Topic: A simple proposal for an environmental-friendly regulation for Bitcoin mining - page 2. (Read 380 times)

Op, I like your idea, but I have another thought. I do agree that ecology is important, and that fighting climate change is a legit task that should be taken seriously. At the same time, I think that all businesses should face similar regulations in that regard. Why are miners blamed for using not eco-friendly energy, but others are not? So I think the regulations should target all large eneergy consumers, and set some limits and requirements based on, say, a certain amount of terrawatt hours or something, after which requirements to demonstrate carbon neutrality should come in place. Then, maybe, there can be some exceptions if there are truly critical industries of ensuring the basic needs of citizens are met. But all other businesses, including miner farms, should follow environmental regulations, the burden should not fall only on crypto miners. This would both be fair and more efficient to fight climate change.

Let me tell you how this will end.
It will kill all bitcoin mining in Europe and North America and Australia and it will move all of it back to some country that doesn't give a damn about the environment as long as coal-produced electricity is 3 times cheaper.
This whole thing is doomed to fail just as how every single thing eco terrorists have tried to do in the past has come back to haunt us and hurt us ten times more. Let's cut the polluting industry in Europe, let's move it all to China and India, let's not give a crap how things are working there as it's no longer our problem, and let's also pay three times more for the stuff while creating more pollution by just shipping the damn products back and forth.


Why hasn't this happened to date?
Why haven't miners flocked to the deserts of Nevada and run their own off-grid panels? Because $ that's it!
The only way miners are able to get cheap renewable energy is when this energy can't be moved somewhere else, take Iceland for example.


One of the main members of the BMC is the Marathon group. They run all their 3 exa on coal, dirt-cheap coal.
When asked to prove what their main source of energy was every single one of them failed to answer, and everybody knows it because coal and gas are cheaper, and if you try to buy directly hydro energy you have people that will outbid you in the same quest to look green.

BMC is playing the same narrative as Musk, electrical cars are good, better for the environment all green, too bad they still use more energy to build, a ton of mining equipment and energy for batteries and in most cases, the electricity used is produced with more pollution than a combustion engine. Why isn't BMC showing us their solar and wind farms, their source of green energy?

As much as I hate that %$%$ Warren , she was right on the money when she sent this letter
https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2022.01.27%20Letters%20to%20Cryptominers.pdf
Why hasn't anyone from the BMC come to debunk it?
Because they know the whole 70-80-90% green energy is just for show, just like Google lies about going 100% renewables.

The trick for all those is in the way you present it, look how Google does:


That's not a study, a study has data and numbers, that's just the greenwashing brochure every company does because they know, you have to show your efforts to save the world or you're doomed in today's world.
If they would have had the numbers they claimed they would have responded to that letter, but they went full head in the sand mode.


LMFTFY!
All this "environmental-friendly regulation of everything" is going to kill us all before we manage to destroy the Earth.

In addition to this, there is also a development by one of the well known US oil producing company Exxon Mobil which has plans in place to begin the use of petroleum refining waste energy towards the productivity of bitcoin mining in some of it satellites stations in Germany, Nigeria, Argentina, Alaska and Guyana respectively. they come into conclusion after series of consideration has been given on how the flare gas waste energy could be used to facilitate power supply for bitcoin mining activities.


Their invention is bringing two notable solution to the  energy challenges in bitcoin mining, first is the use of the waste energy from carbon waste against the environmental hazard and secondly is the conversion of those waste energies to source and power the bitcoin mining, the environmental impact assessment of bitcoin mining is providing a lasting solution to the accumulated inefficient global waste  energy from oil and gas products to effective use in bitcoin mining and this is another alternative solution for the source of energy challenge in bitcoin mining.

reference link:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.interestingengineering.com/exxon-mobil-gas-bitcoin

Didn't a study in the US demonstrate just that a few months ago? Perhaps this study is not good enough for European bureaucrats who are so intelligent as to advocate a ban on Bitcoin mining while at the same time making statements like this:


From this it is clear that it is not a matter of fighting pollution, but they use this argument to attack Bitcoin on a completely different level, and that is the ban on trading. We may have wondered when China did this, but let's not be surprised if the EU decides to do the same - because European politicians are not too different from their Chinese counterparts.

