Comment by PragmaticPulp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by PragmaticPulp | Hacker News Reader

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> I've heard the argument that if you take into account all the human-associated energy costs Bitcoin's energy use compared to a company like Visa would be comparable. Now I'm not so sure.

The amount of misinformation around crypto energy usage has been out of control in the past few years. It's still weird to dip into an HN comment section and see people spreading the false claim that mining is powered by renewable energy sources that would otherwise go to waste (an absurd claim on every level) or that Bitcoin is somehow a "store of energy". The extreme energy inefficiency of cryptocurrencies is well-documented and doesn't even come close to any other financial system.

> Perhaps the goal shouldn't be to minimize energy use but to maximize energy output.

The real goal is to minimize harmful emissions. If we had some hypothetical infinite clean energy source then mining wouldn't be a big deal. However, even when mining is colocated with renewable energy sources, that renewable energy is prevented from going into the grid and offsetting fossil-fuel power plants.

> that renewable energy is prevented from going into the grid and offsetting fossil-fuel power plants

I’m not sure that’s how energy markets work… do you have any further reading? I’ve heard generally miners buy the cheapest electricity possible—typically oversupply that would otherwise be curtailed.

I don’t understand why Bitcoin mining is incompatible with emissions reduction. It sounds like an additional source of demand may make economical plants that otherwise could not be built.

The thing that the "oversupply" can go into a PSPS, or you can just turn off pulsed coal or oil production facilities (if you have a national leadership over energy production and distribution, it won't work in Texas)

> I don’t understand why Bitcoin mining is incompatible with emissions reduction. It sounds like an additional source of demand may make economical plants that otherwise could not be built.

Some years ago, there was a book published where the author systematically looked at the energy consumption (not just the of the UK and compared it to the total possible renewable energy sources therein. He found that even if you covered every hectare of the UK with solar panels, sent every raindrop through hydro power plants to extract energy as it runs to the sea, etc., it still would not provide enough renewable energy to satisfy UK consumption.

Switching existing energy sources to renewable isn't sufficient to avoid climate change; we need to reduce aggregate energy consumption. And that means that Bitcoin mining, adding a massive energy sink where one did not previously exist, is doing the exact opposite of what needs to be done.

You might be referring to David Mackay's excellent 2008 book Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air - https://www.withouthotair.com

In the book he tries to determine if renewables could support UK's energy needs. He estimated the UK consumes about 195 kWh per day per person (food, transporation, heating, miltary defense, ...)

If the UK massively invested in all the renewable options it stacked up to 180 kWh per day per person (obviously he provided lots of caveats).

His assumption on Solar PV was covering 5% of the UK land with 10% efficient PVs (about 200m2 per person). He estimated that could contribute 50kWh/d/p.

In the 14 years since the book was published it seems like Solar PV efficiency is now commonly 17-19%. So might only need to use 2.5% of the land.

And while it might be true of a densely populated and cloudy country like the UK, so what? As long as you can solve long-distance energy transmission from countries that don't have that problem (Spain would come to mind as somewhere close, Northern Africa would be the next option), there's far more energy provided via renewable sources that human kind will be using for some centuries yet (by which time we should finally have fusion licked).

They don't only buy oversupply, because energy isn't their only cost. They also have very expensive equipment that turns obsolete in a couple years. If the keep it turned off half the time, then they effectively double their equipment cost.

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