Topic: Bitcoin Mining, a Potential Ally in Our Fight Against Climate Change. (Read 326 times)

I have noticed that bitcoin mining, despite the fact that it is making its efforts to minimize damage to the environment, cannot be classified as an ally against climate change, moreover.. if it wanted to contribute to it, it would simply have to discontinue its work, but this is something that is not going to happen, nor could the big industries that are the biggest culprits of environmental pollution stop fulfilling their functions overnight when they contribute to the economy and for governments this is something much more important than preserving the environment, something wrong indeed, since if we destroy the world where we live, nothing they are doing would be worth it

 Despite everything, i cannot discredit what bitcoin mining is doing, however the people who practice this work are trying to do something, and although it seems that they are not.. there is evidence that what they do does contribute some way to reduce the environmental impact.

 I was investigating more about it and found that the environmentalist Troy Cross who is mentioned in this article: https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/07/24/the-single-most-important-truth-about-bitcoin-mining-energy-and-the-environment/

He talks a bit about his perspective on the influence of bitcoin to reduce pollution, and reduce the cost of energy, proving in a certain way that the use of bitcoin mining is not as bad as they paint it to be.

Bitcoin mining is just one of the few examples, but there are definitely more than what meets the eye. These are generally unpriced effects and it would be terribly difficult to put a number to it.
Water stagnation isn't good in all of the cases. Dam helps to prevent floods, minimize risks of wildlife lost but you also need to consider the landarea being cleared and the construction of such dams. Dams aren't just affecting aquatic animals but they have a cascading effect on both the surrounding settlements and wildlife. Nuclear waste actually decays in quite a long time due to their halflife, and they are generally unsafe to handle and sooner or later, the risks of us running low on space to hold these waste could be quite real; can't have it too close to the settlement, regulated nuclear exclusion zones, etc.

Politics and big oil is one thing, but there are realistic constraints on top of those.

Every construction of a dam comes with a significant trade-off. I'm not saying that we can't build a dam but there should be proper evaluation done to it to ensure that the reasons that we have are concrete and sound.

actually this is the reality now , those who says it is abuser of energy are now denying their fact and accepting this truth of how Mining of crypto is helping the abuse of climate.
Nice sharing of all this mate i think there will be enlightenment to the next generation that will make bitcoin proud in the future.

If you consider what the energy output is used for then that would be a different story since that's a different equation when it comes to carbon emissions. Couldn't disagree on the fact that it's negated if used for a selfish stuff but that's a societal or individualist problem I think. Maybe if we got the real numbers on how it's used and how much these renewable resources offsets in carbon emission, you might reconsider if you're not right.
I think when it comes to good or better for the environment stuff, I think that it's a subjective thing, a dam wouldn't be a good thing for a salmon who goes upstream to breed but for humans it's good since it helps them preserve water and create artificial watersheds to foster wildlife and fisheries. Regarding nuclear waste handling, I don't think it's difficult, it's more on politics because there's a country in Europe(I forgot the name of the country) that has a very good handle on their nuclear waste by turning a small island into a nuclear waste storage, plus developing your nuclear power means cheaper electricity and fossil fuel companies don't want you to do that.
Depends, if there's too much dam built on a river, I think that that's when the benefits outweigh the costs like what's currently happening in the Mekong River, China has 12 dams built in it while the other countries that are crossed by that river on has a total of 2 and now those at the lower end of the river are experiencing droughts.

Over reliance on gas or fuel for electricity has contributed more to ozone depletion than BTC mining would dare do.  What other meaningful ways is more efficient and rewarding in itself, if not having a farm totally autonomous and has a sufficient power plan that makes off-grid living possible and for businesses too.
This would make more funds that would normally be used to sort bills, be used to expand and maintain the farm.

I have also seen a documentary of how some students who own a mining farm in a building they all joined funds to acquire, redirect the heat from the mining machines to heat the apartment pool and provide hot running water by allowing the water pass through tubes and thus by heat exchange(convection) the machines cool, the water gets hot and re-routed through out the apartment.

If delved into properly for good reasons, Bitcoin mining will help reduce emissions from combustion engines and batteries, thus help protect the environment, our lungs and save us expensive gas and petrol/fuel bills.

