Bitcoin is wasting electricity and are harmful to the environment.. Yea right!!!

[magneto]

It's honestly one of the more desperate measures that people take in order to slander BTC.

Any rational human being would look at this and say that BTC has no further bad impacts on the environment compared to something like traditional banking institutions. They seem to forget that these banking institutions use up just as much if not more power (and physical space) as decentralized networks like BTC.

It's laughable. Wasn't there even a news article about how BTC is essentially just using up excess energy on the grid anyway?

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[BuNga_cute]

Indeed, the reality of mining bitcoin requires large amounts of electricity, therefore some parties accuse bitcoin as a destroyer environment.
In my opinion, those who think like that must be the haters of bitcoin, who are trying to destroy the popularity of bitcoin.But this will be
very interesting compared to what the bank has done so far, so I am very happy with it the explanation in the opening post is that banks are
more damaging to the environment by producing payment cards that use destructive plastic raw materials environment. With this it's clear
which one is more damaging to the environment, therefore I as a supporter of bitcoin feel surprised if it still exists who accused bitcoin as an
environmental destroyer.

[Asmonist]

I think today we are dependent with electricity. The businesses cannot proceed without electricity. Even without bitcoin we had already using electricity. Bitcoin is just part of our daily tasks and duties but basically we are using it more than what we consume from bitcoin transactions. Even with our daily household chores and comodities we are utilizing it. We must not blame it to bitcoin. If we want to conserve, we must start it within out household and to the offices we work at.

[Vishnu.Reang]

I don't necessarily agree with these arguments, which claim that Bitcoin mining is harmful to the environment. But at the same time, we may need to seriously think about shifting from a PoW mining algorothm to a PoS algo. Even now, a lot of money is being spent on expensive chips and graphic cards, on top of huge amounts of electricity. Why should we continue with this system, when we have a better alternative (PoS)?

[Webetcoins]

Indeed, the reality of mining bitcoin requires large amounts of electricity, therefore some parties accuse bitcoin as a destroyer environment.
In my opinion, those who think like that must be the haters of bitcoin, who are trying to destroy the popularity of bitcoin.But this will be
very interesting compared to what the bank has done so far, so I am very happy with it the explanation in the opening post is that banks are
more damaging to the environment by producing payment cards that use destructive plastic raw materials environment. With this it's clear
which one is more damaging to the environment, therefore I as a supporter of bitcoin feel surprised if it still exists who accused bitcoin as an
environmental destroyer.

Haters say much against Bitcoin, but the objection of wastage of energy against Bitcoin is very absurd. The comparison you have drawn between banking system and this digital technology is great. It has clearly shown that digital currency offers you more benefits with less disadvantages, on the other hand banking system is more involved in damaging environment and it also offers less benefits. If still people talk against about Bitcoin, they are just talking useless.

[btccashacc]

Yes I agree that It's nothing compared to other payment method, the data that you've posted on the OP only in a one country, how about the rest of the world? Paper usage, electricity for the ATM machine, etc. Well bitcoin is nothing, it might bring impact to the enviroment but I think not too much, it doesn't need paper, plastic card, ATM machine, etc. We're only use electricity where we have an alternative such as renewable energy.

[JeotQ]

Bitcoin mining is wasting electricity? How? I thought every miners pay their electricity bills when mining bitcoin? When calculating your income the most part of it goes to electricity bill, any bitcoin miners on here should correct me if i'm wrong unless they are mining illegally which can get them arrested

[Aikidoka]

although bitcoin mining does require a large amount of electricity that does not mean bitcoin has endangered the environment. people who say bitcoin is a waste of electricity or danger are people who hate bitcoin. although bitcoin has shortcomings because it requires large electricity and is vulnerable to being used for criminal activities. but I think the benefits provided by bitcoin outweigh the disadvantages.

It's true that bitcoin's mining requires a large amount of electricity, but that doesn't mean it's affecting the environment. I mean people can also use clean energy to produce electricity and then mining bitcoin. As you said people who are saying that bitcoin is a waste of electricity are just dumb or they hate bitcoin. Electricity will be wasted only if you're using it without any profit and in the mining cause you're earning bitcoin through it, so that doesn't make sense.

[Artemis3]

Indeed, the reality of mining bitcoin requires large amounts of electricity, therefore some parties accuse bitcoin as a destroyer environment. In my opinion, those who think like that must be the haters of bitcoin, who are trying to destroy the popularity of bitcoin. But this will be very interesting compared to what the bank has done so far, so I am very happy with it the explanation in the opening post is that banks are more damaging to the environment by producing payment cards that use destructive plastic raw materials environment. With this it's clear which one is more damaging to the environment, therefore I as a supporter of bitcoin feel surprised if it still exists who accused bitcoin as an environmental destroyer.

No it doesn't "requires it". People mine because its profitable for them. In this lies the solution, it won't always be profitable, as time passes it is less so. So all you have to do is wait and the market solves the issue by itself.

Electricity is not free, especially the non-renewable ones. The renewable ones have install costs but at least don't need fuel periodically added to it, just some maintenance depending on type.

