Let's make mining sustainable

[fullhdpixel]

Even if we convert mining into sustainable then I do not think it would have any much of the adverse effect on the environment as there already are a lot of pollutants which are freely being operated without any restrictions. Most common cause can be the pollutants from the residents of the vehicles. Vehicles are on an ascending graph from the time they were created and hence there are thousands of millions of vehicles freely roaming on the roads today.

Can you even imagine how much pollution they might be causing. We have changed the environment and only the human race is responsible for whatever is happening now. But there are few campaigns who are trying to make everything back normal. Let's hope so it happens and we could see our mother earth back as she was in the past.

[Artemis3]

I don't know man. As far as my research goes, the environmental impact of Bitcoin is basically nothing compared to the environmental impact of the cash system. There's already an increasing and improving way for Bitcoin to be mined without causing much to the environment so it won't really matter.

Instead of asking those mining enthusiast to come up a way or a solution to the problem (which I think they are doing already), why don't you do something yourself? Maybe plant a tree or something. Maybe donate to those environmental charities. Because no matter how many rants you make here in the forum but as long there is money, miners will mine they want even if the cost is a slight change in the environment.

Maybe make a movement yourself about helping the environment. I'm sure some of the members here in the forum will be willing to help you.

Indeed most people able, should plant a tree. Not just one, many, make it an activity and do it from time to time. Just make sure to use a local species, don't want to make the problem worse.

You could argue modern lifestyle is making this irreversible. The weather patterns are changing worldwide, and solutions are not coming from the top, the politicians are worthless.

I'm not a fan of donations, for all you know, they might be misused (which is why i warned NOT to give anything for the Amazon). Get involved and plant a tree yourself, how hard can it be? And then do it again, and again, and again. Make it a social activity.

If its close to the place you live, try to take care of it as well.

Truly disappearing Bitcoin won't change things, and as explained before the market itself is solving this issue on its own.

You could also change some habits, reduce, reuse and recycle; cycle to work, invest in renewable: buy a solar panel with a grid tie inverter, etc.

I wonder if modern society is sustainable. Are you willing to change some habits? Americans have a huge problem, they went to live too far away from work, and waste too much commuting. Telecommuting may help. One of the reasons USA is one of the top polluters is their car dependency, while its perfectly fine to live in countries in Europe and Asia, the typical sub-urban American cannot think of living without owning a car, and they even designated a car type for this lifestyle (which happens to be a fuel waster).

Unfortunately China is copying this bad example, what Americans did in the 50ies (the freeways program) has been reproduced in China, complete with the madness car production, as a "means to push the economy". These two countries alone are the most responsible.

Give a satoshi to plant a tree? No, go plant it yourself, you lazy couch potato.

[dothebeats]

While I agree that everyone should do their part in making all things sustainable and eco-friendly, I think that putting the blame solely on bitcoin mining for what's happening on our climate isn't fair at all. We know that 65% of mining bitcoin comes from China (at least once, though), and the whole of the bitcoin network consumed 30-terawatt hours of power in 2017, but this doesn't mean that all of it came from fossil fuels. Also to put that into perspective, in 2016 alone we managed to consume 21-petawatt hour of electricity, and out of that number, the 30-terawatt hour consumption of bitcoin is a mere 0.14%, and it's utterly ridiculous how much stones are being thrown at bitcoin mining when the banking sector itself uses more power.

As for CO2 emissions, we have been doing horrendous on that area, but certainly not far-off from historical figures even as far back as 800,000 years ago. Interglacial periods sits our asses off at 300 ppm of CO2 in the air at its warmest, causing a 0.5-1.1 degree Celsius increase on global average temperature. Take note, this is way even before humans existed; only volcanoes, oceans and other natural players were the main factors as to why CO2 concentration on the air was rising.



While even up to this point we might be one of the largest artificial contributors of CO2 in the atmosphere, nothing beats land and ocean CO2 reservoirs in contributing to the CO2 in the air--though I'm not saying this as a justification of our improper use of the natural resources around us. I'm just saying that there are other things way beyond human activity that even the best of our technology cannot control. We cannot control earth's axial tilt, precession change and eccentricity, can we? That's one factor missing on global climate reports as of late, which baffles me since it's a scientific fact that the the Milankovitch Cycles is an observed, recognized and a proven cycle due to the abundance of data that we have here on earth.