From now I think they already fixed that and use technologies that are not gonna be a problem for the environment because right now the eyes of the people are on them and they can be used against them if they don't want to fix their components to be environmentally friendly. Just like what happened in the past few years where groups that are hostile against bitcoins are barking and using all of that to stop any bitcoin mining. Thankfully they didn't succeed and decided to stop their claim because they seem cannot find concrete evidence about what they are talking about in bitcoin miners.

Better. I wouldn't classify any of our current renewable energy as good for the environment, just better for the environment because even nuclear energy (arguably one of the cleanest out there) produces nuclear waste which are difficult to handle. Unfortunately, the only way anything that we can do at this point in time which can be good for the environment would be to not build any of these. That is not possible, so it becomes a tradeoff at best.

Problem with the offset of carbon emission in this context would be negated if it is used for frivolous or otherwise purposes that wouldn't serve the bulk of the population, ie. social benefits are minimized.

One of the initiatives for environmental conservation, as a result of the building of the dam: https://damsense.org/
Some pamphlets that I've gotten previously: https://www.wapa.gov/newsroom/Publications/Documents/Harnessing-Hydropower.pdf
News articles for HVDC projects:https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-07-04/World-s-2nd-largest-hydro-plant-completes-sectional-power-transmission-1bobg6GVOHS/index.html
There's quite a few on these, but generally it should be quite easy to find. They are usually projects which brings power from the dams to the populated regions.
Can't find the other news about building hydrodam (the oversupply pre-2000s), but here's a more recent one: https://news.mongabay.com/2022/09/in-the-mekong-basin-an-unnecessary-dam-poses-an-outsized-threat/.

Dams are still being built for the sake of it, and the benefits doesn't always outweigh the costs.

Think about it this way, say a hydro dam causes 100k in contribution to carbon emissions when it was built but in an estimated 10 year period, it will be able to produce electricity that would otherwise be worth 1m in contribution to carbon emissions if it was produced by coal, and in this example it shows that the hydro helped prevent 900k worth of carbon emissions which makes it considered a green energy since it offset it's initial carbon emissions. I agree with your stance about bitcoin not being friendly to the environment, it sounds goofy asf. What would be the right term is "Good for the environment" is a misnomer?
When it comes to politics, I'm on your side. Politicians not listening to scientists has been an all too common trope in sci-fi stories about disasters so I get that part.

I like to read where you're getting these, hope you can drop a link since I like to do some good reading regarding the topic of alternative power sources.

Op, there are all nice examples, but it's important to understand that only massive research that accounts for a huge chunk of global mining or, preferably, representative of global mining, can assess the harm and benefits to the environment from Bitcoin mining. There are obviously miners who simply use electricity that's cheapest or most readily available to them, and it's often sourced in a very harmful way, such as burning coal. But it's also true that Bitcoin mining can form a demand for clean energy by becoming a major buyer, it can use excess energy that would have otherwise gone to waste, and stuff like that.
So far, the most comprehensible research I've seen was conducted by the MIT (it was discussed in this thread), but it accounts just for a quarter of global mining and is also inconclusive.

Turnover rates for cars and any household appliances are far lower, they can be repurposed, sold, etc independent of a lot of factors. If a new and faster car comes out, not everyone would buy it immediately unless their car has broken down. However, if a newer and faster ASIC arrived on the market, chances are, ASICs would be replaced by them in batches and thrown into the landfill. They cannot be repurposed for any purposes. Billions of transactions were processed for MasterCard, VISA, etc. Are they the better alternative? Maybe, or maybe not. The only infalliable argument is that their throughput are much higher, with a larger relative utility as compared to crypto.

Most chips have various applications, but the chips in your mining ASICs would be thrown to the landfill with no way of repurposing them once they are obsolete. Obsolescence is one of the key contributors to e-waste.

here is one example
s19 bitcoin asic has 342 chips with 2m devices
an EV car has 3000 chips with 16m EV cars on the road.

684,000,000 chips for the 2m asics
48,000,000,000 chips for 16m cars

a car only transports 1-4 people on average
bitcoin(registered CEX and utxo) transports 200m+ users activity
plus bitcoin doesnt leave car tyre rubber (microplastics) on the road

yep EV cars put alot more particulates into the environment than bitcoin by any and all measures

but then compare that to the hundreds of millions of combustion engine cars.. and you then see EV are better then combustion and bitcoin is better then EV when you look at the carbon/metal/silicon per user bases

Industralization with how much utility to the community? Does it provide jobs or improve the standards of living for those surrounding it? Does it provide significant and tangible utility to the rest of the world?

