Debunking the "Bitcoin is an environmental disaster" argument

[Carlton Banks]

The real game changer is when you set up energy producing facilities only to mine bitcoins. Gas flaring and mining from geothermal energy are perfect examples of this: those plants are usually too far from consumption sites that transporting energy is far from being profitable.

that may be a significant test of this line of reasoning: would someone employ the massive resources to dam a river only for the purposes of bitcoin mining? Such a facility wouldn't need any kind of connection to infrastructure, as even modern satellite internet connections might have sufficiently low enough network latency to mine with (they would for sure still lose block races). Depends on the specific locale, FTTP would be better, of course.

that would be a real moment for sure, and of course, why not turn it into a military base also I can assure you, this is not the first time someone somewhere has been thinking along these lines...

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[fillippone]

that would be a real moment for sure, and of course, why not turn it into a military base also I can assure you, this is not the first time someone somewhere has been thinking along these lines...

Of the many fantasy adventures announced by Bukele during the infamous Miami Conference, there was the announcement of mining operations using the geothermal energy of a Vulcano (Vulcanode. I am sure I powered a  link to a video on this thread).

This is the perfect example of what you are referring to: a completely new Power plant built in a secluded area,  just because of cheap electricity to be used for mining operations.

[Wiwo]

that would be a real moment for sure, and of course, why not turn it into a military base also I can assure you, this is not the first time someone somewhere has been thinking along these lines...

Of the many fantasy adventures announced by Bukele during the infamous Miami Conference, there was the announcement of mining operations using the geothermal energy of a Vulcano (Vulcanode. I am sure I powered a  link to a video on this thread).

This is the perfect example of what you are referring to a completely new Power plant built in a secluded area,  just because of cheap electricity to be used for mining operations.

The El Salvador volcano energy project is one of its kind and if the project is fully operational or will open up a lot of opportunities for other development such as energy conversion and usage of waste to produce another thing, hydroelectricity has opened up quite a good number of possibilities aside from providing an alternative energy source to bitcoin miners, I read some were that the heat generation and conversation of other subtanceufrom the energy plants are converted to provide artificial heat to plants to replace sunlight and the experiment was successful but recently I have not had any progress in that regards, but the sure thing is that El Salvador volcano project will provide a blues print to what we should expect in greenhouse energy to kick against the Bitcoin environmental disaster slogans that have blinded so many bitcoin pos critic from seeing the opportunity that Bitcoin energy demand can open us up to.

[Carlton Banks]

El Salvador volcano project will provide a blues print to what we should expect in greenhouse energy to kick against the Bitcoin environmental disaster slogans that have blinded so many bitcoin pos critic from seeing the opportunity that Bitcoin energy demand can open us up to.

I don't think it will help. I mentioned earlier, playing the game of "look how green this project is" will never work with environmental doomsday-ers, the game works like this:

1. you: "is this much ok?"
2. Doomsday-er "NO. THATS EQUAL TO 5000 NUCLEAR WEAPPONS EXPLODING IN A RAINFOREST YOU ARE STILL TEH WORST PERSON EVA AND MUST IMPROVE"
3. go back to 1.

and you don't mean "greenhouse", greenhouse is now a bad word (these people are insane, but cult members usually are slightly)

Of the many fantasy adventures announced by Bukele during the infamous Miami Conference, there was the announcement of mining operations using the geothermal energy of a Vulcano (Vulcanode. I am sure I powered a  link to a video on this thread).

This is the perfect example of what you are referring to: a completely new Power plant built in a secluded area,  just because of cheap electricity to be used for mining operations.

hmmm, we will see then. will Bukele get coup-ed before his secret volcano of Bitcoins goes live? Will Saudi Arabia start doing camel racing with Bitcoin prize money? Will Greenpeace change their name to OrangeWar and challenge Satoshi to a sumo match to the death? we live in strange times

[fillippone]

Willy Woo tweeted about a series of new graph tonight:



The concept is interesting, holding a bitcoin, from an act of selfishness contributing to planet Earth pollutions, turns out being an altruistic-crbon negative act!
Power of marketing.

Hodling a bitcoin is neutral, for what environment is concerned.
 