This picture speaks more than a thousand words, because if someone cares about 220 TWh more than the 50 000 TWh lost every year due to inefficiency, then I can only conclude that not even 100% green Bitcoin would have any effect on their thinking.

What's the purpose of this? To act in accordance with politicians, whose intentions are clearly against the ideals of bitcoin, and to zip the lips of the greenwashed who're misinformed of the way bitcoin works? I don't care.

Have we observed the same attitude towards the banking system, which is far more environmentally damaging? No. They're ignorant when it comes to JPMorgan, CITI, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and 32 others who've poured $2.7 trillion into fossil fuels and are responsible for most of the deforestation and the climate destruction, but hey, bitcoin? Shut that thing down at all costs. What a hang-up, gosh. 

Bitcoin has proven to help in reducing CO2 emissions. Gazprom Neft[1], in West Siberia, mines bitcoin instead of flaring the unwanted gas to the atmosphere. Furthermore, Crusoe Energy[2] uses the natural gas, which was intended to be flared, to power mining rigs. Ultimately, bitcoin can be used to deploy the use of renewable sources and to help transiting to a cleaner and more resilient electricity grid, while playing the role of energy storage at the same time[3].

[1] https://jpt.spe.org/gazprom-neft-mines-bitcoin-as-an-alternative-to-flaring-unwanted-gas
[2] https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/2021/04/13/north-american-crypto-miners-prepare-to-challenge-chinas-dominance
[3] https://assets.ctfassets.net/2d5q1td6cyxq/5mRjc9X5LTXFFihIlTt7QK/e7bcba47217b60423a01a357e036105e/BCEI_White_Paper.pdf

I'm not an expert in this field but I'm not sure if we can call these plants "green". They are burning 19 ton of gasoil per day (stats are from 8 years ago) and produce lots of Sulfur dioxide which is far worse air pollutant than CO2!

While I don't agree with the largely unjustified criticism that Bitcoin has received with its energy consumption, at least when you compare it to other industries which are using a lot more. I do agree that we probably should be looking to do something about it regardless, since it not only reducing the chance of a ban, but it also will increase adoption, since our world is definitely going down a certain path, where being green is seen as a good thing, and people automatically support you more if you look like you care about the environment. I use look like, since I do believe a lot of the companies are using it as a marketing tactic rather than actually caring.

Anyhow, would this be something that you believe would be required to be proven before being allowed to mine? The only issue I see with something like this, is largely the problem of centralisation, which obviously goes against what Bitcoin stands for. We would need a central authority to verify that the miners are using green energy, but also they would need to do it without bias, and would actually need to be able to verify it. How do you verify that you're using green energy? Would it be photos which could easily be manipulated or would it be a in person visit, which could potentially anonymise anyone wishing to stay anonymous.

While, on the surface level I think something like this would be good for adoption, it opens a can of worms in terms of privacy, centralisation, and also probably prices out a lot of people, which further increases centralisation to the richer miners.

Right, going by this it wouldn't be a requirement to mine. The only problem with that, is are miners that can't afford the necessary equipment to use green energy, going to go through all that expense just to prove to a government, that they likely aren't big fans of. I don't think so, either this becomes a requirement, which has its own downfalls highlighted above or miners just carry on how they are due to the expense.

Even if this was true (I believe there are two factions: authoritarian/"old-banking"-lobbyist politicians, and actual eco-idealists with poor formation in computing/blockchain - this proposal is aimed at the second group), then it would be strategically intelligent to make proposals which actually achieve the goals they claim to achieve with their "PoW-ban" regulation ideas. A mining regulation requiring them to be carbon-neutral would act directly against the carbon footprint of the industry, while a ban would not (because crypto industry would simply move into other countries, and in Europe you would trade wBTC instead). So it would be the better alternative for everybody ... with the exception of the authoritarians.