ASICs can't be repurposed. Once S17 came out, most of the S9s were scrapped. Most ASICs were notorious for being terribly unreliable and plagued with high failure rate. Besides, remember that a single ASIC has tons of chips and silicon. Circuit boards are difficult to recycle as well. Again, my argument isn't geared towards Bitcoin vs Shitcoin. Comparing Bitcoin mining to my GPUs running ML simulation, one has better utility to the society and can be repurposed.

None. Energy production can never be truly carbon zero, but they an be carbon neutral. My point about it is when people are parroting it as being superior, "Bitcoin helps to combat climate change", "Bitcoin is the new green currency". They are all false. Bitcoin cannot fight climate change because it is a contributor to it. In fact, you are depriving someone of their ability to use clean energy because you are using it yourself.

Good for the environment is a misnomer. We would be much better off without any of those and it is very much a trade off and choices that we have made.

Money and politics. I have been through numerous papers and none of them explicitly mentions that Bitcoin Mining is good for the environment. Any news articles that postulates this often wraps the logic around their fallacy and blatant disregard for the numerous factors that are immediately obvious. Long distance UHV transmission has been achieved in numerous countries and instances, up to 3000KM long. The problem is the costs and time. Governments want to take the easy way out; they will build dams, solar arrays everywhere possible even if there is no use for it. They don't care about the environmental impact and Bitcoin Mining is a convenient way for them to make some GDP growth, if it is even half viable.

Nope, true green energy should be carbon negative. I think dismissing them as not green at all is one dimensional. Green energy is only given to something if it's output is lower than it's impact to the environment or it's effort to offset what it emits. Let me ask you this then, if solar, hydro and wind doesn't make you happy then what type of energy source are you proposing that's carbon neutral? Those that you've mentioned are really good for the environment I think that there's a lot of independent studies that can support that.

If it's a viable option for many, then how come people are still innovating on stuff that reduces the wasted energy? If it ain't broke don't fix it right? How are they lying when they argue that bitcoin is beneficial though? I don't get how you can lie when it's an opinion based on the facts that were given to you.

read your own response once more..
"Most of the dams are built to support the communities near the dam, and in anticipation of the industrialization of the surrounding regions. Not so much to cater for the population but rather for economic growth from the on-start."
ill emphasise it
"and in anticipation of the industrialization of the surrounding regions."
asic mining fills that anticipated demand.. yep mining is an industry too


hashrate per piece of silicon/metal. shows that having a GPU rack of many systems compared to 1 asic. shows again bitcoin is the most efficient use of electric and material

there are under 2m asics on the planet currently running. compare that to how many motherboards and GPU cards ar running to power a crap coin

if you want to cry about the 2m asic material cost.. then look at other industries too and compare.

its funny how media complain that its bitcoin mining using up all the silicon supply. but when you work out the 400exa hash for 200thash asics is only 2million devices.. you soon learn its not the 2billion devices using GPU chips and cpu chips and cmos and other chips found on a huge variety of other devices

Most of the dams are built to support the communities near the dam, and in anticipation of the industrialization of the surrounding regions. Not so much to cater for the population but rather for economic growth from the on-start. They still cause ongoing environmental destruction, from the disruption or redirection of water flow and these are usually consistent rather than a one-time. The cons of having miners enter the region basically means that they don't have to prioritize any efforts to deliver long distance power to the surrounding regions. That isn't desirable and besides, for the utility that Bitcoin provides, it doesn't do anything other than to simulate short term economic growth.

Key factor is also the salient environmental costs that is a direct result of mining, e-waste, etc.
Just comparing mining in general, not just Bitcoin. If you're just comparing Bitcoin specifically, you're going to have 2.88 megatonnes of carbon dioxide emitted, assuming 100% hydropower. Sure, not that significant but if you're comparing to the renewal rates of Bitcoin ASICs and the utility that Bitcoin actually provides, it just doesn't seem that worth it.