[thecodebear]

Honestly its really easy to show why Bitcoin is not only NOT bad for the environment but is great for the environment and why Bitcoin mining is great for society.


Even getting beyond the whole it uses lots of renewables and stranded energy argument and stuff, which are good arguments, there is something much more powerful at work.



Power plants waste enormous amounts of energy by design to keep plenty of energy available for society whenever spikes in energy use occur so blackouts or brownouts don't happen. Bitcoin mining companies have already started to mine off this 100% wasted energy for a few years now. This is the future of bitcoin mining - entirely wasted energy. Not only does this mean Bitcoin won't use 'extra' energy, but it will stop the huge electrical waste in the energy infrastructure, greatly strengthen the energy infrastructure which is great for society, and hopefully this will mostly be done at renewable energy sources thereby bitcoin making renewable energy production for cheaper and more efficient than fossil fuels which will help steer the world to renewable energy and end our reliance on fossil fuels, which obviously is great for the environment.

Bitcoin mining is not only not a bad thing, its a fantastic thing! It provides benefits that literally nothing else provides, makes PoS consensus blockchains look hopelessly unhelpful to society in comparison, and is coming at just the right time when humanity needs it to push the world to renewable energy and stop all the electrical waste.


Granted Bitcoin isn't there yet, but this has already started and has been going on for a few years now. I don't know of a single other technology that can benefit society as much in the area of energy infrastructure and clean energy.

Honestly its comical when people talk about Bitcoin being bad for the environment and wasteful, because the truth is the exact opposite. If the people that hated Bitcoin because they think its an environmental disaster actually understood how it works they be doing everything they could to help Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining spread.

[Macadonian]

Honestly its really easy to show why Bitcoin is not only bad for the environment but is great for the environment and why Bitcoin mining is great for society.

I agree that Bitcoin is not bad for the environment like everyone claims but you cannot claim that it is good for the environment. It does produce co2 and that does make the environment worse and that is provable but so does every computer that stores information that every industry relies on so it is not a big problem. Bitcoin converting to renewable energy will take a long time and we will rely on the grid for many years to come.

[thecodebear]

Honestly its really easy to show why Bitcoin is not only bad for the environment but is great for the environment and why Bitcoin mining is great for society.

I agree that Bitcoin is not bad for the environment like everyone claims but you cannot claim that it is good for the environment. It does produce co2 and that does make the environment worse and that is provable but so does every computer that stores information that every industry relies on so it is not a big problem. Bitcoin converting to renewable energy will take a long time and we will rely on the grid for many years to come.

No. Bitcoin is absolutely great for the environment. You're not seeing the big picture. If you just say using energy is bad for the environment then everything that uses energy is bad for the environment so we should go back to the pre-electrical age!


Yes Bitcoin uses energy like everything in modern life, and yes much of the world's power comes from fossil fuels which means Bitcoin uses fossil fuels for some of its mining. But that is just surface level analysis.


Bitcoin mining is now starting to be done directly at power plants, using the excess energy 100% wasted energy the power plant already produces in order to be able to meet changing levels of electricity demand of society. In these cases Bitcoin mining is not the cause of ANY co2 production because it is using already produced but 100% wasted energy. And this is the natural future of Bitcoin mining. In the future every single power plant should have miners set up at it to use their wasted energy. Any power plant that tries to hold out on doing this while other power plants are doing this will simply be put out of business due to competition with plants that have bitcoin miners at it, and the power plant would be bought by companies that allow bitcoin miners at the plant. It's just basic economics.

So now only would this stop the ENORMOUS waste that is built into the energy production industry, but it would also mean Bitcoin is completely zero waste no matter what power plant (fossil fuel or clean) they are operating at. But this will REALLY help solar and wind farms because those sources of energy are intermittent so you have to vastly overbuild the power production in order to get a more reliable production, and as shown above, it is precisely where there is a lot of wasted energy that Bitcoin mining becomes most helpful. This means renewable energy and bitcoin mining go hand in hand and bitcoin mining can play a huge role in making the world go greener quicker. Final point is, there is literally no other technology on the planet that can accomplish this. So this incredibly impactful ability to help grow renewable energy production can only come from Bitcoin.

