Should Bitcoin lower its carbon footprint?

[BigBoom3599]

It is 2019, there are climate protests nearly every day all around the world. Meanwhile bitcoin is consuming more energy than a small country

In my opinion the bitcoin network needs to take responsibility and change so that it has a smaller footprint, it just isn't responsible to burn such a large amount of energy for such little utility. I honestly felt a little ashamed when I read that for a single transaction Bitcoin uses the amount of energy that could power an US home for 22 days! ^[1] This number will only be going up as the price rises.

Yes, I know this energy is securing the network, which is of course very important.
But shouldn't we try to find a way to minimize this energy consumption. Shouldn't we be looking for alternative methods? Maybe even something like Proof of Stake? There has to be a better way.

Or do you think that electricity consumption is not bad in itself, just the way it is made. eg. If all of bitcoin was powered by solar, it would be fine.


[1] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

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[odolvlobo]

Or do you think that electricity consumption is not bad in itself, just the way it is made. eg. If all of bitcoin was powered by solar, it would be fine.

The problem is that energy is generated by burning carbon. The problem is not how the energy is used. If you want to stop carbon emission, or at least slow it down, stop burning carbon.

[Lance203sin]

Bitcoin carbon effect is overhyped. Its not so much in % in the world. But PoS is much more eco friendly, yes

[kryptqnick]

Or do you think that electricity consumption is not bad in itself, just the way it is made. eg. If all of bitcoin was powered by solar, it would be fine.

The problem is that energy is generated by burning carbon. The problem is not how the energy is used. If you want to stop carbon emission, or at least slow it down, stop burning carbon.

I support this view. I am sensitive to ecological topics and very sympathetic towards Greta. However, I believe that reducing consumption is not always the answer. When it comes to something that exploits the resources of the planet or maker is a place full of garbage, reducing is the way to go. I try to use minimum plastic and recycle the materials that can be recycled, although we don't really have a smooth system of recycling trash like people in developed countries can enjoy. When it comes to electricity, it's not something necessarily requiring valuable unrenewable resources or something. Moreover, it also allows humanity to progress as a civilization, contrary to plastic bags or cows. So we should definitely be looking for clean(er) energy rather than reducing consumption (although for now, it's not bad to use less of it when we don't really need it).

[ChrisPop]

The world is slowly moving towards alternative energy sources. Hydro, termal, solar, wind, etc. are all natural regenerable sources of energy and as far as I know there are some farms in Iceland powered by such sources. Of course that a lot more are powered by solar in the world so I think we're not looking at this "problem" from the right angle. Electricity is not a scarce resource on this Earth and is between the few ones which we can practically generate for infinity. Everything around us is ENERGY!

[Icygreen]

I suppose it depends on how the electric is generated.    Bitcoin does something unique with energy that legacy finance and even gold failed at.
It makes a public and accurate transfer of value based on electricity/energy. Laws of thermodynamics say energy is neither created nor destroyed but transformed.  Bitcoin is in essence a numerical and secure account of energy.  

By comparison, the energy that goes into making banks, vaults, armored vehicles, security systems, personnel, and not to forget the wars and poverty legacy finance enables, it becomes clear that Bitcoin is a superior choice!

Edit: I've heard it estimated that BTC energy consumption worldwide is about the same amount as USA Christmas light decorations.

 

[Kyraishi]

Not sure if I believe the statistics here to be honest, not really sure if bitcoin transactions take up that much electricity, seems quite a bit exaggerated to be honest.

Also, it's not just BTC. A lot of the world produces energy via the burning of fossil fuels, which is easy and fairly cheap to do, but of course, is impactful to the enviroment.

The first step here is for the big companies to stop with their huge carbon footprints, and need to swap to renewable energy sources like wind (windmills), or water (Hydroelectric) - and this technology needs to be applied towards bitcoin mining.

