Bitcoin consumes 'more electricity than Argentina'

[PawGo]

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56012952

Cambridge researchers say it consumes around 121.36 terawatt-hours (TWh) a year - and is unlikely to fall unless the value of the currency slumps.
The online tool has ranked Bitcoin’s electricity consumption above Argentina (121 TWh), the Netherlands (108.8 TWh) and the United Arab Emirates (113.20 TWh) - and it is gradually creeping up on Norway (122.20 TWh).

“Bitcoin is literally anti-efficient,” David Gerard, author of Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain, explained. “So more efficient mining hardware won't help - it'll just be competing against other efficient mining hardware.

“This means that Bitcoin's energy use, and hence its CO2 production, only spirals outwards.

“It’s very bad that all this energy is being literally wasted in a lottery.”

The price of Bitcoin rose rapidly on Monday after Tesla announced its investment.

But commentators say the investment clashes with the electric car firm's previous environmental stance.

“Elon Musk has thrown away a lot of Tesla's good work promoting energy transition,” Mr Gerard said. “This is very bad... I don't know how he can walk this back effectively.

"Tesla got $1.5bn in environmental subsidies in 2020, funded by the taxpayer.

"It turned around and spent $1.5bn on Bitcoin, which is mostly mined with electricity from coal. Their subsidy needs to be examined."

[usekevin]

If the electricity used to mine of bitcoin means, it had helped many traders and investors.When a certain resource is used, we should look around it's used a good manner or wasted. In this we can come to mining of bitcoin had needed of more electricity. The reason behind this is the demand of bitcoin over a period is increased.I had withdrew certain amount of bitcoin from the Mycelium wallet with low priority. After 28 hours, the bitcoin had not reached my wallet.So now the transaction need of huge bitcoin as a fee to get it earlier.All the transaction need of electricity by the way of mining.So this use of Electricity is unavoidable one.

[ranochigo]

It's a known fact but people seems to make a big deal out of it. The way POW works is to provide security through sacrificing some form of resources in return for it's security and a large part of it for Bitcoin is the electrical usage. How much does it cost to print the dollar bills around the world? Perhaps close to the amount Bitcoin uses? Bitcoin is responsible for billions of dollars of volume per day and it is totally reasonable for the cost to be prohibitively high such that people are unable to exploit it. The CO2 consumption probably assumes the worst case scenario; for the electrical sources to be non-renewable and a high production of greenhouse gases which is untrue. More and more Bitcoin mining functions on the surplus from renewable energy sources[1] and helping to fuel the renewable energy market as well. All the energy is not wasted, it is used to secure the network.

Now, to address the statement about Tesla. Tesla's goal is not primarily to preserve the environment. If that was their goal, their electric cars wouldn't have been affordable and they would be producing electric buses instead of mass producing cheap electric cars to exacerbate the current problems with traffic congestion. The environmental rebate is okay; their electric cars are indeed efficient. They have put in billions into R&D to tackle the EV markets. To say that they are solely focused on zero emission (or rather zero environmental degradation) is completely wrong.


[1] https://cbeci.org/cbeci/comparisons

[masterrex]

Wow, I never know that bitcoin mining was using that huge amount of electricity larger than Argentina, But I think that electricity does not all come from burning fossil fuels because most of the mining firms are looking for a cheap source of energy and burning fossil fuels are not cheap, But base on the report the majority of that 121 TWh was came from the coal-fired power plants, I dont know who is telling the truth or maybe that report is just came from a bias group because I believe that in every story there will be a two version.   

[Carlton Banks]

“It’s very bad that all this energy is being literally wasted in a lottery.”

ok, so it's easy, remove the "lottery"

Bitcoin can run in testing mode, without block mining that increases in energy consumption, exactly what these commenters want, right? Anyone can set up Bitcoin this way to create a completely new currency, sans "lottery"


and when this new Greencoin has been running a little while, people using it will be coming back to the experts asking "we have various problems, how to solve?"

[dothebeats]

Aren't most mining farms peruse renewable energy sources considering the huge discount that they are getting? Renewable energy sources don't emit CO2, unlike fossil fuels that is still currently used on the majority of the world. Perhaps they should have researched on which energy sources are being used in bitcoin, so as to be fair on their judgment regarding the matter.

[lifeforcepools]

Are you sure? Was someone able to make a detailed calculation of this?

[buwaytress]

Great, another happy cherry picking article.

If Bitcoin only consumes more electricity than Argentina, then it's a great tradeoff for what is currently the world's most secure, robust, widespread, accessible, dependable, trustless financial network.

Sometimes I really feel like calling it mining just made people forget what it's really for.

[avikz]

There are two ways to look at this information. Let me explain!

First way:
OMG! it's a sheer wastage of electricity. People are burning electricity for a coin which doesn't physically. The environment is getting impacted so badly as well. I will raise my voice to stop bitcoin mining at once and create awareness against it!

Now the second  way:
It's great to see that bitcoin has gained this much popularity. It's great to see that it is helping people financially and paving a way towards surveillance free economy. I will create awareness about bitcoin so that the adoption grows!

