Topic: Bitcoin mining is naturally gravitating to green energy (Read 153 times)

It's an interesting statement, but a very bold one. I mean the one by Daniel Batten. After all, nobody would argue that sun isn't warm, whereas saying that BTC mining is good for environment is the sort of thing even pro-Bitcoin people normally wouldn't say. I went to read his thread, and he's somewhat right that Bitcoin miners can drive eco-friendliness because they are not dependent of the time of day, location or energy time. However, that doesn't really work unless miners do choose environmentally friendly energy sources for their electricity. Also, miners care about the cost of electricity, naturally, because it's a business, so if eco-friendly energy is more expensive, miners, as any other businesses, are less likely to go for it.

  Bitcoin mining has had a lot of claims from environmental institutions due to the fear that these companies will considerably increase environmental pollution, since it absorbs greater amounts of energy compared to other consumer companies such as traditional banks. These events have led crypto miners to look for new alternatives to be able to work without any problem, so the initiative to switch to renewable energy seems to me a reasonable decision, not only because it reassures environmental defenders, but also because also taking care of the planet we inhabit is an act of humanity and belonging.

Crypto miners are making a choice that favors the parties involved, creating profitability in this business, of course it is not an easy task and it takes time to produce a noticeable change, and they must be aware of any inconvenience, but this does not mean that it is not bring many benefits in a few years.

Throughout the history of bitcoin, bitcoin mining is generally known as a large energy user that is continuously carried out. But as technology develops, bitcoin mining begins to think about how to use renewable technology and remove the stigma about bitcoin mining that wastes energy.

According to a report by Arcane Research Bitcoin mining in Norway is now using 100% renewable energy and continues to be developed. Norway contributes almost 1% of global hast and renewable energy is used almost entirely using hydropower technology and this is certainly a renewable energy innovation that is very environmentally friendly.

Most importantly, according to the Norwegian Directorate of Water Resources and Energy (NVE), Norway's electricity mix is ​​100% renewable, with 88% hydro and 10% wind. That means Bitcoin miners in Norway use only "green" energy.

This reminds me of something funny I've noticed recently. I have recently started to see articles saying that Bitcoin used to be clean when China was the major contributor to hash power, but now its dirty. It's funny because it's the exact same people who were up until recently saying Bitcoin mining was dirty BECAUSE of China. Uninformed Bitcoin critics are going to be critics regardless of reality, they'll just change their facts around to create their own negative narrative, even if it completly contradicts their previous arguments.

China did indeed use hydro heavily for mining. But before the China ban the major narrative from non-bitcoiners, which means the major narrative for nearly everyone, was that they only used coal. Now that mining in China is over, suddenly the same people talk about how clean China bitcoin mining was lol, so mining, to them, WAS good (even though they said it was bad at the time), but now it's bad (so they can continue to say it's bad lol).

Anyway, even if renewable energy usage did drop post-China, and it very well may have dropped a little bit, as you say, green energy and waste/stranded energy are the primary movers of bitcoin mining these days and that is where things are focused. There is still the occasionally bad story of some mining operation running straight on-grid with fossil fuels or reopening a fossil fuels plant to use exclusively for mining, but for the most part things are moving in the right direction, it's just the public narrative around bitcoin mining is lagging far behind the reality of the positives that mining has for humanity.

The idea that Bitcoin will incentivize green energy is very old, so this twitter expert didn't say anything new.

The reality is, the presence of Bitcoin mining incentivizes generation of electricity, regardless of the source. On practice it means that there's an opportunity for closed coal and gas powerplants to reopen.

The pressure to go green is felt by the whole Bitcoin industry and its mining. To toe the line with the green movement, there are now many Bitcoin miners who are using power coming from renewable and green sources. Since there are some governments who are considering banning PoW because of environmental concerns, then this move towards green energy can be a big good news and one can that be helping the whole cryptocurrency industry into the future.

The only way for cryptocurrency, or any highly energy intensive system, to survive is going mean transferring over to green energy. While it is an excellent step towards changing public opinion about wasteful energy practices, it still needs to justify that it is worth any energy expenditure at all. In the coming months we're likely to see energy prices stay high in Europe and North America, which is going to mean all sources of energy usage get scrutinized. Yes these setups will not be using fossil fuels, which is absolutely great news, but they will still be sapping energy for the benefit of the few in a way that does not help the vast majority of the public right now.

I think there is a misconception that everyone is repeating. Bitcoin is producing 0 CO2 or close to 0 because Bitcoin is not a power station. Its only a client of power station like McDonald, supermarkets, banks and everyone else. How about we calculate how much electricity are shopping centres consuming and force them to go green by placing solar farms in the place of parking spots to make them more green... Or close all of them down because we can buy online. Power plants should go green not bitcoin should stop using electricity from power stations.

that's a common misconception that is partly coming from years of FUD about China and the level of hashrate they owned. In short it was nowhere near 60% that you claim and all other numbers you threw around are similar to that too. At best China had about 30% of the hashrate which dropped down to somewhere below 10% (it never went down to zero).
The big hashrate drops are not as uncommon as you think and they are always because of price drops. For example we had 2 very similar crashes in 2020 which led to 2 subsequent big drops in hashrate (more than 40%).

The case with Chinese ban on bitcoin mining is also very similar, we had a big price drop at the time and after the ban news came out market crashed even harder (from $64k to $29k) forcing a lot of miners (in places other than China) to shut down their ASICs hence causing the hashrate to crash like the price.
In other words the big drop you see on the charts is both because of the ban and the price drop with the later being the dominating factor.

It would be better to resize your image

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The world do not much go against how coal and other fossil fuels are used to generate electricity which emit carbon dioxide which is a one if the gases that causes global warming, they were most after banning bitcoin. The issue should not be about the high usage of electricity but it is about the gases that are released to the environment because of electricity generation.

Bitcoin miners now because of this prefer to generate electricity or use electricity that do not release green house gases to the environment such as nulear power, wind, solar and well bulit hydroelectric power.

Before bitcoin was banned in China, over 60% to 70% of energy used were green energy, China has 60% of global bitcoin hashrates before the ban of bitcoin mining in the country, most electricity used were green energy. After bitcoin was banned in China, the fosil feul energy used increased like 17% which makes the green energy reduced during the time.

But miners are still focusing on green energy, even some are moving to using gases which are waste from crude  refining for mining bitcoin. The percentage of green energy used to mine bitcoin is increasing back.

Following Cointelegraph, Earth Day 2022 is a good day to highlight how crypto mining operations have begun to naturally gravitate towards cheaper and cleaner energy sources.

April 22 is Earth Day and with environmental sustainability one of the key topics in the global debate surrounding Bitcoin mining, analysts say the industry has begun to naturally gravitate towards cleaner and cheaper energy sources.

Tech entrepreneur and self-proclaimed environmentalist Daniel Batten described a multi-pronged way in which the Bitcoin mining industry is creating positive change on the April 22 podcast from Brave New Coin. Batten argued that Bitcoin mining incentivizes building renewable energy plants and helps decarbonize power grids.


Batten believes Bitcoin mining drives increased demand for electricity and therefore investments in renewable energy plants. Mining is suited to intermittent power sources and it can be easily moved to far-flung locales to take advantage of the excess generation of renewable electricity.

The only problem that Batten sees is that the industry may not be big enough to incentivize all the renewable energy required.