If you understand what I just wrote it should be clear that not only is bitcoin mining not bad for the environment, but it is incredibly good for the environment because it has a unique and incredibly important role to play in ending the massive power waste of the energy production industry while at the same time benefitting renewable resources more than fossil fuels and therefore being a prime driver to making the world adopt green energy more quickly. This is only just starting the past few years as companies have started mining directly at power plants, so obviously this huge beneficial impact Bitcoin will have on the environment is still mostly in the future, but it is happening and it is the inevitable course bitcoin mining will take simply due to the economics of energy production and the economics of bitcoin mining.

So yes, when I say Bitcoin mining is GREAT for the environment I really mean it. Not just is it great but it is UNIQUELY great in that no other technology can provide this benefit to society and the environment. Bitcoin is on the path of going from being an end user of electricity on the grid to being a service that strengthens the global electrical grid and promotes the economics of green energy. Once you understand this it's like a lightbulb goes off in your head. I too used to think it's unfortunate Bitcoin is able to use so much energy, until I realized the obvious path bitcoin mining is heading and once you realize this bitcoin mining using energy goes from being an unfortunate necessary thing to secure the world's best money to being a huge side benefit to society and the environment irregardless of even the benefit mining has on Bitcoin itself.


If politicians and environmentalists understood this is how bitcoin mining works and is the direction bitcoin mining is going they would do a total 180 and be doing everything they can to promote this future for bitcoin mining.

I've posted this explanation of mining a few times on bitcointalk now yet it seems hardly anyone who is into Bitcoin understands this. I only know this because I heard a podcast or two from people who run companies in the bitcoin mining industry and this is what they are doing. If people understood this it would clear up so much of the bad public optics and misinformation around bitcoin.

[Dunamisx]

Bitcoin mining is now starting to be done directly at power plants, using the excess energy 100% wasted energy the power plant already produces in order to be able to meet changing levels of electricity demand of society.

Well said, we have many occasions that bitcoin mining energy requirements has been a threat from the conventional electrical power supply, this has created more rooms for people miners and other researchers to persist work on the use of an alternative either renewable energy source, the world of bitcoin mining is gradually going green, we are getting less dependent on the electrical power supply.

What we use now is to engage the waste energies from human activities and convert them to a finished end product by serving the purpose of inefficient energy utilization for bitcoin mining thereby creating a more friendly environment for living through bitcoin mining by clearing the messes from degraded human activities released to the environment serving a toxic.

[fillippone]

Power plants waste enormous amounts of energy by design to keep plenty of energy available for society whenever spikes in energy use occur so blackouts or brownouts don't happen. Bitcoin mining companies have already started to mine off this 100% wasted energy for a few years now. This is the future of bitcoin mining - entirely wasted energy.

You might be not technically correct here, power plants don't waste energy, but you are correct on the sense of this comment.
Just think about the synergies of a nuclear plant coupled with a bitcoin mining operation. Enormous amount of energy with a very low marginal cost amortised with a bitcoin mining operation.

[thecodebear]

Power plants waste enormous amounts of energy by design to keep plenty of energy available for society whenever spikes in energy use occur so blackouts or brownouts don't happen. Bitcoin mining companies have already started to mine off this 100% wasted energy for a few years now. This is the future of bitcoin mining - entirely wasted energy.

You might be not technically correct here, power plants don't waste energy, but you are correct on the sense of this comment.
Just think about the synergies of a nuclear plant coupled with a bitcoin mining operation. Enormous amount of energy with a very low marginal cost amortised with a bitcoin mining operation.

But they do indeed waste enormous amounts of energy. Something like 30%+ of all energy produced is wasted simply to maintain energy margins against demand so that brownouts/blackouts don't happen. Demand is variable, production is not so variable, so to make sure demand doesn't suddenly outstrip production at certain times of the day or during certain events (usually probably weather events) power plants have to produce way more energy than the consumers of that energy need. I believe it is actually written into law in the US at least and I assume most places that have reliable power, that they have to overproduce energy by some certain amount. So yeah, power plants do waste huge amounts of energy, which is where these Bitcoin mining companies are starting to come in to turn that enormous wasted energy into actual economic value.

