.

[BurtW]

All the posts about efficiency and Moore's law and power consumption per device are totally off base.   Also your comment about people who mine when it is not profitable is really off base because that behavior makes things even worse as far as the total power consumed by the network goes.

The amount of power consumed is proportional to the amount of available income in the mining process.  More efficient mining hardware just leads to more miners and a higher difficulty, it does not affect the total power consumption.

[dothebeats]

I was looking for an analysis that's something like this. You helped me save hours of searching through the internet.
Back to the topic, if more and more energy efficient miners come out, then the energy consumption of the whole network would decrease. But if widespread adoption of bitcoin ever happens, then the energy consumption would again plummet up and may become an issue because it may cause the global consumption of energy to rise up too. Great analysis though, thanks for helping me understand the maths here.

[hashman]

Anyhow I think moores law will reduce electric cost over time until the network consumes no more then a LED readout on any device.

You are missing something fundamental about the mining here.  If bitcoin is worth X in 2020 that means miners will spend 12.5X on electricity every 10 minutes in 2020.  It will be worth it for miners to spend that much on power; that's what we mean by "worth X".  No technological improvements can change that, it is the fundamental algo of bitcoin that miners get new coins.  If coins are worth more they will spend more on power.       

[BurtW]

I was looking for an analysis that's something like this. You helped me save hours of searching through the internet.
Back to the topic, if more and more energy efficient miners come out, then the energy consumption of the whole network would decrease. But if widespread adoption of bitcoin ever happens, then the energy consumption would again plummet up and may become an issue because it may cause the global consumption of energy to rise up too. Great analysis though, thanks for helping me understand the maths here.

You are welcome!

What you said here is not true:

if more and more energy efficient miners come out, then the energy consumption of the whole network would decrease.

What is true is:

If more and more energy efficient miners come out, then the energy consumption of the whole network would stay the same.  This is because people just buy more and more of these more energy efficient miners.  They will keep buying more equipment and adding to the hashrate and difficulty until they bring the power consumption back up to the maximum level allowed by profit.

So as I have said before many times efficiency does not enter into this equation:

P = (6(50/2^e) + f)(x)(1 - g)/c [kW]

only the following parameters:

x = exchange rate [USD/BTC]
e = era [0..32] (we are currently in era 1)
f = average fees per hour [BTC/hour]
c = cost of energy [USD/kWh]
g = average gross profit margin [unitless ratio]
 
Notice that price (the exchange rate x) does enter into the equation so what you said here:

if widespread adoption of bitcoin ever happens, then the energy consumption would again plummet up and may become an issue because it may cause the global consumption of energy to [would] rise

This is because widespread adoption would drive the price higher and price does enter into the global energy consumption equation.

[btchedge]

Interesting discussion...

RE: Solar and Wind - For every megawatt of solar or wind power added to an ISO there must be a megawatt of NG, coal or nuclear power deployed in order to maintain stability of the grid. ISOs such as ERCOT must have the ability to maintain stable supply / frequency which means if a wind farm is feeding the grid then ERCOT must have adequate firm fixed generation capacity such as NG fired spinning reserves to ramp up as the wind stops blowing.

The only way to avoid the need to provide an equal amount of traditional generation to pair with your wind or solar is if you have the energy storage capacity to create an adequate reserve. Batteries are still cost prohibitive as are most other methods. The other option would be to curtail operations as the wind and sun stop blowing or shining.

RE: Huge Opportunity That Bitcoin Is Perfectly Suited For - When you start to look beyond the traditional constraints of the existing grid and fuel transportation networks you will find that Bitcoin is perhaps one of the best suited technologies to leverage abundant energy resources that are hiding in plain site. Rather than spoil it by elaborating too soon I am curious to know if any of you smart people know what I am referring to. Anyone?

[BurtW]

Interesting discussion...

RE: Solar and Wind - For every megawatt of solar or wind power added to an ISO there must be a megawatt of NG, coal or nuclear power deployed in order to maintain stability of the grid. ISOs such as ERCOT must have the ability to maintain stable supply / frequency which means if a wind farm is feeding the grid then ERCOT must have adequate firm fixed generation capacity such as NG fired spinning reserves to ramp up as the wind stops blowing.

The only way to avoid the need to provide an equal amount of traditional generation to pair with your wind or solar is if you have the energy storage capacity to create an adequate reserve. Batteries are still cost prohibitive as are most other methods. The other option would be to curtail operations as the wind and sun stop blowing or shining.