current hydro dams do not cause new environment/habitat destruction. most were built upto the 1990's
also when they were built they were not built to the capacity of the 1990's population estimates but the 2050 population estimates. so right now there is in a region using hydro. excess energy that can be produced, but not enough populous in that region to use it, so they dont have all turbines switched on,
by having miners enter the region and use the excess. it gives funds to the power company to pay off the build costs of the 1950's-1990's sooner. meaning it makes the average cost per kw less per other domestic user.
EG (using smal numbers)
if there was a daily production cost of $1000 for a potential 1000 customers in region. but only 800 live in that region. thats a min cost per user of $1.25 a day. however if miners use up the remaining unused 200 capacity. then it bring the average down to $1 per user


also if you look at bitcoins hashrate method. asic farms in one warehouse located at a hydro dam is alot more efficient use of electric compared to some crapcoins 'solo mining' in some hobby miners basement.. because household solo mining is more wide ranging of their power source and not really choosing to use hydro.. (residents dont move home specifically to live in hydro area)
so comparing bitcoin to a crapcoin like doge. bitcoin is a higher % renewable rather than doge, which doge is a bad mess of a bad mix of power sources due to predominantly being random home users mining doge in areas the residents dont get to choose their source nor have planned decisions on where to live being a electric source decision

bitcoin miners choose to build asic farms in renewable electric regions. so bitcoin is more renewable % mix by default

You're right because the OP only stated the beneficial aspect of different methods of mining that he feels causes little effect on climate change without listing some other methods that are hazardous, Bitcoin mining can't be totally safe to our environment it has it disadvantages too, you forgot to include the use of coal and natural gases that emmits greenwares when burnt and causes alot of heat that affect the climate change in the environment.
 According to research such method of bitcoin mining is responsible for a good percentage of greenhouse gas discharges around the world, also let's not leave out the high level of energy consumptions and resources for the production of solar panels that can also cause environmental pollutio, it is also stated according to research that the mining of bitcoin has emmited millions of tonnes of  CO2 around the world in it's short period of existence.

Hi, just wanted to know what you think about this. How does the paper claim that the benefits of bitcoin mining remain theoretical despite the stark practical evidences from several quarters of it benefits to the environment?

Its crucial to remember that, globally, a significant proportion of Bitcoin mining still relies heavily on non-renewable energy sources, primarily coal. The carbon footprint of the Bitcoin network is reportedly similar to that of some countries! As a matter of fact, Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance estimates that Bitcoin uses more electricity per year than the entire country of Argentina.

While I appreciate your argument and the instances you've presented, they are perhaps not representative of the industry as a whole. That being said, these examples serve as an excellent reminder that the sector could and should make more efforts towards sustainable mining practices.

Compared to other industries, Bitcoin actually doesn't have that much of an impact on global warming, in fact this is an industry that is far more friendly and open to green and renewable energy. It's just that because the government and some institutions don't want Bitcoin to grow, they support campaigns that say Bitcoin is not friendly to the environment. They frame and label that the Bitcoin mining industry should be stopped in order to save the environment. It's like they are turning a blind eye to industries that still use fossils and coal such as garments, etc., even though these are industries that contribute the most to global warming.

You can't stop the Bitcoin haters with such examples. They will always find other reasons to critique Bitcoin/crypto mining.
1.The production of solar panels is dirty and it pollutes the environment. The wind turbines are killing birds...
2.Bitcoin mining is wasting energy. It doesn't matter if it's green energy or not-so-green energy. The electricity used for crypto mining could have been used for something more productive in the traditional brick "and mortar" industries.
3.Bitcoin/crypto miners produce excessive heat, which warms up the planet. This is obviously a joke, but I can see a BTC hater using it as an argument.
Haters gonna hate, no matter what...

The paper that you linked



states that Bitcoin is not green, because the emissions of energy sources that it's uses are equal to the average of the electric grid

That paper also states that the supposed environmental benefits of Bitcoin mining remain theoretical, and there's no noticeable effects of Bitcoin on stimulating renewables yet

All of them are invalid arguments. That being said, most of the proponents of Bitcoin mining as being "green" is sprouting nonsense as well. For starters, there is a difference between renewable energy and truly green energy. True green energy are carbon neutral and does no damage to the environment. Your solar panels contributes to environmental pollution, so does your dam which destroys habitats, your wind turbines which endangers wildlife, etc. People want you to believe that they are good for the environment, because they appear to be somewhat carbon neutral if you ignore the implicit costs. This is a typical type of greenwashing that everyone is falling victim to.

If you're talking about extra energy that is difficult to store, that argument is invalid as well. High voltage electrical transmission, whilst introducing high energy loss, is still a viable option for most. The fact that Bitcoin mining is consuming energy already means that opportunity costs are being incurred by them having to use that energy for mining instead for domestic purposes. That is not withstanding the environmental pollution that comes from e-waste as well as silicon mining. Anyone that attempts to argue that Bitcoin is beneficial or otherwise carbon neutral is straight up lying.