Same sort of thing with flare gas. Where gas created by the industrial processing of oil doesn't have a means to be put to productive economic use so the gas is just burned off. There is at least one company in the US that is turning that wasted gas (again, totally wasted energy) into economic value by using it to run Bitcoin miners. Wasted for a different reason than power plant waste but the same concept of entirely wasted energy being given economic value thanks to Bitcoin mining, and this is something unique to Bitcoin (well PoW in general but Bitcoin is the only PoW that matters) as there is nothing other process in the world taking this wasted energy as input and created economic value as output.

If politicians, especially environmentalist types who are the ones who actually give a damn about the world, understood bitcoin mining to this degree, rather than just the "it wastes tons of energy and contributes to greenhouse gases" propaganda, they'd be the strongest proponents of Bitcoin mining and we'd be having every power plant in the country taking advantage of this. Govt could even regulate this stuff and be like based on how much money power plants save thanks to Bitcoin mining operating at their plant they have to pass on some of those savings to consumers, thus reducing the price of electricity for consumers.


Eventually, most of Bitcoin mining is gonna be renewables and or consuming entirely wasted power plant energy at the source. Only thing that could stand in the way of this natural movement to economic efficiency is if bitcoin-uneducated politicians make rules to stop bitcoin mining.

[DoverDoane]

Currently there are about 900 bitcoins generated each day by mining worth about $50 million dollars.

Miners must be spending at least half of that on electric so say 25 million a day.

Back of the envelope calculations but I bet I'm pretty close.

Since the world isn't 100% powered by green energy, any cut in mining will be pretty much a cut in hydro-carbons.

I bet you disagree with this though

Because mining requires a large source of electricity, it's not strange to spend tens of millions each month, but seeing the potential results from mining is worth it, and the electricity is so large that it can reach 70,000 megawatts which can cause heat waves that can disrupt parts of the country, such as happening in Texas, but do they think much about the environmental impact? I think so, while being able to get a lot of profit from them no matter what.

[fillippone]

Bitcoin Energy Mix is far better than the one used by EV's, yet they want to ban Bitcoin mining, even if it doesn't emit a single gram of CO2.




I suggest you to check the whole analysis:
BITCOIN BY ENERGY SOURCE

[fillippone]

Just to let you know this thread has been translated into Romanian by my friend Gazetabitcoin:

• Debunking the "Bitcoin is an environmental disaster" argument
  
  • Romanian Translation by Gazetabitcoin: Demitizarea argumentului “Bitcoin este un dezastru pentru mediu
  
  

[Dunamisx]

Another big discovery of an environmentally friendly bitcoin mining has been identified, information coming from Bhutan whereby it uses the Himalayan hydroelectric power supply to source for it renewable bitcoin mining energy needed, the more interesting aspects of this does not end with the use of a renewable energy source which is environmentally friendly but the mining plant had been long in existence some years ago when bitcoin prize was as low as $5,000 and people don't know about this achievement with Bhutan.

Bitcoin mining is the world’s cleanest industry, with more than 50% of its energy sources being renewable or clean energy. Bitcoin mining advocates, such as MicroStrategy chairman Michael Saylor, explain that “99.92% of carbon emissions in the world are due to industrial uses of energy other than Bitcoin mining.“ Due to cheap, abundant hydroelectric power, DHI reported that Bhutan is an ideal destination for mining Bitcoin. https://cointelegraph.com/news/bhutan-bitcoin-mining-with-hydropower-since-btc-price-was-5-000

source

Bitcoin mining is environmentally friendly, it does not pollute the environment, it rather provides solution to the already dilapidating one caused due to other human activities, the best way to mine bitcoin is to go through a renewable energy as such discovered in Bhutan hydroelectric power for mining bitcoin.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

Another plan by Bhutan renewable bitcoin hydroelectric power plan is to boost it's operations in other to increase the mining activities thereby putting in the sum of about $500 million to move it mining operations to the next level.
https://twitter.com/BitcoinMagazine/status/1654093859322834946?t=eRC9bRHD4fOHj2K7gEAW9Q&s=19 we could see that after the discovery of this new mining activities from Bhutan after some years of being silence and unknown, they seems to be fully prepared for the task ahead towards mining bitcoin after understanding that role of financial capacity in this and hopefully Bhutan is going to be one the the most recognized bitcoin renewable mining facility in the world if they remain unstoppable in this.