Just like looking at a trading graph, the cycles match that of what we see on each of its heating and cooling periods (stages of glaciation), hinting towards a possibility that we are actually heading towards our heating phase of the cycle. Why aren't we considering this possibility at all?

Anyhow, we might not have the means to control our own planet's motion which is synced with the sun's, but the least we can do is mitigate the effects of it by reducing our CO2 emissions, and it starts off with using clean energy, if possible, and reducing our own use of excess electricity as well. Recycling also helps, plus planting some trees every now and then which I think should be mandatory per person.

The mining sector of bitcoin has been aging pretty well since people are actually shifting from coal-based energy sources to natural ones, just like what they have in Iceland and some provinces in China. Vilifying other sectors of the economy doesn't help at all if one does not even tend to his/her own garden aptly.

[Getmon]

I think there have already been several steps taken to promote green energy as compared to the use of traditional non-renewable energy. Mining must have also taken steps albeit little by little to start converting into the renewable energy utilization. And others, I only know ETH to be exact, are also shifting to PoS. That must be saving a lot of future emission.

Changing onto PoS will not itself solve this problem. There should be huge projects supporting renewable energy which might include thermal plants, solar panels, windmills, etc in order to create a stable source of energy to run the miners and generate the hashes. This might not cause any global harm to the community no matter how large miners we run on our farm.

Of course shifting into PoS is not enough to solve this problem. Other projects remain with PoW. But the reality is that there is no single solution to this. And it does not take a single project alone to effectively get away from the possible effects of mining to our climate and our environment. But at least it lessens instead of increases the emission of green house gases. Every initiative counts. Every step toward the use of renewable energy and away from the opposite is a progress worth appreciating.

[leyton11]

what? Is bitcoin mining affecting the environment? I have never thought about this and actually it is not related. Mining bitcoin is done through GPUs and large mining factories both have their own areas and are air-conditioned to prevent rising temperatures in the factory. In addition, it does not cause dust or increase the surrounding temperature, because if it rises too high, the factory will burn first. In fact, we should be environmentally conscious from stopping using plastics and being more concerned about trees, and being a volunteer to plant forests. But for bitcoin mining is to create money, and only money can mobilize people to plant trees.

[FaithInCrypto]

Thanks for bringing this topic. Honestly, this hasn't come to my mind and all I know is how amazing mining rigs are. Somehow this thread is like an eye-opener to everyone not just for miners but for people like me also.
I really hope we could do something about this so we can help the Mother Earth not destroy it.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I wonder if modern society is sustainable.

It absolutely isn't, and not just from an energy point of view. Everything from processed foods to processed plastics. We consume far too much and throw most of it away. We spend hours pumping out exhaust fumes stuck in traffic commuting to and from jobs so we can buy more unnecessary junk which will end up in a landfill.

You literally can run a PoS network off of Laptops connected to batteries that were charged by solar or hydro only.

And you can literally run a PoW network off of ASCIs connected to solar or hydro only. In fact, the most up to date data we have suggest that up to three quarters of bitcoin mining energy is from renewable sources, which is about four times higher than the global average of renewable energy use. (Source: https://coinsharesgroup.com/assets/resources/Research/bitcoin-mining-network-december-2019.pdf)

[imstillthebest]

Thanks for bringing this topic. Honestly, this hasn't come to my mind and all I know is how amazing mining rigs are. Somehow this thread is like an eye-opener to everyone not just for miners but for people like me also.
I really hope we could do something about this so we can help the Mother Earth not destroy it.

there are now sustainable mining forms that people do like mining using the wind , water , heat and other forms of energy  .

miners themselves are the ones that are responsible to do this kind of practice but for us that arent miners all we can do is to encourage miners to do this kind of mining instead of the traditional ones as it causes harm to the environment   .

