Hacker News Reader

Comment by jonnypotty | Hacker News Reader

What's the carbon footprint of these things?

I just found this last night: https://github.com/memo/eco-nft. From the README:

> Selling work on a blockchain can be a technically challenging task. For this reason, many platforms and websites have emerged, aiming to make this process as seamless and easy as possible for artists. Unfortunately, currently many of these websites are based on the Ethereum blockchain, which is very inefficient and ecologically costly by design. E.g. selling just a single-edition artwork on Ethereum has a carbon footprint starting at around 100 KgCO2, which is equivalent to a 1 hour flight (and depending on the platform, can reach a long-haul flight) [2]. Selling an edition of 100 works has a carbon footprint of over 10 tonnes CO2, which is more than the per capita annual footprint of someone in the EU - including all emissions from industry and trade [3].

Ethereum is moving to proof of stake, so this whole carbon footprint concern is going to go away.

And I’m going to be a millionaire so I don’t pay rent anymore

Good point - we should start supporting Etherium when it's moral to do so

But is all the carbon it's already produced going to just magically go away too?

And what about all the carbon from all the hot air produced by all the people repeating "this whole carbon footprint concern is going to go away" again and again, for so many years?

Rarible uses the Ethereum blockchain: https://www.notion.so/rarible-com-FAQ-a47b276aa1994f7c8e3bc9...

So I guess it depends how much of the increase in Ethereum's energy consumption you put down to NFTs/their popularity. No idea how you'd calculate that but it's increased hugely the past few months: https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption

If musk want to do good, let him produce solar panel based doge mining rigs. ©

You didn't actually think the heater that keeps Tesla batteries warm in winter is just a simple resisitve heater? :).

Ha. And they regulate the customer energy grid through eth based token. It all makes sense.

Someone tell me why you need the Ethereum blockchain for NFTs when you can just have non-divisible coins represent them, and be watched by a subset of the network instead of the whole network. I mean this is like transporting a beanie baby inside an armored truck with a convoy.

It’s not like we need the history of all UTXOs ever, the coin may have changed hands like 100 times max, so it has an easily checked history. Same principle on Ethereum.

> I mean this is like transporting a beanie baby inside an armored truck with a convoy.

If I understand correctly, this is what sidechains are about? https://github.com/memo/eco-nft#still-using-ethereum.

I like this section better:

Using other blockchains:

Instead of Ethereum, other blockchains are used. This can be up to hundreds of times better for the environment in terms of carbon footprint. Some of these chains include Algorand, Tezos, Polkadot and other PoS networks.

Yeah, but then isn't there a risk of any such network becoming popular and then you've got the same problem as with Ethereum?

Not at all, unless the network has a global bottleneck like a miner. Networks built on global blockchains are the problem. And if they use proof of work that’s even worse!

Oh I didn’t see PoS there. I didn’t know there were such networks out there in production.

Just a small point, Ethereum uses an account based system, not UTXOs.

Also, NFTs are built on the ERC721 standard, which is a contract standard that allows composability between different NFTs and contracts.

Considering NFTs are on Ethereum: soon to be insignificant, since Ethereum is already running the Beacon Chain (proof of stake network) and the merge from Eth 1 to Eth 2 will occur sometime later this year.

Before getting too concerned about the power usage of blockchain technology, go look at how much power generated in the USA is thrown away (rejected energy)

https://www.llnl.gov/news/us-energy-use-rises-highest-level-...

I don't think your comment implies what you think it implies.

The wasted energy there is taking about inefficiencies in electronics and motors in general.

Mining BTC is not 100% efficient either. If it was, the mining hardware wouldn't get hot, and it does get hot.

So mining operations are producing a ton of waste heat as well.

I don't believe that means the power plant or company is throwing energy away, it means how much is lost to inefficient devices or processes, including at the end user. So the more efficient LED lights throw away less energy than the older incandescent bulbs, since we know we can literally feel the heat radiate off those. And since the heat isn't the intended function of that bulb, light is, that heat is just wasted energy.

Since those Bitcoin blockchain calculations are pretty intense, they make your processor work hard. In doing so there is extra energy that literally gets wasted bc it heats up the processor, and again just like the bulb heat isn't the intended function so that heat byproduct is just wasted energy.

These use Ethereum, not Bitcoin, and ETH is usually mined with GPUs, not CPUs. This isn't overly relevant to your point, since it probably doesn't matter too much in terms of power consumption per unit of work; GPUs consume huge amounts of power and generate lots of heat, just like CPUs, and often more.

We have the technologies to reduce the loss in many places, we just don't because there isn't an economic incentive.

Rejected energy is not thrown away energy. It is a result of the fact that our technologies do not have an efficiency degree of 100%.

Bitcoin Mining uses 120 TWh/year[1] which is way to much imo. The problem is that bitcoin uses the Hashcash proof of work system[2]. But there are mechanisms like proof of stake which can solve this problem.[3] Its about time to convert all blockchains to energy-saving mechanisms..

[1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/lawrencewintermeyer/2021/03/10/...

[2]https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_work

[3]https://coincentral.com/could-proof-of-stake-mend-bitcoins-e...

The most direct "whataboutism" this morning.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com