[Q/A] Can Bitcoin And Eco-friendliness Go Together?

[Ultegra134]

While Bitcoin consumes a decent amount of energy (less than 1% of total energy consumption). While this number may sound insignificant, Bitcoin is claimed to consume as much electricity as the whole country of Brazil (the source of this claim hasn't been confirmed). Certainly, there are numerous other activities that consume much more energy and are more harmful to the environment, but that doesn't change Bitcoin's impact.

However, the world is slowly shifting to renewable green energy, and Bitcoin will eventually switch too. Not only will the environment benefit, but also the miners themselves, who'll be able to enjoy the benefits of lower electricity costs.

Scandinavian countries are great examples of countries depending on green energy. Perhaps it would be ideal if mining operations occurred in such countries in order to reduce Bitcoin's carbon footprint.

[hatshepsut93]

It can obviously use all energy, and it will pay for whatever energy happens to be the cheapest. But as I outlined above, it can incentivize green energy in a way that few other industries can, by virtue of bitcoin mining requiring very little additional infrastructure, being entirely mobile, and being able to ramp up and down instantly without any long term negative effects (you can't just power down a whole factory, for example, without incurring significant costs in starting it all back up again in the future).

Yes, I saw your post, but you didn't provide any real world examples of such effect. But there examples of mining creating large demand for fossil fuels power. Both cases can be true at the same time, but practice seems to be more skewed towards the fossil fuels. It could be that the effect that you described is not that important in the grand scheme of things for renewable energy, and other factors that play role in its adoption play far bigger role.

[n0nce]

Bitcoin mining is uniquely placed to facilitate and enhance the move towards 100% renewable energy.

Another consideration regarding this point:

If you want to power something (home, business, etc.) 100% from solar, you need to hugely oversize the installation to harvest enough energy on overcast winter days.
However, this means in summer you are going to have tons of excess energy, making it financially infeasible.

There are already services that buy your excess energy (even though usually way underpriced), but in a future where most people have solar, there will probably be so much excess energy at summer noon that there will be no buyer.
Either mining yourself with that energy that nobody wants, or selling it to other people who are mining, is a great idea.

This is an often brought up argument, but one counter-argument that I can think of is that when done at 'small scale' you will run into the issue of how to power the ASICs when you don't have this excess power. Turning them off is technologically challenging (faster hardware degradation) and insanely elongates ROI, so it's not really an option either with current-gen machines.
I guess that in those times where you don't have excess energy (mostly in winter) you can actually use the heat. Maybe, there will be ASICs tailored to being frequently turned on and off.

[NotATether]

This is an often brought up argument, but one counter-argument that I can think of is that when done at 'small scale' you will run into the issue of how to power the ASICs when you don't have this excess power. Turning them off is technologically challenging (faster hardware degradation) and insanely elongates ROI, so it's not really an option either with current-gen machines.
I guess that in those times where you don't have excess energy (mostly in winter) you can actually use the heat. Maybe, there will be ASICs tailored to being frequently turned on and off.

It's a logical extension to o_e_l_e_o's reasoning since any appliance or group of them, big or small, can take part of this energy-sharing scheme. The scientific principals for this process are already well-known. Now our job is to get the special action groups to listen to us.

I will probably end up writing a follow-up blog post as I'm thrilled with all the ideas being churned up on this thread.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Yes, I saw your post, but you didn't provide any real world examples of such effect.

Here are some large renewable bitcoin mining operations:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-16/solar-powered-bitcoin-mining-hub-in-whyalla-south-australia/101448784
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/06/23/new-solar-powered-bitcoin-miner-launches-operations-despite-difficult-market/
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/08/tesla-block-blockstream-to-mine-bitcoin-off-solar-power-in-texas.html

And here are some reports for bitcoin mining being used in demand response as I discussed above:
https://www.smart-energy.com/industry-sectors/energy-grid-management/demand-response-proves-more-profitable-than-bitcoin-mining-in-texas/
https://www.barrons.com/articles/crypto-miners-electricity-grid-51647296483

So what I'm discussing is already happening. It's now just a case of scaling it up and making it more widespread.

but practice seems to be more skewed towards the fossil fuels.

I think this is only true because the entire electricity consumption of the world is skewed towards fossil fuels. As the push for greener energy continues, bitcoin is well placed to be at the forefront of this (as it already is, given that we know it uses a higher percentage of green energy than almost any other industry on the planet).