[BigBoom3599]

Not sure if I believe the statistics here to be honest, not really sure if bitcoin transactions take up that much electricity, seems quite a bit exaggerated to be honest.

I'll do the napkin math for you.

Every day 144 blocks are mined, every block rewards the miner 12.5 + 0.1555 BTC. So every day 1822,392 BTC (= $16,4 million) is given to miners (on average). If you assume for every BTC a miner mines he pays 0.5 BTC in electricity (not sure how accurate this is, just estimating) than that would mean $8,2 million spent on electricity daily. If we assume an electricity cost of $0.06/kWh that comes down to 273.3 136.6 million kWh daily. If we consider 300,000 txs per day we get roughly 910 455 kWh per tx. Which is what the average US household consumes per month 15 days . So that's even worse than what the original post said.


Again this is really rough napkin math, if you want more accurate estimations, go to the link I put in the OP, it is way more accurate :p

EDIT: Thanks Mike Mayor for correcting my math  

[Theb]

Yes, I know this energy is securing the network, which is of course very important.
But shouldn't we try to find a way to minimize this energy consumption. Shouldn't we be looking for alternative methods? Maybe even something like Proof of Stake? There has to be a better way.

Or do you think that electricity consumption is not bad in itself, just the way it is made. eg. If all of bitcoin was powered by solar, it would be fine.

I think you are in the right track, instead of focusing on how much energy is consumed for mining, and creating transaction we need to focus more on the alternative ways we can generate electricity to operate the bitcoin network. The critics are really the ones targeting Bitcoin's energy consumption as an issue on why isn't it an idea currency or how can it destroy our environment yet they failed to point out that there are far more worst contributors to pollution and power consumption, they also fail to point out that the problem of Bitcoin can be solved when they shift to alternative modes on generating electricity. You shouldn't feel bad on how Bitcoin is consuming electricity because it's what the critics want you to believe and they are just messing with your head.

[dothebeats]

Bitcoin is not directly responsible for the carbon emissions the miners produce. Those who own farms can always opt to hash with cleaner and greener energy, but if they are getting good deals from their local power company then so be it (I believe it's way less than the average household rate that power companies charge regularly, but that differs depending on where you're at). That's why you see some farms migrate to Iceland, the provinces of China and other areas where renewables are readily available and cheap to harness, much cheaper than having a marked-down contract from your local power company.

The problem is that energy is generated by burning carbon. The problem is not how the energy is used. If you want to stop carbon emission, or at least slow it down, stop burning carbon.

Easier said than done, especially if the governments and power companies are conniving with each other the continuous use of fossil fuels rather than allowing nuclear and other cleaner and greener types of energy to flourish.

[squatter]

It is 2019, there are climate protests nearly every day all around the world. Meanwhile bitcoin is consuming more energy than a small country

Two things to keep in mind:

First, consider that Bitcoin mining largely runs on clean/renewable energy sources like wind, solar and hydropower:

CoinShares says bitcoin network gets 74.1 percent of its electricity from renewables, making it “more renewables-driven than almost every other large-scale industry in the world.”

Second, power stations always generate electricity beyond real demand to maintain grid reliability. Industrial Bitcoin miners can and do make load balancing agreements with power generators to consume already-generated electricity at discounted prices. A non-zero portion of the hash rate is not increasing net electricity consumption.

[pixie85]

If we put it this way we'll always come up with a huge number.

You say Bitcoin is using as much energy as a small country.
I say Television sets all around the world are using more power than a big country. Do we really need TVs to live?
A world banking system uses a lot more. Remove all the banks and leave just server rooms and two way ATMs and the power consumption will decrease.

Bitcoin is not a problem here.

[figmentofmyass]

In my opinion the bitcoin network needs to take responsibility and change so that it has a smaller footprint, it just isn't responsible to burn such a large amount of energy for such little utility.

what do you think the legacy banking system runs on, magical fairy dust? no, it runs on massive amounts of energy. same with gold mining, coin minting, etc. that's the correct lens to view bitcoin mining through.

this is fundamentally a human problem, not a bitcoin problem. if humans didn't need money, we wouldn't need dollars, gold, or bitcoin.

until that problem is solved, the best we can do is steer energy consumption towards sustainable sources.

