Debunking the "Bitcoin is an environmental disaster" argument

[franky1]

Increasing efficiency per chip won't lead to reduce power consumption, I don't understand why some poeple who are heavily invested in mining keep saying this.
Bitcoin mining is not like car building, you reduce the energy spent on building one by improvements and that's it, you don't build twice as many cause it's half as expensive,  with the more efficient gear you burn 5$ to get 10$ instead of 7 for 10, it's normal with higher efficiency you will just add more miners as it becomes more productive.

funny thing is stompix debunks himself
he admits that with higher efficiency means instead of burning $7 of electric to get $10 of reward, you burn only $5.

but what he also hints at as his rebuttal is people add more rigs..
the thing is. even if there was no efficiency, people still add more rigs.
so their $7 becomes $14 becomes $21 without efficiency
yet its $5 becomes $10 becomes $15 with efficiency.

if we still remained on GPU where the hashrate would still accumulate over the years, the amount of GPU's would accumulate over the years. but the amount of inefficient watts/hash would mean the network is less secure but burning MORE electric than today

if people are willing to spend $8k on a 110thash efficient asic. but it was a scenario of only GPU mining
people would have bought $8k of motherboards and GPU and PSU..
which calculated would be more then 3.25kwh. but way way way less hashpower to protect the network

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[fillippone]

Mining bitcoin with renewable energy sources.
A dream came true in El Salvador with their infamous Vulcanode.

The guys of Bitcoin Italia Podcast released a very interesting long post and video (English Subtitles) of their visit.




This is part of a broader project, telling the story of a trip to El Salvador:

Missione El Salvador
( English translation available)

[oHnK]

The El Salvador project so far has been quite consistent, especially since I heard that mining uses environmentally friendly energy sources so that companies that have been constrained to enter this segment can learn from the success of El Salvador later.  But we understand each other, why so far it has been difficult to access BTC because of political interests that are not in favor of users so that disinterest can lead to interest.  Even the issue of the pro-Bitcoin El Salvador government is that the government wants to corrupt through this project so that it cannot be traced.

[uchegod-21]

This is a very good topic. I have bin reading the replies since and all of them are great. But I did not read all the reply in this topic. The person that start this topic try so much to analyse the arguments and the defence.
After I know how much energy bitcoin consume I begin to research why the amount is high. I understand that why the energy is high is not because of number of transaction. It is for security of bitcoin network.
Since then I check what order cryptocurrencies use to secure thier own network. Then I understand this two things.
PoW and PoS
Bitcoin which is using PoW was good from the beginning when only Satoshi and his team were mining in one room. But I think Satoshi did not know that Bitcoin will grow so big within short time.
I begin to think that all the miners using higher computer struggling to solve one and the same problem that can only be solve by one person at a time is waste of energy. I was not sure until I saw it where one person say it on internet.
I know the bitcoin network is now so big to change the whole protocol. But I saw another solution that was said by FORBES ADVISOR But what I don't know is weather the solution will work because bitcoin is not mined in one country alone.

Introduce Carbon Credits or Fees

Carbon credits represent the government-sanctioned ability for a company to emit a certain amount of carbon emission into the environment. They’re often securitized, meaning they can be traded to by companies that don’t need to produce a lot of emissions to other companies that do. This incentivizes a company to produce less than its allotment—as well as penalizes those that go over. In the case of a crypto mining company, this might mean it purchases carbon credits from another company to help offset the amount of emissions it creates or switches to greener energy so it can earn a profit from selling its credits.

“These are a tried-and-true method under a variety of programs like the Clean Air Act to get to net-zero emissions for products,” says Scott Janoe, Chairman of Environmental, Safety, and Incident Response Section at Baker Botts. “So I would see a move toward stapling credit products to Bitcoin mining and transactions to offset those emissions.”

Brody similarly foresees consumers being able to pay to offset their crypto emissions. “I anticipate a future where it will be possible to simultaneously pay a transaction processing fee on networks like Ethereum as well as a carbon-offset fee, just as you have the option when traveling by air,” he says.

Read more from Forbes

[fillippone]

Next week there will be an important hearing at the congress about the Bitcoin’s power usage.

