Bitcoin Energy Consumption Future Plans/Thoughts

[Sudbata]

Hi,

I am new to this forum and in the bitcoin community in general, so please point out if i am talking non-sense.

I was thinking if there are any plans/voting to reduce energy consumption in the future in the community of miners. I understand that a lot of the miners are situated in countries with cheap electricity and looking to exploit every edge, but in my opinion the future is in renewable energy and reducing carbon emissions. Problem is, I would imagine the mining community is so big and unorganized. Also currently renewable energy is really expensive, so it wouldn't make sense, but if mining progresses like that, at the point where it is more affordable, it may be too late because of the messy organization currently.

So, what does the community does about this problem from what you know? I suppose the mining pools may look to create some sort of union to tackle those issues, but then the whole concept of decentralisation loses sense.

Or is there any major improvement/discussions that is in the pipeline from developer point of view?

Many thanks

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[Kittygalore]

This is just my suggestion and that is if we make the mines get close to the sources like hydroelectric powerplants or the best case scenario is nuclear powerplants, renewable energy is out of the equation because the most efficient and durable will occupy so much land area to be fully functional, there is a possibility that solar energy is useful but logistics of the materials for installation will still be a carbon footprint.

[joniboini]

As far as I can remember, there is no plan to change the consensus. Even without any organization, miners would naturally look for cheaper energy source, and when or if renewable energy become easy to access, they'd use it. On top of that, mining rigs are improving and become more efficient, like any other technology. I won't be surprised if we see a higher hash rate in the future with the same power or even less power than today.

[davis196]

I suppose the mining pools may look to create some sort of union to tackle those issues, but then the whole concept of decentralization loses sense.

The whole concept of decentralization doesn't lose any sense,if the miners join forces for a while to solve some issue.Is growing energy consumption even e problem?
I don't see Bitcoin mining energy consumption as a problem.Bitcoin miners aren't obligated by anyone to be "environment friendly". As long as the mining process is profitable,they wouldn't care about energy consumption.
Anyways,the topic about BTC energy consumption appears again and again,every time the BTC price goes up.
I feel like we are back in 2017.Is there are any point to repeat the same questions and answers again?

 

[Sudbata]

I suppose the mining pools may look to create some sort of union to tackle those issues, but then the whole concept of decentralization loses sense.

The whole concept of decentralization doesn't lose any sense,if the miners join forces for a while to solve some issue.Is growing energy consumption even e problem?
I don't see Bitcoin mining energy consumption as a problem.Bitcoin miners aren't obligated by anyone to be "environment friendly". As long as the mining process is profitable,they wouldn't care about energy consumption.
Anyways,the topic about BTC energy consumption appears again and again,every time the BTC price goes up.
I feel like we are back in 2017.Is there are any point to repeat the same questions and answers again?

Thanks for the reply. I mean of course it is not a problem, but i am talking about the far future, when cryptocurrency gets adopted more and more. Things like these (even though not a problem currently) should be at least addressed or looked into from my perspective from the community. Maybe they are! I don't know. That is why i decided to post. I wanted to grasp more about the future technology improvement suggestions and/or community discussions that have been going about the topic. The two replies above were useful. Thanks!

[dondonk]

As long as the mining process is profitable,they wouldn't care about energy consumption.

It's sad but true, the miners won't reduce their energy consumption or even think about it as long as they still benefit. However, it is possible for new innovations to create an environmentally friendly mining system with renewable energy.

[20kevin20]

The more years go by, the more energy consumption there will be. Digitalizing the world means more energy, so does switching from gas to electric cars and so on.. so believe it or not, the more we try to go "eco-friendly", the more against it we go as tech advances.

As long as there'll be mining and competition for it, there'll always be someone who'll want to keep investing in equipment to their own advantage.. Therefore, unless we find a more efficient way to mine using less energy while providing the same (or a higher) level of fairness and decentralization, things will probably stay the same besides the fact that large mining farms will probably be regulated at some point..

