the ACTUAL power usage is not the 1% that has been spouted about
by doing calculations on this months hashrate. the electrical usage is about 0.1% of RESIDENTIAL USAGE
which if you were to combine it with industrial and commercial. would be far LOWER
and then if you think about the new gen ASICS coming soon which are not only twice the hashrate but also less electric needed per unit. then the efficiency gets even better and the percentage drops again(under 0.03%)..
now then. if we were to take todays hashrate but go back to GPU mining and take the electric requirements of that. then GPU mining would be about 1400x an asic per kwh meaning the current 0.1% ASIC would be 140% of world electric GPU mining..
so relax. people are already ahead of you worry. they been ahead of it since 2013.
so much so infact that the electric consumption vs generation gap (the excess) bitcoin is not even using up 1% of EXCESS
Topic: Bitcoin Power Consumption - page 5. (Read 20033 times)
This has been quite the rhetorical question of August-September here in bitcointalk, but to at least give you an answer, there aren't any plans to switch over to a greener alternative as of the moment, and I'm pretty sure the community and the devs are aware of what's in store for the bitcoin network regarding power consumption. Some miners have already made their own moves by moving into remote areas wherein internet is still accessible but they get the power of hydroelectric plants, with costs which are not lucrative and maintenance is easier since the area is a natural temperate region. Some farms in China have been relocating to the mountains to seek greener and cheaper power, great operating conditions for the miners which greatly reduces the power in cooling these machines. Perhaps a new algorithm would be introduced which is quite on par with the integrity PoW offers as of the moment, but as far as that change goes, there aren't any discussions yet.
Power consumption of bitcoin mining keeps going up. And will continue to go up as bitcoin usage and price increases. This have harsh enviromental implications. Is there a way to reduce power consumption or are there plans to switch to a more eco-friendly way of mining bitcoin?
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