https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/11/Price-of-electric...
Here's a hot take: Bitcoin subsidizes clean energy development. Miners buy cheap energy; clean energy infrastructure gets profitable return. Cost of development and manufacturing lowers further because of scale; pollution and externalities reduced; humanity wins. Bitcoin saves humanity?
Bitcoin alone isn’t the driver.
Bitcoin is, however, consuming some of that new energy generation with a new consumption: Doing useless calculations to mine Bitcoin.
Bitcoin increases energy demand which also drives an increase in supply. We can’t take old power plants offline if the new hydro power is taken up by new mining operations.
It’s silly that we’re going to such lengths to try to respin Bitcoin’s absurd energy inefficiency.
The Bitcoin network is literally designed to incentivize, with payment, bringing new energy-inefficient operations online to “mine”.
The efficiency of the network gets worse and worse all the time, all while processing the same limited number of transactions.
Worse yet, Bitcoiners seem to like it this way. Proposals to increase block size have not been welcomed, and they go to great lengths to discourage switching to other protocols with better energy efficiency (because it would harm their investment).
The entire system revolves around inefficiency, and unfortunately we pay for that inefficiency with energy consumption.
That's exactly why the Bitcoin Cash fork happened.
Energy on earth is not a finite, limited resource. Fossil fuels are finite, but energy is not.
The earth is bombarded with more potential energy every day then we could ever spend, aka solar energy.
Yes, the Earth is bombarded with a lot of sunlight. So what? Doesn’t change the fact that Bitcoin is consuming existing electricity infrastructure that we could be using for something else.
What problems do you want to throw energy at that is economically viable?
:-o
Is this... a joke? Your claim is that production exists, regardless of demand?
That simply isn't the case.
They consume energy in the form of electricity during the day. At night, they have no need for it shut off the turbines. This is unused and uncaptured energy that could have been put to use. The potential energy is "wasted" because the infrastructure is underutilized, the energy could not be preserved. This is starting to change as battery technology improves and makes it economically feasible to store energy. Otherwise, energy consuming applications could consume this supply, providing return to the townspeople's investment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Control_Dam
And then most of the rest of the time, cheap, reliable power would get consumed by the grid.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight#Total_solar_irradianc...
The idea that consuming more power is good for the environment is not supported by the evidence. Or any evidence.
The cost per kwh from a coal plant has not changed in 10 years. Solar has seen massive reductions and is cheaper than coal. Consuming more solar power is gives more profit to the solar power industry. I'm ok with that.
Increasing electricity consumption will increase all forms of electricity production.
I believe you don't even think about what you're saying. You start with the premise - "More energy consumed is naturally good" - and then invent an argument around it by throwing words together haphazardly.
Miners consume electricity.
Solar, wind and geothermal are the cheapest energy you can find, and their cost continues to fall.
Miners are therefore incentivized to increase profit by buying cheap renewable energy.
Renewable energy industry increases revenue and can continue to invest in R&D, infrastructure, distribution, etc. of said energy production. Costs go down for producing new units of renewable energy as a result of industry maturation.
The more energy we waste the more energy we need, the more profitable cheap energy sources are!
Of course the more profitable wasting energy becomes, the more coal and oil will be burned to make money as well.
But what they're not calculating is the cost and suffering caused by maintaining the underlying system (fiat currency, petrodollars, geopolitics). Calculate for me the economic and human damage done if the US falls into hyperinflation and obliterates the world's reserve currency. It won't just be 350m people suffering, it will be billions.
Decentralized, permissionless, censorship resistant systems suddenly seem very valuable to me.
Whether that's actually true or not, the possibility that bitcoin could find the low cost renewable sweet spots throughout the worlds power grid and make use of them is interesting and helps to address the efficiency criticism.
I think I'm still overall anti-bitcoin but I am questioning my assumptions.
This true in China where most mining happens?
That said, lets take a first principles approach.
- Miners want low cost energy.
- Renewables are the lowest cost energy.
- Miners are not restricted geographically (can mine anywhere cheap energy is, beam bits through satellite internet).
- Cost curves of renewable energy look very promising.
- Social trends and political trends look very promising.
If you believe in efficient markets, then it should be obvious as to what the next 10 years of energy production (and Bitcoin mining) look like.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/8/china-to-build-the-w...
Like humans would have no interest in cheap power if it weren't for bitcoin!