RE: Huge Opportunity That Bitcoin Is Perfectly Suited For - When you start to look beyond the traditional constraints of the existing grid and fuel transportation networks you will find that Bitcoin is perhaps one of the best suited technologies to leverage abundant energy resources that are hiding in plain site. Rather than spoil it by elaborating too soon I am curious to know if any of you smart people know what I am referring to. Anyone?

The world could be completely solar, just make an array that circles the globe and it will have sun 24/7 no need for other power generation tech.

There is no way to transmit the power needed from the sunny side to the dark side.  Sorry.

[BurtW]

Interesting discussion...

RE: Solar and Wind - For every megawatt of solar or wind power added to an ISO there must be a megawatt of NG, coal or nuclear power deployed in order to maintain stability of the grid. ISOs such as ERCOT must have the ability to maintain stable supply / frequency which means if a wind farm is feeding the grid then ERCOT must have adequate firm fixed generation capacity such as NG fired spinning reserves to ramp up as the wind stops blowing.

The only way to avoid the need to provide an equal amount of traditional generation to pair with your wind or solar is if you have the energy storage capacity to create an adequate reserve. Batteries are still cost prohibitive as are most other methods. The other option would be to curtail operations as the wind and sun stop blowing or shining.

RE: Huge Opportunity That Bitcoin Is Perfectly Suited For - When you start to look beyond the traditional constraints of the existing grid and fuel transportation networks you will find that Bitcoin is perhaps one of the best suited technologies to leverage abundant energy resources that are hiding in plain site. Rather than spoil it by elaborating too soon I am curious to know if any of you smart people know what I am referring to. Anyone?

RE: Solar and Wind very interesting point that the solar/wind people fail to realize or fail to mention when they push build out of these technologies.

RE: Huge Opportunity That Bitcoin Is Perfectly Suited For sorry, not smart enough to guess.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

RE: Huge Opportunity That Bitcoin Is Perfectly Suited For - When you start to look beyond the traditional constraints of the existing grid and fuel transportation networks you will find that Bitcoin is perhaps one of the best suited technologies to leverage abundant energy resources that are hiding in plain site. Rather than spoil it by elaborating too soon I am curious to know if any of you smart people know what I am referring to. Anyone?

This may or may not be what you are looking for, but one option would be to take advantage of variable electric prices that are present in some places of the country. For example, the price of electricity is cheaper at night when people are sleeping as this is generally an off peak period for electric usage. You could only run your miners during this time if it would be unprofitable to run it during the day.

Another potential option would likely not be something that an individual could do, but rather a public policy that an individual could attempt to change - to try to get more nuclear energy to be provided to the electric grid.

[halfawake]

RE: Huge Opportunity That Bitcoin Is Perfectly Suited For - When you start to look beyond the traditional constraints of the existing grid and fuel transportation networks you will find that Bitcoin is perhaps one of the best suited technologies to leverage abundant energy resources that are hiding in plain site. Rather than spoil it by elaborating too soon I am curious to know if any of you smart people know what I am referring to. Anyone?

An easier option than these super advanced solar beaming technology would be to have people in the Dakotas build wind turbines and host miners on behalf of other people.  The Dakotas have been described as the Saudi Arabia of wind and have the potential to generate enough power to power the entire United States.  The catch is, of course, that being ridiculously cold much of the year, almost no one lives there and much of the power generated would likely be lost to power line inefficiencies.  But the turbine powered miner technique wouldn't have this problem as the product being sent elsewhere would be bitcoins, not power, which wouldn't require the creation of a whole new system of power lines.

It's definitely a potential market for anyone who lives in this area.  They could even use the miner as a space heater during the winter months. 

[InwardContour]

Energy storage would still be important even in an ideal system as there will always be variable loads but generators gets the highest efficiencies at a consistent load. That's why I mentioned the hilltop land, if there's a competitive market for electricity then even without the erratic output of renewables there's still a market for energy arbitrage, buying at low load times and selling back at peak load times.

As to fossil fuel becoming unaffordable, it could happen very soon if some of the regulatory changes I'm seeing are anything to go by, a lot of european states are opening the doors to anyone and everyone that can come up with renewable systems. Energy company lobbying put a huge tax on Chinese made solar panels in europe but that's about the only place they've forced out competition lately.

By the time the generation born today reaches adulthood, China will have used up most of it's coal reserves making electricity, and many other countries will have run out altogether. The world will be a different place energy wise.

There is little evidence that nuclear is going to save the day, that leaves solar, wind, an a bit of hydro depending on the country, fresh water which kind of competes with hydro electricity is a growing problem.