[Murat]

Of course, we are making our surrounding worsen day by day, by our daily activities environment is getting affected and this type of natural disaster has occurred now and then,  in recent time, International politics also getting involved to make reduced the environmental impact, but individual awareness is must needed for this purpose, it's very sad to see that we are still not aware of this effect so it's high time to make our thinking level should be changed, if we are not like this then nothing would be sustained for the future, so I agree with your proposal which is the present demand for our ecological aspect.

[1Referee]

PoS is the cure and PoW is the disease.

PoS is not a cure. It adds so many more problems that I don't see much viability in the concept. Another thing is that most people only care about PoS because it allows them to earn passive income. They do not care about anything else as long as they see that yield. Admittedly, I like the idea of passive income as well, but I'm glad that Bitcoin isn't following that route.

If Ether ends up transitioning to PoS and there is some decent incentive for me to stake, I might seriously look into it, but purely from a profiteering perspective. I'll explore any possible trustless way to get more satoshis in return.

[Polar91]

PoS is not a cure. It adds so many more problems that I don't see much viability in the concept. Another thing is that most people only care about PoS because it allows them to earn passive income. They do not care about anything else as long as they see that yield. Admittedly, I like the idea of passive income as well, but I'm glad that Bitcoin isn't following that route.

If Ether ends up transitioning to PoS and there is some decent incentive for me to stake, I might seriously look into it, but purely from a profiteering perspective. I'll explore any possible trustless way to get more satoshis in return.

With that regard, what we need to adjust and to improve is the source of electricity and resources we need to use in order to mine bitcoin. Me too, I do not think what's best for a particular cryptocurrency would also be the same when applied to others. We can see, the efficiency we need to figure out is through the power consumption and rewards, and bitcoin surely does have its own protocol for that, let's just trust the system because in the near future, with the POW, miners will be happy to sell their bitcoin at huge price.

[kelawannaepa]

We know that bitcoin mining consumes a lot of electricity.  Of course for these reasons, the future survival of Bitcoin can be jeopardized.  Bitcoin mining should be done using renewable energy sources as a major solution to the electricity consumption problem....

[o_e_l_e_o]

BTW, you are trusting a mere 4 mining pool operators to not 51% bitcoin on a daily basis.

Except that's not how it works at all.

Most mining pools can be joined by anyone, and conversely, left by anyone. The mining pool operators do not own much of the hardware which is mining in their pool. It is owned by other people and simply directed at that mining pool. If a mining pool was to plan a 51% attack, the likelihood is that all the third party miners mining on that pool would leave - they have nothing to gain and everything to lose by lending their hashpower to somebody else's attack. It is more profitable for them to mine honestly than it is to try to prop up somebody else's 51% attack.

The exact same logic applies for trying to get 4 mining pools to coordinate a 51% attack. Even if one of the big pools with 15-20% of the hashpower wanted to perform a 51% attack, and even if all the miners mining on that pooled didn't leave, for the duration of their attempted attack they are now no longer mining blocks on the main chain. This makes it even more profitable for the other 3 big mining pools in your hypothetical scenario to stay honest and mine on the main chain.

[Aurora Castro]

Hey
We all know how the year had been , unfortunately we have seen worst case of bush fire in Amazon , in Australia , environment is changing drastically , not so long enough we used to have snow here and now it's already January , no sign of snow ...
In certain places where it was supposed to be winter , it's raining there tremendously and it's something that am seeing from my own eyes.
I think this 2020 we should focus on reducing the carbon footprint of bitcoins , reduce the energy minning takes ND the pollution it generates .
Hopefully the community will come forward and the creators will also look out for this .
If you are in the IT sector please spare some time and brains for this problem and try finding a way out .

Okay I do agree Bitcoin does contribute to pollution but, that is negligible.

Major concern is vehicular pollution and industrial pollution. Third world countries have started working on it but, industrial power giants like America are ignoring it.

Things have to change and change can come only when big leaders agree and not disagree. I live in acoutry where plastic bags have been banned completely, more and more innovative ideas are being implemented to reduce carbon footprint. Like subsidizing electric vehicles and promoting it in large scale.

