf, global electricity production is 24,255 TWh per year. 51.5 is around 0.2% of 24,255.

This is not even taking in to account that the majority of mining uses renewable energy.

[Slow death]

there is something that we need to separate or I do not understand

The pollution that they are talking about has to do with bitcoin mining?

or

The pollution they are talking about has to do with electricity companies that offer electricity to the miners?


are two different things!

At the end of the article they say the following:

"To improve the ecological balance, one possibility might be to link more mining farms to additional renewable generating capacity."

it seems to me that they are talking about the electricity companies

[dothebeats]

Some points have gone amiss on the said article, and I wouldn't buy that really. Again, a significant number of mining farms are located and China, most of which are perusing hydroelectric power that contributes to carbon emissions by little to none. Anyway, if most really are environmentalists in here then why wouldn't anyone propose a carbon sink in line with lowering CO2 emissions? The problem here is not regarding environment really, because if it is then governments would not allow developers to buy mountainous lands with lots of trees only to be converted into industrialized areas which then produces CO2 because fuck the earth, right?

Or better, why not electric companies harness renewables? Oh right, burning coal and fossil fuels has always been cheaper and produces more profit.

[o_e_l_e_o]

-snip-

Thanks for the quote. 0.2%, being a liberal estimate, and ignoring the fact that recent studies are placing around 75% of bitcoin mining as using renewable energy, means that a tiny fraction of global CO₂ emissions are due to bitcoin. Interestingly, the study OP has linked to calculates an even lower global power consumption at 45.8 TWh, compared to my estimate of 51.5 TWh. So it's even less than we thought before.

The study OP linked is flawed at how it converts global electricity usage to carbon dioxide generation:

To determine the amount of carbon emitted in each country, we multiply the power consumption of Bitcoin mining by average and marginal emission factors of power generation.

As we know, bitcoin mining does not use the "average" energy source or produce the "average" emissions. Much of it is entirely renewable, and much of it uses excess energy which would otherwise be wasted. This calculation is far too simplistic. Still, even assuming that their number of 22 megatons of CO₂ annually was correct (it isn't), the beef consumption (note not all meat, just beef) of the average American generates 1.4 tons of CO₂ annually. So the beef consumption of 5% of the US generates more CO₂ than their gross overestimation of the entire bitcoin network. Not meat, not globally. Just beef, just 5% of the US.

To suggest that the CO₂ generated by bitcoin is going to "kill us all", when it is utterly dwarfed by any other industry such as meat, farming, transport, etc., is laughable.

[Mastrhiggins]

Well, in this world where people actually care about the planet - you can't say this is any good...
/2019/06/14/tech/bitcoin-carbon-footprint-trnd/index.html]https://editi[Suspicious link removed]/2019/06/14/tech/bitcoin-carbon-footprint-trnd/index.html

Bitcoin is definitely spewing out WAY TOO much carbon dioxide and is going to kill us all.  Can't fix it either because the entire notion of blockchain requires competitive mining.  It is only going to get much worse as Bitcoin value increases.  Total ruin. 

I really think this is the death knell for Bitcoin.

Hah...Bitcoin is going to kill us all.

Not the 100 of years of car emissions that have caused global warming.   Ok there RawDog.
Once alternatives becomes cheap enough you will see massive solar farms, wind farms and hydro power the bitcoin network.

Stop with the FUD dude.

[1Referee]

I really think this is the death knell for Bitcoin.

I think you will end up with a massive BTC print on your face, just like all the skeptics who kept rehashing the same nonsense since 2013.

Build a bunker, make sure you have the best filter and ventilation system available, and prep as much canned food as you can to survive at least the coming 5 years. Don't forget to hold some of this carbon footprint spewer coin so you will at least be able to keep seeing your wealth increase as the world goes under.

[Wind_FURY]

Something to consider, carbon footprint only applies if you assume the power generation method is carbon emitting. Driving an electric car is carbon emitting if the generation station providing the electricity is coal powered. Its a deal breaker to continue burning fossil fuels for a substantial amount of power, regardless of whether its for Bitcoin or your microwave.

I'm not a power hippie, but my point is that its an inherent problem of power production, not Bitcoin.

Bitcoin mining's source of electricity is 74% from hydro-electric power though, https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/bymx0r/74_of_bitcoin_mining_is_powered_by_renewable/

Plus the OP is a fudster, he doesn't care about the environment.

With a car that consumes 1 liter of fuel, 30% of the energy goes to useful work - the car goes forward, while 70% goes to waste heat.

With Bitcoin, for every liter of fuel burned 99.999999999999999999999999% goes to waste heat.  Only .0000000000000000000000001% goes to the miner that guessed the correct number and made the next block - which is the 'useful work' being done by mining.  

It would be VERY, VERY hard for you to invent a less efficient machine than Bitcoin mining.  It is a most spectacularly horrible idea.  Well, only horrible for those who like the planet.  If your goal is to fuck up the Earth, then Bitcoin mining is your best friend.

The goal of Bitcoin mining is network security, not the block reward.

It's both. No one would be mining without the incentive, and there would be no network security without miners.