Why would nuclear energy not be able to replace other, dirtier forms of electricity? Nuclear energy is near unlimited, very cheap, reliable and clean.

Your other "green" energy sources are unlimited, however are expensive, and unreliable.

[twiifm]

Hydrogen can also be very cheaply transported if we ever get over the hangups from the Hindenburg.

Hindenburg fireball isn't caused hydrogen.  Its the coating or paint on the outer skin that burned

[ALToids]

Why would nuclear energy not be able to replace other, dirtier forms of electricity? Nuclear energy is near unlimited, very cheap, reliable and clean.

I didn't say nuclear couldn't replace other forms of energy I said "There is little evidence that nuclear is going to save the day" with the exception of China, the nuclear industry seems to be contracting.

China is putting more GE Gen5 reactors online and India is starting phase 3 of it's thorium based long term plan. I think the rest of the world has pretty much given nuclear a kick in the pants.  The US hasn't even approved construction of a single new reactor since the 70s.

[BurtW]

All off topic.  This thread is about energy consumption of the Bitcoin Network.  You should go start your own thread discussing how you think energy should or should not be produced.

Thanks.

[ernie-]

All off topic.  This thread is about energy consumption of the Bitcoin Network.  You should go start your own thread discussing how you think energy should or should not be produced.

Thanks.

No worries, we can just let this thread die then.

[BurtW]

All off topic.  This thread is about energy consumption of the Bitcoin Network.  You should go start your own thread discussing how you think energy should or should not be produced.

Thanks.

No worries, we can just let this thread die then.

Sounds good.  We will start another thread about estimating the energy consumption of the Bitcoin network and you can start another thread to discuss energy production.

[BurtW]

There's some off topic there but I wouldn't consider the energy production methods to be off topic, we've been discussing alternative use cases for remote areas with easily accessible renewable energy and so far Bitcoin mining is the ideal transportation method.

You can have this thread.

A new thread specifically discussing estimating the power consumption of the Bitcoin network is here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=694401.0

[antirack]

Here is an article from end of last year on the this topic:

The Power Consumption of the Bitcoin Network:
Are we destroying the planet?
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Lb_iLMmH5sIiYfGeHr9tCTnaoWjK25zDlvO0nXXgEng/edit

6 Months old and already totally outdated though ;-)

Original thread is here (the author is Xyver):
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=381518.0

[STT]

Bitcoin is completely totally useless if you intend to use it to transport electricity. You can burn as much electricity as you want where it is cheap, it will not give you a single milliwatt where it is needed.

That seems correct but work has been done.     Cotton notes are not able to save or give energy either but they can convey work.   That work can be used in exchange for energy elsewhere and btc will do this also.


The second argument is btc work useful or not, its describing secure and unique hash codes.  The world has found some use for btc in security and so energy spent is useful and can be used in one place and then elsewhere the btc can be reused to pay for energy just like notes are.  
Im not saying btc has to be valued by all and Im not sure any energy company takes btc as direct payment, probably not but in effect btc is conveying energy or if you prefer, work

Places like lakes in the Himalayas have massive amounts of free power available for relatively low investment costs but its too hard to transmit the power to anywhere useful. In those cases bitcoin mining is one of the best ways to make use of that power but the hashrate would need to stabilise first, the risk is too high for that kind of investment while its rising exponentially.

It does seem viable that places with excess energy will be connected to the internet more easily then they can transport large amounts of electricity ?   If that is the case, btc is being useful to convey work/energy usage ?

[BurtW]

I think one way to slow the growth is reduce the block reward from 25 coins to just 1 coin per block, there is no way the BTC price will jump 25 fold to compensate as more then half the coins are already mined so there is no shortage of supply, and no reason for that much fiat to enter the market.

The block subsidy will be reduced to under 1BTC.  Great minds, yours and Satoshis, do think alike. 

[tripppn]

I was just wondering how much power the bitcoin network was consuming and ran some numbers myself:

Let's assume everyone mining bitcoin was running Antminer S3s or at least a equally efficient rig(which we all know isn't the case) and just to make things a little easier well say the S3 runs at 500Ghs and consumes 350W

Right now were up to 214PHs on bitcoin so thats 428000 of these S3s consuming 350W each so 149,800,000 Watts

Now I found this:  http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=104&t=3

"The Palo Verde plant in Arizona has three reactors with the largest combined generating capacity1 of about 3,937 megawatts (MW)."

Which I assume comes out to 3,937,000 Watts

So you would need 38 of these high output Nuclear Power Plants to power the Bitcoin network.  That is fucking mind boggling!