It will be an important event to assess the impact all the reasoning about this topic, much of whose we analysed on this thread, will have on the regulators.

I opened a thread about this:

Congress Hearing On Bitcoin’s Energy Use

[fillippone]

The Bitcoin Mining Council Released their Q4 Mining Data.




They updated their data on the global Bitcoin Mining Consumption:


And the energy Mix supporting the network:




Click here for the Press release


Video of the Bitcoin Mining Council Q4 2021 Briefing:

[Lucius]

I hope that at least someone will see this information in that congressional hearing because even if they have trouble reading, pictures speak more than a thousand words. It seems incredible that as much as 50 000 TWh is lost, and that the energy consumed by BTC is just a drop in the ocean.

[Daltonik]

Another example of a rational approach to bitcoin mining is shown by the Norwegian Bitcoin mining company Kryptovault, which uses the heat from bitcoin mining to dry wood and provides this opportunity to local loggers for free. The amount of heat produced by mining plants is enough to achieve complete drying of wood in just a few days, despite the fact that the drying process takes place outside, often under snow and rain.

The company is also conducting preliminary negotiations on the drying of seaweed for a local company, by the way, Kryptovault had to spend about £1.5 million on noise insulation only to reduce the noise created by asics after complaints from neighbors.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/09/can-bitcoin-be-sustainable-inside-the-norwegian-mine-that-also-dries-wood

   

[franky1]

They updated their data on the global Bitcoin Mining Consumption:

over 220TWH/year.... um no.. just no

lets average the hashrate at 180exa for the period (makes math simple)
a. lets use the 110thash asic at 3.25kwh
b. lets use 14thash asic at 1.4kwh
hashrate in thash
180000000

a. asics running      
1636363.636   
power draw per hour
5318181.818   kwh
   5318.181818   mw/hour
   5.318181818   gw/hour
   127.6363636   gwh/day  (above * 24)
   46587.27273   gwh/year (above * 365)
   46.58727273   twh/year

so that is 46.58twh.. not 200

b. asics running      
12857142.86   
18000000   kwh
   18000   mw/hour
   18      gw/hour
   432      gwh/day
   157680   gwh/year
   157.68   twh/year

so that is 157.68twh.. not 200

because the 158 is the least efficient asic
because the 47 is the most efficient asic

the number is somewhere in between
im guessing that the amount of farms still using old tech(s914thash from 2016-17 is now obsolete(most migrated during the bsv purge of 2018 where many were sold or destroyed. giving opportunity for the s17 range to be used and then later the s19 range))
id say the number now is far far far closer to 47. and way below 158.. certainly not anywhere near 200

lets pretend every asic was the old tech s9 at the 158TW i mathed out..
basically its a difference of about 28%. so to achieve a 220TWH consumption for the year entails needing a hashrate 28% higher than the 180exa i averaged. meaning the hashrate would need to be a constant 250exahash for the whole year to then 'spend' 220 twh for the year

lets pretend every asic was current tech s19 pro at the 47TW i mathed out..
basically its a difference of about 79%. so to achieve a 220TWH consumption for the year entails needing a hashrate 79% higher than the 180exa i averaged. meaning the hashrate would need to be a constant 842exahash for the whole year to then 'spend' 220 twh for the year

emphasis my facepalm...   220 twh!!(facepalm) sorry folks but thats just not what is happening in reality

..
if i would have a guess. i would say they want to say a huge artificial number now(220). so that it immunises the politics to how small that number is compared to world wide other industries while also allowing for 0.3x(oldtech)-4.6x(newtech) growth without actually going over a 220twh (because shhh dont tell anyone, the 220 is inflated as a buffer)

[fillippone]

<...>
if i would have a guess. i would say they want to say a huge artificial number now(220). so that it immunises the politics to how small that number is compared to world wide other industries while also allowing for 0.3x(oldtech)-4.6x(newtech) growth without actually going over a 220twh (because shhh dont tell anyone, the 220 is inflated as a buffer)

Well spotted.
Of course, the difficulty is increasing week after week, and presumedly energy consumption too.
So I didn't run the numbers as you did, but it seems rational to me that they added a "comfortable" buffer in estimated consumption.
What's the difference between 0.14% and 0.05% of total consumption, after all?