Now you have to choose which side you want to be!

[Argoo]

This is a contrived problem. Renewable green energy sources, especially solar panels, can provide 30 times more energy than humanity needs at all. Solar energy is practically inexhaustible and with the help of such panels, clean energy can be available anywhere.

[Stratobitz]

Bitcoin mining is a resource war of attrition, so naturally the profit margins will continually dwindle as the network hash-rate continues to increase. This factoring the increasing variable adjusted difficulty to mine BTC.

As the overall bitcoin network hash-rate increases as more mining units are manufactured and added to the network, the mining units being used now become less and less powerful in terms of the amount of bitcoin they can expect to mine on average over their lifespan-- and mining rigs quickly become "obsolete" as faster miners are developed, network hash-rate increases, and difficultly goes up.

Miners are then stuck holding units that are now mining at a loss, a loss which gets deeper and deeper by the day, because the cost of the electricity to power the miner can no longer be offset by the profit the mining rig produces. The price of bitcoin also contributes to this, if it deceases, your profits slide with it.

It's a constant battle.

I started mining bitcoin in mid 2014, receiving batch 7 units of Bitmain's Antminer S3+. With 26 units running overclocked, we were able to get roughly 12 TH/s of mining power combined.

At that time-- (difficulty went up and down and had spikes and drops) but we AVERAGED about 0.50 BTC per day with that setup.

The power consumpution: Roughly 14 kW of Electricity which broke down to roughly 10 kW for the units, 1 kW for ancillary equipment (server mainframe/networking), and then another 3 kW for cooling costs-- as miners output immense amounts of heat.

TODAY:

If you were to run this setup you would would be operating at a loss of about $40/day not even factoring the costs of the equipment/miners/AC Cooling/etc. (Based on $0.12 kWh Electricity Costs).

ONE YEAR LATER:

Our 26 Antminer S3 units were no longer profitable to run. So we purchased 16 Antminer S5 units- giving us 18 TH/s of mining power, which were more effecient power wise, and we were drawing the same amount of power... 14 kW.

ONE YEAR LATER:

The S5 units we purchased were now only breaking even in terms of AC costs.

WHAT I LEARNED:

Mining bitcoin is hard. Mining bitcoin is very expensive. You not only have the upfront costs of the equipment, but the costs to run that equipment.

You are also in an arms race, literally, with all the other miners. The miners you purchased will immediately become less and less effecient/output less BTC per day if difficulty increases.

You will have to constantly be playing the game of replacing your current hardware with new hardware that is more effecient.

ANECDOTE

However, after 2016 Block Halving of Bitcoin, when BTC almost reached $20,000-- suddenly the OLD S3 units were absolutely profitable to run again. So we were able to put some of them back into service (power limitations didn't allow us to run all of them).

This was a small farm, and we were drawing 14 kilowatts of AC every hour. That was, at that time, $1200 in AC costs per month.

FINAL THOUGHT

ASIC technology in terms of the silicon wafers produced will reach a point at which they can no longer be made to run or clock faster than the silicon circuit allows. So unless an entirely new type of technology is created (

The NEW Antminer S19j Pro not yet even shipped and is already SOLD OUT, will give you 90TH/s of mining power drawing 3000 watts of AC-- meaning you're going to need a 240v 3 Phase circuit to power it... Will give you a YEARLY profit of roughly $8000 (not including the price to buy the unit)

HOWEVER, that's only if you had the unit today; which you don't (hasn't shipped and is sold out)... Also, that's also ONLY IF the difficulty of the bitcoin network does not increase AT ALL for a full 12 months... AND that he price of bitcoin remains at least at it's current price today of $48,000.

The unit costs $5000. You profit $8000... if and only if all of the items directly above happen-- price stays at $48,000, difficulty does not increase... etc.

If the difficulty increases month after month, you will reap less profit, lower each month. If the price of bitcoin drops, you're in real trouble.

END ALL BE ALL your profit after purchase is $3000. If BTC goes down $3000... you break even.

So that's why I got out of the mining game by 2016 after he halving.

It was a full time job keeping everything going, and while we were mining 0.50 BTC a day, the value back then dropped at one point to under $100 per BTC... So all the BTC we mined had lost a lot of value.

It was an expensive investment to make purchasing 26 S3 units, replacing 12 months later with 16 S5 units, all the AC costs, meanwhile, not selling the BTC we were mining... It cost a LOT.

Now the game is too tough to even break into unless you have major money to spend and know what you are doing in terms of implementing the technology, and rolling it over, replacing, and gearing up constantly...

It's War. The ammunition, is Electricity.

The Weapons are the mining Rigs.

Cheers!

StratoBTCitz

[Stratobitz]

I don't get the mathematics behind this IG the electricity consumption of bitcoin mining is so high that mean higher bills to be paid on the  consumption of the said amount which is a good revenue for the government. But in the side of those miners that mean increase in amount to be paid for electricity and I think this will continue until I better alternative is brought into play e.g solar system or hydroelectricity.