If I'm being honest, I think bitcoin mining uses more electrical energy from coal, and fossil fuels. Admit it or not, several years ago bitcoin miners were still using energy from energy sources that were damaging to the environment. Besides that, the need for electricity to mine bitcoin is very large, in 2020 it is estimated that the need for electricity for mining around the world is equivalent to the electricity needs of Argentina.

But, like the industry at large, things are moving toward improvement. Today, many bitcoin miners are starting to switch to renewable energy sources, and that is good news. Although not all of them, bitcoin miners are slowly supporting the use of environmentally friendly energy sources. In my opinion, currently the industrial world globally is moving towards renewable energy sources, and that requires process and time. Including bitcoin miners are also heading in that direction.

Bitcoin mining has gone far with the use of renewable energy source and there's less dependency on electrical power supply unlike before, there's more to see on the aspects of this same bitcoin mining being environmentally friendly, we can make this our own way of understanding the real idea on the use of bitcoin energy used for mining as an environmental friendly and cause no harm on the climate like the other source of mining do.

I agree that Bitcoin mining industry is green and environmental friendly enough, more than many industries and many national energy consumption.

I disagree if you say Bitcoin mining is a potential ally to fight against Climate change. It is not true as Bitcoin mining does not use 100% renewable energy so it causes green house gases that contribute to climate change and global warming.

The Bitcoin Mining industry consumes very small energy compares to other industries, nations and the whole world so to fight against Climate change, it must be done with many massive initiatives globally. Bitcoin mining industry is only one small contributor to the fight.

Bitcoin Mining Council Q4 2022 report and Its briefing video with more information.

Climate impacts of Bitcoin mining in the United States from MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.

You forgot to add that even energy or electricity produced by hydropower plants are excess for some countries mostly during the summer period, this doesn’t only wastes the energy but also the funds. Since the bitcoin mining inception many of these wasted energy or electricity have been used for mining saving it from wasting. Right now countries have started to build crypto mining farms near this plants. The country Kyrgyzstan is also looking towards that too, https://cryptopotato.com/kyrgyzstan-to-spend-20-million-to-build-a-hydropowered-crypto-mine-report/

Just like I have read on many threads on the forum. I have just come my own conclusion that the news that bitcoin or crypto mining was actually going to destroy the environment was just a false statement spread by government or media houses just to paint bitcoin bad and probably aid in there quest to stop bitcoin. Nothing more than that.
 

People who argue that bitcoin mining destroys the environment have to check their motives for saying so. I have yet to see any evidence that bitcoin mining destroys the environment; rather, what I am seeing is that bitcoin mining is, in fact, saving the environment. Below are three pieces of picture evidence of bitcoin mines actually helping to sustain our environment instead of destroying it

1) Bitcoin mining farm powered by solar energy.

The picture below is an immersion-cooled bitcoin mining farm powered by solar energy located in Norcross, Georgia.


2) Bitcoin mining farm powered by cooking oil
In a Guatemala lake town, cooking oil from restaurants which is usually thrown into the lake and causes pollution is now being used to power bitcoin mining ASICs. According to the article “This cooking oil would either be thrown out into the street or find its way to the landfill which sits several hundred feet above Lake Atitlán,” Melder explained. “Either way, it would find its way into the watershed and into the lake.”


3) Bitcoin mining farm powered by methane gas
With all the gas being flared, a bitcoin mining company in North Dakota is taking the excess which is methane gas and using it to power their mining farm. It methane gas is one that has naturally been destroying the environment but bitcoin mining solving this problem.


I will summarise by quoting this Forbes article titled, Everything You Need To Know About Bitcoin And The Environment. It says that Bitcoin's unique ability to harness stranded energy resources and mitigate potent greenhouse gas emissions positions it as a potential ally in our fight against climate change. There are simply a thousand and one pieces of evidence to show that bitcoin mining, if done the right way, doesn't destroy our environment.

Please share your thoughts.

Source:
- https://twitter.com/CleanSpark_Inc/status/1663948094164041738
- https://twitter.com/DocumentingBTC/status/1679300474170638337
- https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/guatemala-town-mining-bitcoin-with-used-oil
- https://twitter.com/promise_cr8774/status/1686234946933760000
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2023/07/07/everything-you-need-to-know-about-bitcoin-and-the-environment/?sh=24acb1ac46fc