[darkangel11]

I honestly don't see a reason for that to happen. The more important question I'd like to ask all climate defenders is:
Would that energy be produced anyway if Bitcoin miners weren't paying for it or not. To my knowledge a power plant is usually making excess energy that doesn't go anywhere because it's difficult to run generators on 20%. When you start a A 100 MW generator it will run full steam producing 100 MW +/- 10% and all you can do is switch it on and off. Does it make a difference for that generator that some miner turned on a room full of miners that uses 1MW? For us mere mortals it's a big farm. For a power company it's only a blip on the screen that they have to bill.
Chill people.

[hatshepsut93]

Yes, I know this energy is securing the network, which is of course very important.
But shouldn't we try to find a way to minimize this energy consumption. Shouldn't we be looking for alternative methods? Maybe even something like Proof of Stake? There has to be a better way.

Proof of Stake doesn't work, it's not secure and no one managed to fixed it, despite many attempts. Same for all other alternative consensus algorithms. If someone will present a new algorithm and prove its security and it will be as good as PoW, then it could be adopted by Bitcoin. But it might never happen.

I personally don't care about Bitcoin's footprint, it's way smaller than many useless activities out there.

[blckhawk]

Or do you think that electricity consumption is not bad in itself, just the way it is made. eg. If all of bitcoin was powered by solar, it would be fine.

The problem with solar is it works with batteries. And creation of batteries is much more harmful to the environment. Every way we have known so far have adverse effects to environment, with some exceptions such as wind power and hydroelectric power, which is good but also affects environment (such as dams for hydroelectric that bring imbalance to the ecosystem). What I think we should focus at is how to recycle the materials used to lessen environment effects.

[Herbert2020]

bitcoin is not a person to produce pollution, it is not a machine to burn fuel and produce pollution either. bitcoin is just zeros and ones on your computer which is then connected to the "grid" which is then goes to an electric company and that company is burning fuel and producing pollution.
so in other words your quarrel is not with bitcoin, it is with that company and if you want to reduce the carbon footprint you have to go to the electric companies and petition them to start polluting the environment less.

[adaseb]

Bitcoin mining doesn't have a large carbon footprint as some other industries. Did you know that by eating burgers you are increasing the carbon footprint due to cows?

What about NASCAR or Indy or other car racing where the cars don't go from A to B but instead from A to A and basically waste all that gas going nowhere.

What about all these people in America driving huge SUVs and trucks just with 1 or 2 passengers? Could easily have an economy car that is more fuel efficient.

These are some of the examples but there are tons more I can think of. Bitcoins carbon footprint is very small and for the security is needed to keep the network decentralized.

[Eclipse26]

As technology continuos to develop, we're becoming more dependent on it. And every technology requires electricity to run. Imagine the population here on earth and almost everyone is using electricity. To be honest, bitcoin only shares a low percentage to it. Yes, it consumes energy but try looking at other businesses who consume energy as well. Also, they're trying to look for an alternative to lessen electricity consumption.

I really believe that almost everything we do on earth to survive has a negative consequence on the environment. The environment is providing everything to help us survive but in exchange, the earth is slowly collapsing.  That's the reality

[Kakmakr]

https://coincenter.org/entry/five-myths-about-bitcoin-s-energy-use  <---- There are a lot of fud being spread about Bitcoin's electricity use and how big it's carbon footprint is.

The reality is that Bitcoin mining is using a lot of electricity that are generated from environment friendly sources. A lot of mining are done with Hydroelectricity and electricity that are produced from wind power or wind energy.

Do not believe everything you read in the mass media, because a lot of that can be debunked and has been debunked in the past.