PoW is working fine the way it is and the mining is ending as it has performed its duty already. Most bitcoins have already been made, the reminder are a progressively less and less to the point of absolute crawl in the year 2140. You already know 18m bitcoins were made, what is left to mine are the ever diminishing leftovers that won't justify investment in large facilities anymore.

The time for Bitcoin mining is coming to an end, and then you won't be able to accuse it anymore. And there was no need to do anything, it was done since the beginning in the design.

[bryant.coleman]

Bitcoin is wasting electricity? That sounds like a statement from someone who wants to paint bitcoin in black. BTW, I don't seem to understand how bitcoin is harmful to environment (considering the fact it isn't physical but digital).

Now mankind is massively switching to the use of solar panels, wind farms and other renewable energy sources. Their production and use is becoming cheaper. Therefore, the use of electricity for the extraction of bitcoins and other types of cryptocurrency cannot be a real problem. When mining cryptocurrencies, heat is generated that can be used to warm homes and for other people’s benefits. The problem of environmental pollution during cryptocurrency mining is completely contrived. This is no more harmful than ordinary production.

Even solar panels are not 100% environmentally friendly. Harmful chemicals are used during manufacturing of solar panels. The same is the case with all those mining rigs and graphics cards. And also, the electricity currently used for Bitcoin mining can be rather used for providing power to hundreds of millions of people, who are without it as of now. I am not a big supporter of the PoW mining. It makes Bitcoin vulnerable, as a 51% attack can be executed if you have enough processing power for a few hours.

[Wind_FURY]

Bitcoin is wasting electricity? That sounds like a statement from someone who wants to paint bitcoin in black. BTW, I don't seem to understand how bitcoin is harmful to environment (considering the fact it isn't physical but digital).

Now mankind is massively switching to the use of solar panels, wind farms and other renewable energy sources. Their production and use is becoming cheaper. Therefore, the use of electricity for the extraction of bitcoins and other types of cryptocurrency cannot be a real problem. When mining cryptocurrencies, heat is generated that can be used to warm homes and for other people’s benefits. The problem of environmental pollution during cryptocurrency mining is completely contrived. This is no more harmful than ordinary production.

Even solar panels are not 100% environmentally friendly. Harmful chemicals are used during manufacturing of solar panels. The same is the case with all those mining rigs and graphics cards.

Then it can then be debated that modern technology is harming the environment.

And also, the electricity currently used for Bitcoin mining can be rather used for providing power to hundreds of millions of people, who are without it as of now.

But where is the "waste". It generates tokens as incentives, distributes stateless money for the public, achieves distributed consensus. Christmas lights are wasteful. Stop Christmas.

I am not a big supporter of the PoW mining. It makes Bitcoin vulnerable, as a 51% attack can be executed if you have enough processing power for a few hours.

Bitcoin has reached a level that it's more profitable for bad actors to be honest because the risks/costs are too high.

Plus, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4391393.0

[Wind_FURY]

Bitcoin is wasting electricity? That sounds like a statement from someone who wants to paint bitcoin in black. BTW, I don't seem to understand how bitcoin is harmful to environment (considering the fact it isn't physical but digital).

Now mankind is massively switching to the use of solar panels, wind farms and other renewable energy sources. Their production and use is becoming cheaper. Therefore, the use of electricity for the extraction of bitcoins and other types of cryptocurrency cannot be a real problem. When mining cryptocurrencies, heat is generated that can be used to warm homes and for other people’s benefits. The problem of environmental pollution during cryptocurrency mining is completely contrived. This is no more harmful than ordinary production.

Even solar panels are not 100% environmentally friendly. Harmful chemicals are used during manufacturing of solar panels. The same is the case with all those mining rigs and graphics cards.

Then it can then be debated that modern technology is harming the environment.

And also, the electricity currently used for Bitcoin mining can be rather used for providing power to hundreds of millions of people, who are without it as of now.

But where is the "waste". It generates tokens as incentives, distributes stateless money for the public, achieves distributed consensus. Christmas lights are wasteful. Stop Christmas.

I am not a big supporter of the PoW mining. It makes Bitcoin vulnerable, as a 51% attack can be executed if you have enough processing power for a few hours.

Bitcoin has reached a level that it's more profitable for bad actors to be honest because the risks/costs are too high.

Plus, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4391393.0

But somewhere fiat money works without electricity, so if I pay with my fiat money it does not need any kind of energy so if bitcoin wants to be in everyday use; it is some kind of energy-consuming. 

Are you sure of that? You can DYOR, but about 90% of the world's fiat money is digital. Plus for the 10% in paper money, you want everyone to account for them by hand to save electricity?

[Kakmakr]

Bitcoin is wasting electricity? That sounds like a statement from someone who wants to paint bitcoin in black. BTW, I don't seem to understand how bitcoin is harmful to environment (considering the fact it isn't physical but digital).