[Sudbata]

I suppose the future will tell. Maybe I have a really utopian depiction of the future of crypto and the world in general and have high expectations.  I hope the tech innovations around Bitcoin and the passion of developers/miners will be more than the greed of some others. I can kind of imagine a scenario like the futuristic movies, where people tried to change the world because of corruption, just to end up corrupting it again.

[Hydrogen]

a lot of the miners are situated in countries with cheap electricity and looking to exploit every edge, but in my opinion the future is in renewable energy and reducing carbon emissions.

Countries with cheap electricity afford to sell power at low prices via operating hydroelectric, geothermal and "carbon neutral" sources of energy. Hydroelectric, solar, geothermal and "carbon neutral" power being cheaper and more affordable than coal and fossil fuels.

Bitcoin miners throwing large sums of money at renewable sources of energy helps fund the expansion of clean sources of power around the world.

If we ever become serious about limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Someday we will address landfills, oil and gas refineries and other normal everyday things which significantly contribute to climate change on the planet.



Methane emissions could actually be far worse than carbon emissions in this. Methane trapping exponentially greater amounts of heat per gram than carbon.

[stompix]

On top of that, mining rigs are improving and become more efficient, like any other technology.

Mining rigs improving in joules per hash (or should I say terrahash) will have no effect on the power consumption, they will just affect the overall hashrate.
If the mining reward is $1 million per day then the miners can go up to this in power consumption, it doesn't matter if they do this with S3 or S19, you could have ten times more efficient gear if the price doubles so will the energy consumption, the only good thing in this scenario is true that the global hash rate will be x20.

Anyways,the topic about BTC energy consumption appears again and again,every time the BTC price goes up.
I feel like we are back in 2017.Is there are any point to repeat the same questions and answers again?

Because the consumption gets worse with every price rise, more rewards more gear getting plugged in.
The only thing that is stopping us right now to see a real explosion in electricity consumption is that there is simply no more gear left to plug in until finally, they get some manufactured. The current reward for miners is just above $50 million, cut investment and profits and there would still be easily 30 that can be spent every day on power.

If the price hits 100k and the chip problems finally are solved prepare for some really ugly numbers.

[franky1]

in 2012 people were mining with GPU. and the hash/kw was bad

the technology has evolved. we are no longer at
400mh/kw
we are instead at
30,000,000mh/kw(30thash/kw(95thash/3.25kw(S19))

thats a 70,000x efficiency curve from 2012 GPU mining

what you will find is that 1 years ago when the hashrate was 100exa it was based on
10,000,000mh/kw  (13thash/kw(13thash/1.3kw(s9))
now its 160exa(60% hashrate rise) but 300% more efficient asics
meaning the equivelent electric use
of 160exa is as if its only the electric of the network when it was 56exahash

yep we are at less electric use than 2020. and instead using the electric of june 2019
which only yielded 56 exahash

2019:   56exahash=5.6tw
2020: 100exahash=10tw
2021:  160exahash=5.4tw

[stompix]

in 2012 people were mining with GPU. and the hash/kw was bad

the technology has evolved. we are no longer at
400mh/kw
we are instead at
30,000,000mh/kw(30thash/kw(95thash/3.25kw(S19))

And that solved s* in terms of power consumption, but as usually, you messed things up when it comes to mining
At the end of 2011, we had around 10 terrahash, with a 5830 delivering some 300Mh/s and burning 300watts, let's not talk about 5970.
How much was that, 30 000 cards? Pulling 300w?

Even by your completely wrong calculation one year ago we had 4 million!!! S9 each burning 1300W.
How's that efficiency going? To me is something like 500x but the other way around!

now its 160exa(60% hashrate rise) but 300% more efficient asics

Again you're talking bs, do you believe that the hash rate is generated only by new gear?
There isn't a single S9 in this world who isn't mining at this time, they are still profitable at 10 cents per kwh.

[pooya87]

What you are pointing out has nothing to do with bitcoin because bitcoin or more precisely bitcoin miners are simply consumers of the electricity not the producers of it. How electricity is produced (renewable energies, less polluting methods, ...) is up to the electric companies.