Solar is and never will be an option to mine bitcoin... unless the technology to actually mine bitcoin completely changes in terms of the ASIC technology currently used. We're talking a leap of magnitude to the same degree of "Current Computing Power" -> "Quantum"

The newer mining units on the consumer end (90TH/s) draw 3000 Watts.

A 3000 watt solar array (this factoring you live where it's sunny year round, no clouds) is going to run you $20,000, factoring in the battery system, the fact you can only generate AC power during the daytime hours, but need mining power 24/7...

It's not even in the cards. You'd also need a lot of space. A big back yard, or roof top to mount the panels, and this is just for (1) Mining Rig.

Solar power technology will improve, but only a very small amount-- there will never be a major revolution in solar power technology. This is simply due to the basics of the thermodynamic efficiency limit and infinite-stack limit.

Sunlight on the earths surface only produces a certain amount of energy (photons) per square meter. The best panels are very good at capturing a fairly high percentage of those photons... 60%... but they will never reach 100%... and even if they did that's still "not very much power" per square meter of space.

Energy cannot be created out of thin air... we can capture it... but the amount per square meter is limited by the actual amount of energy the sun produces that reaches us though our atmosphere.

You can only draw out what comes in... which is very little.

Cheers!

Strato

[Janation]

Oh wow, another one.

Yeah, talk about Bitcoin releasing more CO2 while there are a lot of sources that could destroy the earth more. A lot of cars are releasing a lot of CO2 and why aren't they talking about it? A lot of activities of human that could lead to more emissions of CO2 and then there are a lot of people deforesting mountains making it worst.

[Arrrvin]

Bitcoin is an enemy to centralized finance and to centralized power (not speaking about electrical power here). So in this period of 'transition' we may expect such news messages. Bitcoin will be framed as something bad, as something the world must get rid of. 'Bitcoin is bad for the climate'. Of course centralized powers do like the idea of traceable money flows, and eventually fully centralized crypto currencies will be launched. Rebels however understand that they shouldn't trade their decentralized coins for centralized coins.

So: yes, Bitcoin does use a lot of electricity. But so do our phones. But these the central powers want to use to track us, so their ecological footprint won't be discussed.

[tbct_mt2]

“This means that Bitcoin's energy use, and hence its CO2 production, only spirals outwards.

“It’s very bad that all this energy is being literally wasted in a lottery.”

He said it because he did not buy his lottery ticket if he does not believe in bitcoin or did not invest in bitcoin if he believe in bitcoin.

“Elon Musk has thrown away a lot of Tesla's good work promoting energy transition,” Mr Gerard said. “This is very bad... I don't know how he can walk this back effectively.

"Tesla got $1.5bn in environmental subsidies in 2020, funded by the taxpayer.

"It turned around and spent $1.5bn on Bitcoin, which is mostly mined with electricity from coal. Their subsidy needs to be examined."

What he will say if Elon Musk buy gold, not bitcoin. Gold and bitcoin have production costs and $1.5 bn investment from Tesla is not total available bitcoin. It was not created, mined and produced all CO2 emission from bitcoin mining.

The cost of mining bitcoin increases when more people join and mine bitcoin. It leads to a rise of bitcoin network hashrate, then the cost to mine one bitcoin increases. If less miners are actively mining on the network, less cost for one bitcoin.

[aoluain]

In certain areas of China electricity production outweighs demand so mining in
those areas is very cheap. There are two very recent threads showing how
miners are trying to offset the costs by using the heat generation in other ways.

Innovating mining farms! From strawberries to chickens !

Lowering the electricity bill by mining cryptocurrency

And also Bitcoins energy consumption has been a hot topic for a long time.

[TangentC]

In certain areas of China electricity production outweighs demand so mining in
those areas is very cheap. There are two very recent threads showing how
miners are trying to offset the costs by using the heat generation in other ways.

Innovating mining farms! From strawberries to chickens !

Lowering the electricity bill by mining cryptocurrency

And also Bitcoins energy consumption has been a hot topic for a long time.

I believe both those articles link to the same story.
In that story, a guy supplements heat a chicken coop to 70 degrees, greenhouse , and his home all with 750watts crypto miner,
that also earns $1500 every winter with a miner that only costs $1500.
1. He does not run it all year , even thru he seems to easily make a profit when he does.
2. He does not use the waste heat to heat a hot water heater so he could run it all year.
The story is too good to be true.
Sorry , the whole article has too many holes to be believable.  

[sunsilk]

I think that I've seen the same article before and they've been comparing the energy consumption of bitcoin miners to any country. But they ignore those companies that also consume a lot of energy that contributes global warming.

As usual, these articles have their own agenda to pick whatever they wanted to say and it's not that encouraging to read if you have already an idea of what it is all about.

[virasisog]

This had been an issue even a few years back. Some miners are using renewable energy since it is more sustainable and cost-efficient. Isn't it that cash consumes more resources, imagine the paper they have to print, the electricity they had to use to manufacture banknotes and coins, etc. Non-coiners are always looking for a loop-hole on Bitcoin and that is correct I agree that each articles has their own agenda.