Please answer 3 technical questions

[hashman]

Stop the sophistry and just admit that Bitcoin's energy usage is obscene.

You asked how much energy bitcoin requires, not how much energy miners are choosing to use.  The answer is still zero watts. 

Why tolerate these risks when we have the know-how to resolve these issues?

These risks have always been tolerated in commerce.  Remember it was bitcoin that first introduced the idea of a public confirmations for a transaction, as it is the first public currency.  People survived with no public confirmations at all, so I wouldn't complain too much that getting one takes 10 minutes.  That being said, if you have an idea for improving the consensus algorithm we would all love to hear it.   

[/quote]

Miners are switching off. Miners are now more likely to be in a centralized data centre than under your desk. That brings risks.

I think you are confusing your centralization issues.  A centralized data centre is different from a centralized currency.  Pools are centralized.  Miners are not.  And by the way, fiat is centralized.  I hope you have stopped using it completely to avoid those risks you mention. 

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[Sukrim]

Stop the sophistry and just admit that Bitcoin's energy usage is obscene.

You asked how much energy bitcoin requires, not how much energy miners are choosing to use.  The answer is still zero watts. 

Well, not exactly, you'd at least have to solve difficulty1 blocks... Still the person who watches this single miner uses more energy per day than the computer to calculate the hashes.

[stdset]

I plugged the number corresponding to current BTC price / Mining consumption etc... your model predict 0,008% worldwide of consumption currently.
With mining power of 300,000,000 GHZ and 0,65 W/GHz (I think current mining tech), this give us consumption of 195,000 kw and in kwh/year 1,708,200,000.
Given the power prodruction stat at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_production

I reach to 0,0074% of world consumption for mining when your model predict 0,008% so it seems to match very well.
I won't bet I did not make any mistake, but I was impressed to find that it match your model.

Looks like mining market is more or less saturated now.

[hashman]

Stop the sophistry and just admit that Bitcoin's energy usage is obscene.

You asked how much energy bitcoin requires, not how much energy miners are choosing to use.  The answer is still zero watts. 

Well, not exactly, you'd at least have to solve difficulty1 blocks... Still the person who watches this single miner uses more energy per day than the computer to calculate the hashes.

lol, nice  

I have another comment for those that complain about energy use.

Why do you think the cost of production of money should be 0 watts?  Don't you see the incredible waste this has lead to? 

In the end it matters little how we justify it here or whether we agree or not.  The cost of production of money now is determined on an open market of public currency mining.