[franky1]

just like you wanna pretend we are not using the most efficient miners. i can flip that... your pretend using of 300mh/300w efficient gpu. is actually just regular non-overclocked desktop PC of 250mh/450w standard PSU
and give you a 5x downrating on your GPU for your 2011 maths (ill get to that)


(but first) why would you think that although still profitable.
someone is still using 3.9kw for 39thash(3x s9) in 2019-2021
when they can get 95thash for 3.2kw
2.4x more profit

so lets play your game of downrated equipment

250mh/450w desktop standard psu non overclock
=10thash of 40,000 gpu = 18gw
fast forward to 2019
s9 13thash/1.3kw standard asic no upgraded hardware
=52,000,000thash of 4mill asics=5.2tw
..
so premiss still applies.. why? you might ask?
because if we used GPU to attain a 52mill thash would need 93600000gw(93600tw) in 2019
but that would be still be 18,000x less efficiency to retain GPU rather than use s9
....
but like i said we now have s19 which is a further 2.4x efficient than s9
so if you really want to get anal.. its 43,200x more efficient

so ill concede i got my 70,000x efficiency math wrong
but you thinking its a '500x efficiency in the other way'
means you need to concede a hell of alot more
..
point being
hashrates rise. yep thats mining logic.. it gets harder..
yes the hashrate rose from 10thash to 52,000,000thash in 8 years(5.2mill x) 2011-2019
but the electric use didnt rise by 5.2m x
it only rose by 288x

so arnt you glad that technology allowed for a 5.2m x growth with only a 288x expenditure
..
but now lets move forward 2 more years
a ~3.07x growth(52exa>160exa)
but a 0.6x electric expenditure(5.2tw>6.5tw)

arnt you glad we curbed the spike.
because if we were using just s9 in 2021 the electric would be 15.6tw for 160exa
because if we were using just GPU in 2021 the electric would be 288,000tw for 160exa

[franky1]

What you are pointing out has nothing to do with bitcoin because bitcoin or more precisely bitcoin miners are simply consumers of the electricity not the producers of it. How electricity is produced (renewable energies, less polluting methods, ...) is up to the electric companies.

most serious miners have shifted to renewable regions years ago.
its where they get the best deals from.
(mining farms have great contracts with electric suppliers that make excess renewable energy that mining farms can nibble at)

[stompix]

but the electric use didnt rise by 5.2m x
it only rose by 288x

Lot of mumbo jumbo to only arrive at the predicted conclusion, electric consumption raises with price.
The average for 2012 was 5$ multiply that by the 288x, throw in the 3 halvings and what do you get my dear Franky?
Oh surprisingly, the same damn price that was the average for 2020 as right now the hash rate can't keep up with the price increase and reward because of lack of equipment, as you would probably knew if you would actually bother to check how things are in reality!

Was it worth writing down 100 lines of nonsense when the obvious thing is so damn...obvious?!!

You can try to shift the discussion to no matter what stupid idea you want but there is only one truth, if the price increases the electric consumption of the whole network will also do, no matter how much more efficient the gears will get. The price will double? So will the power consumed!

yep we are at less electric use than 2020. and instead using the electric of june 2019

Again wanted to point out this non-sense.
So you're telling me that with x4 times the reward miners are consuming less electricity, raking in 10 times the profit, and not plugging in new gear because you've told them to?

[hatshepsut93]

In the long run energy consumption growth rate will slow down because of the halvenings. And in decades we'll be seeing the reduction of electricity consumption caused by the halvenings. Eventually the electricity consumption will only depend on the network fees and not the price of Bitcoin.

What you are pointing out has nothing to do with bitcoin because bitcoin or more precisely bitcoin miners are simply consumers of the electricity not the producers of it. How electricity is produced (renewable energies, less polluting methods, ...) is up to the electric companies.

If Bitcoin mining is highly profitable, it can incentivize to keep fossil fuels power plants operational.

[franky1]

So you're telling me that with x4 times the reward miners are consuming less electricity, raking in 10 times the profit, and not plugging in new gear because you've told them to?

YOUR the one telling me that miners are not plugging in new hardware
YOU said miners are still using 2019 outdated inefficient s9..