[franky1]

<...>
if i would have a guess. i would say they want to say a huge artificial number now(220). so that it immunises the politics to how small that number is compared to world wide other industries while also allowing for 0.3x(oldtech)-4.6x(newtech) growth without actually going over a 220twh (because shhh dont tell anyone, the 220 is inflated as a buffer)

Well spotted.
Of course, the difficulty is increasing week after week, and presumedly energy consumption too.
So I didn't run the numbers as you did, but it seems rational to me that they added a "comfortable" buffer in estimated consumption.
What's the difference between 0.14% and 0.05% of total consumption, after all?

my numbers were based in a high average of 180exa (more relating to their Q4 end of year average). but taking the actual hashrate of the 365 days its more like 160exa average, so the electric rate is a few TWH less.

but yea 0.0X% or 0.YY% of consumption is still low which is why i dont think the BMC minded using 220 inflated number


well the way my cynical mind works
i imagine the BMC telling governments "bitcoin WASTES 220TWH". get them to implement a green bill. then go back to them and say, ok we have changed the industry, we now only consume 50TWH, now give us our green grants for complying by reducing TWH by 4x

much like the BMC is pretending that only 56% of asic farms in the US were set up in renewable area's. where as its been a known detail even as far as 2014 that asic farmers actually set up in renewable area's on purpose.
EG 90% of chinese asic farms were in renewable area's but the BMC said last year that china is only <20% renewable so pretended that chinese miners were only <20% renewable

all done so later they can be audited and seen as actually being more like 90% and tick a 'green box' to get grants awarded

[konfuzius5278]

1. There is no "green power". Have you ever seen the pollution of land of windparks, solar parks and even worse water power. and the arguement its not used, if ever truth. Make green H2/hydrogen from it. It can be used in any way you want

2. There nothing secure about higher hashrate since the Antminers go better every few months. So the only possibility to make the network safer is more energy consumtion. Where you wanna end?

3. The changing Miners due to rising hashrate makes much electricity pollution since the old miners can not be used profitable and its the only way to use it

Solutions:

1) Make CPU Mining the only way to produce BTC. So point 3 is obselet, you could mine as running the computer and it gets more decentralised since its hardly possible to make a mining farm

2) Use an Algo that uses the power for SETI or something like that. But thats extremly tricky and currently not an option

3) the one you hate most: 18 Million have been distributed to miners over 10 years. Why not change to POS with a annual ROI of 3% or so. The argument you make the richer more rich is rubbish then because its lower then other assets and with having multiplicated 30% of the invest in 10 years is not too much. And simple keeping the coin so hodl you support the network.
Miners who sell their coins have the same support or even less

[BlackHatCoiner]

I know I'm a little late to this thread, but I want to express my opinion about this matter which is truly important to discuss. I don't like to support something that goes against my moral temperament.

Does Bitcoin use much energy? Yes, it does. The security of Bitcoin and its environmental footprint vary analogously. When there's a rise in difficulty, it means more energy is used to strengthen the network.

According to the above statement it'd be logical to conclude that Bitcoin is not environmentally friendly. However, this is really not the case. It indeed is. It's an innovation in which the people try to find the least expensive sources of energy. It happens to be renewable. So, it incentivizes you to not harm the environment. And it turns out that the transition is easy. More than 50% of the hashes are green. Which part of the banking system uses renewable sources? Definitely not that much, even if they aren't comparable.

The world tries to transit to cheaper energy, not necessarily renewable. Remember: Humans want incentives. Every action they take is based on those either consciously or not. Morally-wise it's good to have voluntary incentives, but there should always be an incentive.

It happens for the renewable sources to be extremely cheap compared to non-renewable ones, fortunately.

[fillippone]

EU Parliament just avoided another self inflicted tragedy, delaying a controversial vote on Ban of POW cryptos.

For those not exactly on the ball, let’s do a little recap of the ongoing situation:

A few days ago, we saw on social platforms a warning about the incoming vote, with an high probability of an imminent approval.