Hopefully my country Neill achieve the target within the next decade.

P.S I live in a third world country.

I agree, we cannot blame Bitcoin when what we are seeing right now are consequences of what happened years ago. We are primarily responsible for what is happening today. And it hurts to see how these fires have ended up with big green lungs, but we can improve it, do you know the story of the couple that planted 2 million trees in a destroyed jungle?
And they achieved an excellent change, because this is what I think we can do, we must not blame or have regrets, we must begin to execute changes.

[puertorikosena]

I think that in the situation with bitcoin mining, it is unlikely that anything will change in the future. Perhaps there will be less harmful production, but not significantly. Unless other computers will be invented that will perform this work better, but it is not known whether the production of these computers will not harm nature.

[ufaiz50]

We know that energy consumption in miner activities is less if we compare it with large industries. Today there are also many alternative energies but because of the expensive needs so it does not solve solutions for industry and business activities. And no one has tried alternative energy for mining activities, because they need stable energy to prevent the possibility of damage to the equipment.

There is some energy as a substitute made by some people, there is even energy from animal dung, a matter of expensive cost. We have not yet found energy that is environmentally friendly and inexpensive. In a business organization profit is the most important, there are rarely organizations that see the future life. and finally something like this happened.

[danherbias07]

Interesting to keep the environment clean.
But there are a lot out there which needs some focus first before going for bitcoin.
How old bitcoin is? Why is it questioned now with pollution?

At what time is cigarette created? How the hell is that thing cannot be stopped from creating more?
How about the pollution of vehicular things?
Let us not go with factories too.

This world will be abused by human no matter what goal we look to save it.

[o_e_l_e_o]

You keep saying the miners will switch pools, what you keep avoiding is they only know to switch pools
after the 51% attack is made public.

Miners will realize immediately that they are no longer mining on the main chain and can switch to honest pools. You are also assuming that somehow these 4 mining pools (which as we established are comprised of thousands of users) will be able to co-ordinate a 51% attack in complete secret without a single user deciding against it, bearing in mind that any user who continues to mine honestly will make much more money than if they take part in the attack.

Given that we mine (on average) 144 blocks a day for a total reward of 1800 BTC, in what scenario are you imagining a pool with 20% of the hashpower wpi;d be willing to give up ~360 BTC a day (~$3 million a day) to support someone else's 51% attack, at no profit to themselves?

giving power to another 4 guys to trust

Repeating a lie often enough doesn't make it true.

That is the scenario set to be played out, thinking miners will support btc out of the goodness of their heart, well is fantasy at best.

The difficulty will readjust and mining will be profitable again. This is pretty basic stuff.

[Yatsan]

Interesting to keep the environment clean.
But there are a lot out there which needs some focus first before going for bitcoin.
How old bitcoin is? Why is it questioned now with pollution?

Same question. It is sad seeing the world on fire now especially in our rain forests, pollution contaminating both water and air but what these things can connect to bitcoin mining? All miners are just consuming electricity power and that has nothing to do with pollution, climate and environment changes. Mining operations uses a lot of electricity because of high capacity chips producing E-waste consuming 54 terrawatt per hour a year and If you don't know how much electricity is that, the average estimated consumed power of mining is the same as what the Switzerland is consuming in a year.

This world will be abused by human no matter what goal we look to save it.

What happening to the world right now is more of like the consequences of modernization. Have you seen the path of bushfire in Australia similar from what the possible loop train project? I'm not sure about this one but I think that's how they deal with the environment. sucks.

[Stalker22]

<snip>
If you don't know how much electricity is that, the average estimated consumed power of mining is the same as what the Switzerland is consuming in a year.

There is no doubt that the amount of energy consumed by bitcoin mining is huge, but its energy usage shouldn’t be compared to the power usage of a country. Bitcoin isn’t a country, so it makes no sense. Here's another fun fact to put things into perspective: "The amount of electricity consumed every year by always-on but inactive home devices in the USA alone could power the Bitcoin network for 3.2 years." (source: Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance)

Cryptocurrency mining is not to blame for the world relying mostly on fossil fuels for its electricity.