Again you're talking bs, do you believe that the hash rate is generated only by new gear?
There isn't a single S9 in this world who isn't mining at this time, they are still profitable at 10 cents per kwh.

i corrected you that they are using new s19 and gaining 2.4x efficiency

anyways.. avoiding your own distracting waffles.
stompix. your about 10% right in small parts you mention.. so lets concentrate on that

just like gold. if it remained as cheap to mine gold using just a kitchen spoon and a coffee grain filter ($2) then the price of gold would be $2-$4/ounce.. not >$1500

its actually the increase of cost of mining that sets the minimum price people are willing to sell for. thus setting the base value.

so while mining bitcoin, its base value is only ~$21k/coin right now. the speculative price is >$47k. this speculative bubble spread of $26k does not mean the hashrate will double.. emphasis: it wont..
repeat: the speculative spread will not cause the mining to grow by 200% in the short term the price went up. i promise you that.

it means that mining can grow by 200% this fortnight/month, BUT it will only increase by 2-5% not 200%
no miner is going to shoot themselves in the foot by pushing difficulty up by 200% in the short term
the mining wont jump that much.

the actual result is the speculative bubble of $26k above the $21k mining cost. means the speculative bubble can correct down. yep there is more chance the speculative price will drop by more than 5% than chances hashrate will rise by more than 5%

again this $26k speculation will NOT cause a 200% jump in hashrate purely because there is 200% spread to allow such hashrate growth

..
maybe try to understand more about the mindset of mining. they wont want to push difficulty up as it just shoots them in the foot.

remember 2020 had a halving. and although the speculative price went from $10k to over $40k the hashrate did not go 400%.. it only went up 60% in a year(100exa to 160exa) which is ~ 2-3% a fortnight

yep miners only want to grow at under 5% a fortnight per difficulty adjustment.
they do not react the moment a price tracks at 200% more profit. they play the steady rise game of small difficulty adjustments

[grunwalski]

I was wondering a similar thing, I don't see the energy consumption neccesarily bad, but what I would aim for is use the computation for something useful instead of just having it figure out a number that matches the number of 0s in the hash.

Are there any plans for this?

[stompix]

YOUR the one telling me that miners are not plugging in new hardware
YOU said miners are still using 2019 outdated inefficient s9..

Exactly, that is true, I'm also telling you that you should understand the sarcasm in the next line.

just like gold. if it remained as cheap to mine gold using just a kitchen spoon and a coffee grain filter ($2) then the price of gold would be $2-$4/ounce.. not >$1500
its actually the increase of cost of mining that sets the minimum price people are willing to sell for. thus setting the base value.

Bs! Franky!!!!
You don't mine, you haven't mined, you don't know how mining works!
Do I have to remind you every f* time that for two years you thought that if a pool has 20% of the hash rate it gets 20% of the block reward it mines?
The cost of mining is not increasing, the cost is still the same, the revenue is decreasing, two different things altogether but at this point, I'm not surprised by it anymore.

again this $26k speculation will NOT cause a 200% jump in hashrate purely because there is 200% spread to allow such hashrate growth

No, there is no 200% increase because there is no gear available anywhere, but how would you know that when you don't have a clue about what happens in reality outside your fantasy world?
Do you know until when is Bitmain sold out?
Do you think you can get your hand on any gear right now?
Do you know what resellers are doing at this point? Let me shine some light!

At least two resellers have canceled orders with March delivery, they have refunded the customers then opened the spots again at 5000$ per miner, and got sold out in a few days. The hash rate isn't growing because there is no gear available out there to increase it!!
But of course, you could prove me wrong, you could go out buy an S19pro and make 30$ a day even with medium power cost and look, I'm even offering you a deal, I would buy that machine from you if you don't manage to ROI at the price you have bought it! I dare you, go buy some mining equipment, and tell me how this has gone as I already know the answer!

Riot has ordered 30 000 pieces and is one of the biggest clients who only manage to get the gear in October and you're talking about the hash rate not going up because of some arbitrary numbers a guy with almost no knowledge of mining has come up?