Now mankind is massively switching to the use of solar panels, wind farms and other renewable energy sources. Their production and use is becoming cheaper. Therefore, the use of electricity for the extraction of bitcoins and other types of cryptocurrency cannot be a real problem. When mining cryptocurrencies, heat is generated that can be used to warm homes and for other people’s benefits. The problem of environmental pollution during cryptocurrency mining is completely contrived. This is no more harmful than ordinary production.

Even solar panels are not 100% environmentally friendly. Harmful chemicals are used during manufacturing of solar panels. The same is the case with all those mining rigs and graphics cards.

Then it can then be debated that modern technology is harming the environment.

And also, the electricity currently used for Bitcoin mining can be rather used for providing power to hundreds of millions of people, who are without it as of now.

But where is the "waste". It generates tokens as incentives, distributes stateless money for the public, achieves distributed consensus. Christmas lights are wasteful. Stop Christmas.

I am not a big supporter of the PoW mining. It makes Bitcoin vulnerable, as a 51% attack can be executed if you have enough processing power for a few hours.

Bitcoin has reached a level that it's more profitable for bad actors to be honest because the risks/costs are too high.

Plus, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4391393.0

But somewhere fiat money works without electricity, so if I pay with my fiat money it does not need any kind of energy so if bitcoin wants to be in everyday use; it is some kind of energy-consuming. 

This statement is completely flawed. In a cash <Fiat> transaction, a lot of things must happen to complete that transaction. Let's start at the beginning :

1. The coins & notes must be manufactured. <melting Copper/Zinc/nickel takes a lot of electricity and the same for paper & plastic>
2. Those coins & notes must be kept secure in a fortified building with lots of CCTV/gates/office/safes etc.
3. The coins & notes must be transferred to Banks <consuming fuel>
4. The Banks place the notes in vaults and then in ATM's that runs 24/7 on electricity.
5. People withdraw the cash and pay for goods & services at a merchant that use electronic cash registers .
6. The merchants deposit the cash back into the Bank or armored cars fetch the cash from the larger merchants & retailers. <fuel>
7. The Banks use devices to coin coins and cash, using more electricity.
8. Damaged or old coins and paper money eventually are destroyed. <burnt or melted down, causing pollution & using electricity> 

Can you now see the much bigger impact of Fiat currencies on electricity and pollution?

[Kakmakr]

This is only onetime. Once all 21M BTC mined thereafter no electricity will be used.
And also Banks are not safe nowadays.

So, we all know everyone is going on and on about Bitcoin mining wasting lots of electricity and how this is harmful to the environment, but have we ever considered how harmful other payment methods are?

Visa and MasterCard have about 65 million customers <old statistic> and we also have debit cards from Banks and also other payment cards like American Express and Diners Club etc. A lot of these cards are replaced once every year and it is made from material that are very harmful to the environment.

Cards are made of several layers of plastic laminated together. The core is commonly made from a plastic resin known as polyvinyl chloride acetate (PVCA). This resin is mixed with opacifying materials, dyes, and plasticizers to give it the proper appearance and consistency. - Source : http://www.madehow.com/Volume-4/Credit-Card.html

The average American has 2 to 3 credit cards and there were 304 million Visa credit cards in circulation in the United States and 545 million Visa credit cards in circulation outside of the United States in September 2014. Source : https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/market-share-statistics.php

There are about 189 million Americans adults with at least one credit card.

In Q4 <2014> cards in circulation looked like this :

Citigroup -    109,774,131

JPMorgan - 93,847,656   

Bank of America - 79,822,686
   
Capital One - 63,194,228
   
American Express - 54,900,000

Discover - 43,630,772

Synchrony - 31,030,786
   
Wells Fargo - 24,271,107
   
Barclays Delaware Holdings - 16,156,368
   
U.S. Bancorp - 14,440,681

So, looking at some of the statistics and considering that those cards must be manufactured with the use of electricity and also destroyed and ending up in landfills, then I would say Bitcoin's carbon footprint must be minuscule compared to this industry.

Feel free to add some updated statistics and also a graphical presentation of what those millions of cards would look like, if you had them all together. We would circle the earth a couple of times, if we had all the cards that were manufactured, since it was introduced many years ago.  
   

Wrong again. Once all bitcoins are mined, mining will not stop. The Bitcoin protocol is written in such a way that when the Block reward expire, miners will compete for the miners fees and if transactions increase, the miners fees will be more than the Block reward.

There will always be some kind of incentive for people to fire up their miners, because without miners there cannot be any mining. We also hope that the scarcity and demand for bitcoins will increase, so that the price of bitcoins would skyrocket and that the miners fees would be enough to sustain the motivation to keep on mining.

The Lightning Network will also be a source of income for people who will host the Lightning Network hubs.    Sidechains like the Lightning Network will have a huge impact on miners in the future. 

[Kez1817]

Both bitcoin and banks are harmful to the environment but those bank card are more harmful and not good to our health if it will be burned. Bitcoin mining has an adverse impact on the environment specially the rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions but bank cards are made of PVC plastic which is more harmful compared to bitcoin which is digital and only use electricity and energy. I think everything that can be used by the people had a bad effects to the environment specially now that we are using modern technology.