[Dunamisx]

The more we keep saying why bitcoin mining is more environmentally friendly has brought about the decision for the use of a Natural Volcanic Energy for Bitcoin Mining in El-Savador, this is one of the best ways to adopt the use of a renewable energy source for bitcoin mining without having the power challenge from centralized authorities and governments across the world concerning the energy demands for this same bitcoin mining.

El-Savador is now getting more and more global attraction ever since it bitcoin adoption as legal tender, moreso, we have a number of miners considering El-Savador and it's new discovery of the use of volcanic thamal energy for their bitcoin mining after leaving the US due to the unceasant government demands on regulations, Tether is making this first move to create a bitcoin mining rig under a volcanic renewable energy source in El-Savador, bitcoin is environmentally friendly.

Source:
https://tether.to/en/tether-participates-in-1-billion-investment-to-build-the-worlds-largest-bitcoin-mining-farm-in-el-salvador/

[Carlton Banks]

bitcoin mining rig under a volcanic renewable energy source in El-Savador, bitcoin is environmentally friendly.

disagree (not sure if this is the linked article verbatim, didn't check)


this is yet another (and there are soooo many ) example of IPCC driven corporate drivel.

most renewable energy products destroy or disrupt pretty large natural habitats and the (former) ecosystem that depended on it. Hydro dams are perhaps the worst, and I was surprised to see recently that experts on desert ecology claim that solar farms ravage the extensive underground system of plant roots that represents a significant part of the livable portion of that type of habitat (who knew?). but this is a case-by-case thing if ever there was, perhaps volcanoes don't house much wildlife to speak of (after the revelations about the desert though, I wouldn't be surprised if that's wrong)

I understand that going back to the stone age is the only realistic way to genuinely protect wildlife from human encroachment. But please, let's call it like it is: renewable energy projects invariably fuck the natural world up, and so the proven false arguments about anthropogenic climate change are in fact hiding the reality that industrial landscapes (which renewable energy plants are) are being extended even further into nature in the name of preserving or protecting it.

quelle surprise: UN agency tells extraordinarily humongous lies that destroy the very thing they claim to seek preservation of, and generate further money (for their friends) and power (for themselves) in the process.

[fillippone]

Bitcoin is actually good for the environment, and more and more institutions understand that:



Here is a direct link to the paper:

Climate Impacts of Bitcoin Mining in the U.S.

Abstract

Opinions regarding the climate impacts of Bitcoin mining deviate fundamentally between scholars and Bitcoin proponents. We validate arguments from both sides and provide empirical evidence for the extent and energy sources of Bitcoin mining in the U.S. We provide empirical evidence that at least 38% of all Bitcoin mining activity has migrated to the U.S. and Canada as of the end of 2022 and show that the carbon emissions caused by the 13 analyzed publicly listed miners in the U.S. alone add up to 7.2 MtCO2 per annum. At the same time, the financial incentives of the Bitcoin network may, for instance, subsidize the sealing of orphaned wells and thereby reduce methane emissions at scale. The growing transparency on locations and energy sources of large publicly listed Bitcoin miners highlights the value of disclosure obligations and may help dismantle unsupported industry claims, improve assumption- based academic models, and point regulators to areas where Bitcoin mining may bring climate benefits.

So while it recognises the importance of the role played by Bitcoin miners in carbon curtailment via the recovery of methane in "dead wells", as well as the rebalancing benefit in a network, they reject the claim that Bitcoin miners are distinguished users of renewable energy, butting their non-fossil usage absolutely on par with other industries.

[Makus]

Bitcoin is actually good for the environment, and more and more institutions understand that

So while it recognises the importance of the role played by Bitcoin miners in carbon curtailment via the recovery of methane in "dead wells", as well as the rebalancing benefit in a network, they reject the claim that Bitcoin miners are distinguished users of renewable energy, butting their non-fossil usage absolutely on par with other industries.

Wow this is an amazing PDF, an added advantage to Bitcoin mining, miners are not to profit from the process alone but the environment included in its own form, Bitcoin is not just proving to be the best cypto currency but also beneficial to the environment, I see this as an opportunity for Bitcoin to be accepted by nations all over the world as the year proceeds,
Thanks for the post sir.