Here is the Text from LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-6902320022740373505-oXAJ

MiCA policies prohibit the provision of crypto services that rely on “environmentally unsustainable consensus mechanisms.” This emerges from a final compromise proposal by the responsible Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON), which is available to BTC-ECHO. De facto, this could mean the end for proof-of-work based cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin from January 1, 2025 in the European Union. A final decision on the draft is to be made in parliament on February 28. Stefan Berger told BTC-ECHO that the proposal would go through as “very likely”. As chairman of the ECON committee, he is largely responsible for the design of the MiCA directive for the regulation of cryptocurrencies in the European Parliament. In an interview with BTC-ECHO, the CDU politician said the SPD, the Greens and the Left had energetically called for the bitcoin ban to be pushed forward. The factions of the Christian Democrats, right-wing conservatives and liberals vehemently opposed the inclusion of the ban in the negotiations. Ultimately, the Social Democrats, Greens and Leftists threatened to refuse to approve the MiCA draft if they did not. Previously, SPD politician Joachim Schuster had already publicly called for a Bitcoin ban. Green European politician Sven Giegold also spoke to BTC-ECHO in favor of illegalization.

#cryptoban for #blockchain #proofofwork  in the #EU voted at the #europeanparliament European Parliament.
European Union #cryptonews #cryptonewsdaily #cryptoworld #cryptocurrencies #btc #bitcoin #greendeal #digitaleurope #mica #ethereum #marketsincryptoassets #cryptomining #cryptomarkets

https://www.btc-echo.de/news/bitcoin-spd-gruene-und-linke-fordern-verbot-in-der-eu-135678/

This would be a huge strategic risk for the Eu, as they would risk staving stay from the frontier in this innovative field of research, business attractor and strategic asset. All this for a misinterpretation of the basic functioning of a POW algorithm, which we tried to debunk in this thread.


Today we read a news that the vote has been postponed:

European Parliament delays vote on crypto assets bill over proof-of-work debate

This is the main point:

A source close to negotiations over the directive told The Block that the primary point of contention was late-stage changes that some interpreted as bans on proof-of-work networks, primarily out of concerns over their energy usage. After a leak generated negative press as well as overwhelming Twitter response, the right and center-right members withdrew support for the latest amendments.

Berger took to Twitter to explain that "As rapporteur, it is central for me that the MiCA Directive is not misinterpreted as a de facto Bitcoin ban."

This is the Berger Twitter:



Google translation:

The EU Parliament's vote on #MiCA will be canceled at my request and will not take place on February 28th. As a rapporteur, it is crucial for me that the MiCA report is not misinterpreted as a de facto #Bitcoin  ban @btcecho 1/4

TL; DR: given the Twitter fuzz, they realised they were doing a stupid thing, and delayed the vote.

It’s not over yet, but at least we now know where to look.

[franky1]

EU Parliament just avoided another self inflicted tragedy, delaying a controversial vote on Ban of POW cryptos.

this Mica thing was not to be implemented until 2025. so its not a delay. its just a 'we dont need to decide yet'
they have until late 2024 to implement it. and always had until late 2024 to implement it.

meaning this stuff will keep popping up now and again until 2024 without it causing any 'delays'

that said.
i believe that the analytics sites that hyper inflated the TWH usage as 200THW and 58.6% renewable(actual numbers more like 40TWH and 75%+),
and they done so. so that next year they can redo the numbers and show a drop down to say 190TWH, then in 2024 a further drop to 180TWH
while increasing the renewable to 65% 75%  
to pretend they physically helped make bitcoin greener. where its actually just a number shuffle on paper to later appease any environmental concerns that they first advertised as a bad disaster.

its like shouting out that a orange is a acidic fruit that can damage health (we know its actually a health fruit from the start) and then later pretend they done something to an orange to make it a health fruit, to then release a report of its health benefits. pretending they triggered a revolution in fruit. where reality is the fruit remained a fruit and all that changed was the report

truth is bitcoin is not as bad as the analytics chosen to advertise.

[fillippone]

EU Parliament just avoided another self inflicted tragedy, delaying a controversial vote on Ban of POW cryptos.

this Mica thing was not to be implemented until 2025. so its not a delay. its just a 'we dont need to decide yet'
they have until late 2024 to implement it. and always had until late 2024 to implement it.