You're wrong: Ouarzazate power plant

There are actually people living there already. (Or: If you go a little bit east, you have places like Dubai with a similar climate. It's not necessary to go into the deepest Central Sahara, southern Morocco/Tunisia is also ok.)
True, but there are solutions for that, there's also a big solar plant in the Atacama desert in Chile. Anyway, I think the Sahara desert isn't the ideal place (the South American Altiplano is better, for example, due to lower temperatures) but a good one close to Europe, which has some advantages (fast internet connections nearby, etc.).

So you prefer a Bitcoin ban?

This is not a technical proposal so the Bitcoin software would not be affected at all. It's an idea how governments, if they're really concerned with environment and climate, could regulate the mining sector in their jurisdictions. Instead of outright banning it like China did, this is a possibility to make it 100% carbon neutral, without affecting the operation and decentralization of Bitcoin at all.

no.. what would happen should any government decide to regulate mining .. is much more simple.
any asic mining farm mining in a residential area using more the X kw/h would be fined/asics confiscated/facility shutdown/facility taken off the grid
any large asic mining farm using x MW/h in a region reliant on fossil fuel will be punished in the same way

many countries are not trying to control the flow of block confirmations/rejections as that near impossible. instead they will follow the flow of electricity and punish the asic farms in the physical world. via fines/shutdowns of their equipment

Apart from the other issues raised above, i also wonder how you'd do this on a technical level without touching the core values of bitcoin.

If a miner (wether it be a big or a small one) finds a block header whose sha256d hash is under the current target, but he/she hasn't registered with some sort of central authority (that verifies the "green" status), will other nodes be forced by this central authority to reject the perfectly valid block? How can you do this in a way that does not introduce any form of centralisation, control, censorship,... and in a way that the "new" consensus rules are accepted by the majority of the network?

As it currently stands, a miner can mine completely anonymous. He only needs the block header of the previous block (and maybe some unconfirmed transactions, but this is not completely necessary), he does not need to verify himself or let the network know he is mining... Only when he solves a block, he has to broadcast it (but the other nodes never know if he was the one that solved the block, or if he's merely relaying it).

The topic of Bitcoin mining energy consumption is becoming a boring topic to me, this is because the EU who is in the frontline on the proof of the work ban Crusades has failed to properly investigate the actual energy consumption and the negative impact of POW Model of mining on the environment and another point that makes this so-called pow ban crusade look childish to me in the inclusion of a ban on the trading of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that use the proof of work method, this leads me to ask this novice question, does Bitcoin trading consume electricity and what is the direct connection between trading and high energy consumption or negative environmental impact?
This and many more are questions that need urgent answers from the EU authorities, in most countries like the US energy generation and distribution is the sole responsibility of the government and the consumer of those energy pay bills on the amount of energy consumed which generate huge revenue for the government and in this way the government sees energy consumption as a way of income generation for the government so mining farms contribute largely to the revenue generated from energy sales since Bitcoin mining consume high energy. This whole energy consumption and environmental factors raised by the EU as it relates to proof of work (pos) mechanisms to me look like corrupt policy aimed at weakening the overall dominance of the Bitcoin algorithm and giving support to a less trusted and centrally aimed proof of stake algorithm. This move trick is a sponsored politically motivated policy to me other than environmental issues because there is no correlation between the two main subject matters which are a ban on (pow mining and trading of currency that uses POW)

Renewable energy being abundant in the Sahara Desert?Are you kidding me?
Are there any big solar power plants in the Sahara desert?
Do you know why there aren't any big power plants in the Sahara desert?
1.Nobody wants to work in the Sahara Desert.Such big solar power plants will have to be maintained by people.
2.The solar panels will have to be cleaned from all the dust on a daily basis.There is a lot of dust in the desert and there are desert storms as well.Good luck making a solar power plant in the Sahara desert.

Anyway,I'm not going to repeat the same thing over and over again,when it comes to this topic.
All this "environmental-friendly regulation of Bitcoin mining" is a big pile of s*it.

The problem in many countries are not the high consumption of electricity by PoW mining, but rather the local governments incompetency to provide enough power to their citizens. In some countries where Coal mining are being used as the primary source of electricity, the government gave State entities the monopoly over electricity generation.

