.

[thaaanos]

The question was "If you have 1000 (BTC, k€, whatever) and a possibility to get ASICs delivered to you, what will be your optimal allocation of capital ?"

And the only sensible answer is "100% on ASICs".

Mining Bitcoin is a job. You can be good at it and earn money.
Producing electricity is a job. You can be good at it and earn money.

Mining Bitcoin AND producing electricity at the same time is TWO jobs. You can't be good at both. You will lose money

Not so
It is not 2jobs it is vertical integration
And quite safe as investment as you diversify and get flexible as to what to produce bitcoins or electricity depending on where you get more value.
Iwould first deploy solar panels and on a second phase the miners and iterate reinvestment on around robin fashion.

A note on heat extraction : powerplants can reuse heat because they produce highly concentrated heat, miners produce heat of low value.
A note on green energy, best use energy sources that provide dc so as to skip conversion and related loses, solars are the best type imho to drive circuitry

[BillyBobZorton]

Last century:  Cost of production of money: 0 watts.   Massive waste of all resources results.

This century:  Cost of production of money: determined by public currency mining market.  Efficient use of resources results. 

Thiss so hard. The amount of effort put into generating Bitcoin is justified, we are talking being backed by math there boys. The result will be an harmonic one, and not a catastrophe (fiat).

[Eastwind]

Last century:  Cost of production of money: 0 watts.   Massive waste of all resources results.

This century:  Cost of production of money: determined by public currency mining market.  Efficient use of resources results.  

Cost of production of money is 0, but the money transmission is huge due to the cost involved in running the banks and data centres.

[thejaytiesto]

Last century:  Cost of production of money: 0 watts.   Massive waste of all resources results.

This century:  Cost of production of money: determined by public currency mining market.  Efficient use of resources results.  

Cost of production of money is 0, but the money transmission is huge due to the cost involved in running the banks and data centres.

If something costs 0, you have right there a big reason to think it's a scam.

[Eastwind]

Well, if we agree on the fact that if bitcoin rises to 1million USD in 12 years, it will consume 6% of power (according to the model I posted from stdset), the question becomes : will this provoke an incitation to move to POS cryptos ?
I am not sure about that, because if it rises to 1million, the cost of migrating to something else are astronomical and might outweigh the cost of energy.
However, if the price of Bitcoin would make some business model impossible, I would expect migration to happen.

We can slow down the process with energy reuse, but it does not solve the question, only post bone it.

The cost of mining is equal to the fees incurred. When the value rises, the percentage of fee will drop. I agree the total cost of mining will rises but not linear to the value of BTC. The above comments does not apply to the initial mining period when new coins are issued.

[DeathAndTaxes]

The above comments does not apply to the initial mining period when new coins are issued.

Well since the subsidy will not go to zero for another 120-130 years most discussions about costs, energy, and sustainability deal with the period from now until ~2140.   Even after the next couple halvings the subsidy will play a major impact in the cost of the network.