<…>

The vote on this amendment was due to happen shortly. Of course reversing a legislation before enacting it is simpler that doing that later. But not reverse a legislation, is even simpler.
So, luckily, for the moment they won’t vote on it.
They will silently scrap that paragraph and vote the law. Nobody will get hurt. Business as usual.

[franky1]

EU Parliament just avoided another self inflicted tragedy, delaying a controversial vote on Ban of POW cryptos.

this Mica thing was not to be implemented until 2025. so its not a delay. its just a 'we dont need to decide yet'
they have until late 2024 to implement it. and always had until late 2024 to implement it.

The vote on this amendment was due to happen shortly. Of course reversing a legislation before enacting it is simpler that doing that later. But not reverse a legislation, is even simpler.

i meant that the mica has been "in progress" since 2019. with a date of actual implementation in 2025. meaning this announcement is not causing any actual delay to the 2025 time table. and if they just keep announcing 'no decision' for the next 2 years, it changes nothing to the schedule plan.

EG if the implementation was for feb2023.. well. then they would have needed to adjust the implementation date to allow a years grace before it becomes active after a later vote. but because they have until 2025 anyway. they  can reconsider many times until 2024

there may be another opportunity to vote in april2022. but that too can be reconsidered. point being they can keep it 'in progress' for 2 years and not be deemed as 'stalling'/delaying

we can all hope they remove certain parts and vote it in, in april2022 without the bans..so we can be at ease of expectation of 2025
 or they can keep it up in the air like a smoggy cloud for 2 years keeping the 'possibility' of a ban existing

[franky1]

solutions:
1) Make CPU Mining the only way to produce BTC. So point 3 is obselet, you could mine as running the computer and it gets more decentralised since its hardly possible to make a mining farm

bitcoin is just that solution you ask of.
.. your just 12 years behind how your solution plays out
EG within a fortnight a person has 2 computer. then a fortnight later 4 computers. then 8 then 16
and all of a sudden he has a whole garage of computers
then needs to set up an industrial warehouse of computers.

then someone smart comes along and invents a special computer that does the job of 100 computer for the cost of 1 computer
then that evolves into 1000pc rating for cost of 1, then 10,000rating for cost of 1.. and so on and so on

in your narrow view of "CPU only"
do you realise that a CPU can only mine at like 10mhash.
meaning if we had say 100mill CPU mining at 400w each
40,000,000kwh =40GW/h = 350.4TWH/y
yep just 100million people mining around the world with 1 pc each would use 8.75x power consumption than the current network
=11.429m to be on equal power consumption to now
but here is the thing
because hashes are based on a lower difficulty in your CPU utopia. them 100mill at 10mhash each =1petahash
meaning if someone was quietly making an asic in private for 12 years and enhanced it to being 110thash .. they only need 10 asics to over run the 100m users
or if we go with the 11.429mill users with 1 PC each. that smart guy secretly developing asics for 12 years only need 1-2 asics to overwhelm the network

[dezoel]

I like this thread so much, and I just like the fact that someone took out his or her time to make a thread like this that debunks most, if not all, of the accusations that critics have been using against Bitcoin over the years. I didn’t waste time when I saw this thread and went through it.

The first thing I just did was to bookmark it, because a few times I have came across those critics who are always trying to put Bitcoin down and for sure I have done my best to defend it the way I can, but it good to have all these references to quote from and also show to anyone that tries make false statements about Bitcoin, because I am really tired of people who keeps on spreading fake news, when they are not sure of it.

[MinMan]

EU Parliament just avoided another self inflicted tragedy, delaying a controversial vote on Ban of POW cryptos.

Sometimes I am not against those that says Proof of Work is bad for the environment since due to energy consumption, it’s quite good to know that they do care about the environment, BUT… If they truly care about the environment as they claim they do, then we need to start from top of the list, because PoW is the least thing that consumes energy.

There are lots of industries that consumes so much energy, like 90% more than what PoW can ever go, and these industries pollutes our environment and no one seems to talk about it, rather they all choose to focus on Bitcoin for no good reason. It doesn’t make sense at all, seriously, they have got to stop all these. Bitcoin is not had, and critics should take a break please (although I know they wouldn’t ).