So you will find that only a small percentage of "Green" power are outsourced to Private companies to allow them to generate electricity from other methods. (Wind/Solar etc...) Those governments want to have control over Power generation, because it provides work for corrupt officials and also opportunities for those officials to get Billions of Dollars in tenders. (where they receive kickbacks and bribes to give those tenders to specific companies that are willing to pay these bribes)

So this is not going to work in all countries, because the governments are corrupt and they are not going to allow for "Popup" Green projects 

I never understand why users of electricity should be criticized about how that electricity is produced. It is the producers' problem not the consumers. For example you never see anyone bashing the average Joe for using electricity that was created by burning fossil fuel! Or bash one of the factories that are not only wasting a lot of electricity but also polluting the environment in a million different ways!

The point is that it would be naive to think countries that are using the term "ban PoW" are concerned about environment or are banning "PoW". The truth is that they are banning "decentralized" bitcoin that they can not control. I assure you if bitcoin wasn't even using a single megawatt of electricity they still would want to ban it.

With all that said, it is good to move to greener energies and try to preserve the environment but let's not lose sight of what the real problem is, it is the authoritarians being scared of the slow loss of control.

Bitcoin's Proof of Work has been seriously criticized in the past years for its high energy consumption. While the CBECI index from the University of Cambridge is most likely overestimating the electricity consumption, it cannot be negated that the problem would be substantial if this electricity was generated majorly from fossil fuels, primarily from coal (although numbers are disputed*, see below).

Some jurisdictions, primarily the EU, have considered severe restrictions for Proof of Work cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. The EU proposal, which was rejected in early April, aimed at banning trading and other services for PoW currencies for EU companies, which would have forced all EU exchanges to delist Bitcoin (and other PoW currencies like Litecoin and Monero).

Often in the justifications for the regulation Proof of Stake is mentioned as a "better" and "more environmental friendly" consensus method. However, PoS has a number of severe disadvantages, and relies on what's called "weak subjectivity", what means that the consensus is never completely objective and could be theoretically "faked" with sophisticated methods. It also favours centralization in much more direct ways than PoW.

So a "PoW ban" or even a "PoW restriction" would threaten one of Bitcoin's main innovations.

But instead of banning or restricting PoW currencies like Bitcoin, there is actually a much more promising alternative: Large-scale miners should have to demonstrate real carbon neutrality.

This could mean miners could have two alternatives:

1) Mine disconnected from the grid with exclusively own renewable electricity. (For example they could use a solar park or wind turbines, and store the energy accordingly).

2) Mine connected to the grid with a "100% renewable energy tariff", but ensuring they don't rely on fossil electricity in cases of scarcity of renewable electricity. This could be achieved a) powering off the mining equipment in these situations, or b) investing directly in new renewable generation. Miners would have to be equipped with smart meters, so the authorities could ensure they obey these rules.

The word real is emphasized because it wouldn't be enough to simply buy CO2 certificates (like some experts have proposed); they'd have to directly contribute to carbon-neutrality.

This kind of regulation would have at least three effects which would help combat climate change:

1) it solves the problem of miners competing with households for renewable electricity, as this wouldn't be allowed anymore (they can only mine connected to the grid as long as there is no renewables' scarcity, i.e. they can use "surplus" electricity),
2) provide a strong incentive for economies of scale in the renewable generation and storage industry,
3) provide a strong incentive to move to places where renewable energy is abundant (Sahara desert, some regions in South America like Patagonia, Brazil and the Altiplano, North American desert regions, Scandinavia/Iceland)

Feedback is much appreciated! The idea is to create an article about this topic in several languages (above all, EU languages as there the discussion about a de facto PoW ban hasn't stopped) to contribute to the discussion in a constructive way and preventing catastrophic decisions by politicians, without negating the problem.

*Estimations diverge, a recent one from the Bitcoin Mining Council claims 58% is coming from renewables, but this would be still 42% from fossil fuels and (probably on a much smaller scale) nuclear energy.