Topic: Debunking the "Bitcoin is an environmental disaster" argument. - page 2. (Read 5241 times)

Because mining requires a large source of electricity, it's not strange to spend tens of millions each month, but seeing the potential results from mining is worth it, and the electricity is so large that it can reach 70,000 megawatts which can cause heat waves that can disrupt parts of the country, such as happening in Texas, but do they think much about the environmental impact? I think so, while being able to get a lot of profit from them no matter what.

But they do indeed waste enormous amounts of energy. Something like 30%+ of all energy produced is wasted simply to maintain energy margins against demand so that brownouts/blackouts don't happen. Demand is variable, production is not so variable, so to make sure demand doesn't suddenly outstrip production at certain times of the day or during certain events (usually probably weather events) power plants have to produce way more energy than the consumers of that energy need. I believe it is actually written into law in the US at least and I assume most places that have reliable power, that they have to overproduce energy by some certain amount. So yeah, power plants do waste huge amounts of energy, which is where these Bitcoin mining companies are starting to come in to turn that enormous wasted energy into actual economic value.

Same sort of thing with flare gas. Where gas created by the industrial processing of oil doesn't have a means to be put to productive economic use so the gas is just burned off. There is at least one company in the US that is turning that wasted gas (again, totally wasted energy) into economic value by using it to run Bitcoin miners. Wasted for a different reason than power plant waste but the same concept of entirely wasted energy being given economic value thanks to Bitcoin mining, and this is something unique to Bitcoin (well PoW in general but Bitcoin is the only PoW that matters) as there is nothing other process in the world taking this wasted energy as input and created economic value as output.

If politicians, especially environmentalist types who are the ones who actually give a damn about the world, understood bitcoin mining to this degree, rather than just the "it wastes tons of energy and contributes to greenhouse gases" propaganda, they'd be the strongest proponents of Bitcoin mining and we'd be having every power plant in the country taking advantage of this. Govt could even regulate this stuff and be like based on how much money power plants save thanks to Bitcoin mining operating at their plant they have to pass on some of those savings to consumers, thus reducing the price of electricity for consumers.


Eventually, most of Bitcoin mining is gonna be renewables and or consuming entirely wasted power plant energy at the source. Only thing that could stand in the way of this natural movement to economic efficiency is if bitcoin-uneducated politicians make rules to stop bitcoin mining.

You might be not technically correct here, power plants don't waste energy, but you are correct on the sense of this comment.
Just think about the synergies of a nuclear plant coupled with a bitcoin mining operation. Enormous amount of energy with a very low marginal cost amortised with a bitcoin mining operation.

Well said, we have many occasions that bitcoin mining energy requirements has been a threat from the conventional electrical power supply, this has created more rooms for people miners and other researchers to persist work on the use of an alternative either renewable energy source, the world of bitcoin mining is gradually going green, we are getting less dependent on the electrical power supply.

What we use now is to engage the waste energies from human activities and convert them to a finished end product by serving the purpose of inefficient energy utilization for bitcoin mining thereby creating a more friendly environment for living through bitcoin mining by clearing the messes from degraded human activities released to the environment serving a toxic.

No. Bitcoin is absolutely great for the environment. You're not seeing the big picture. If you just say using energy is bad for the environment then everything that uses energy is bad for the environment so we should go back to the pre-electrical age!


Yes Bitcoin uses energy like everything in modern life, and yes much of the world's power comes from fossil fuels which means Bitcoin uses fossil fuels for some of its mining. But that is just surface level analysis.


Bitcoin mining is now starting to be done directly at power plants, using the excess energy 100% wasted energy the power plant already produces in order to be able to meet changing levels of electricity demand of society. In these cases Bitcoin mining is not the cause of ANY co2 production because it is using already produced but 100% wasted energy. And this is the natural future of Bitcoin mining. In the future every single power plant should have miners set up at it to use their wasted energy. Any power plant that tries to hold out on doing this while other power plants are doing this will simply be put out of business due to competition with plants that have bitcoin miners at it, and the power plant would be bought by companies that allow bitcoin miners at the plant. It's just basic economics.

So now only would this stop the ENORMOUS waste that is built into the energy production industry, but it would also mean Bitcoin is completely zero waste no matter what power plant (fossil fuel or clean) they are operating at. But this will REALLY help solar and wind farms because those sources of energy are intermittent so you have to vastly overbuild the power production in order to get a more reliable production, and as shown above, it is precisely where there is a lot of wasted energy that Bitcoin mining becomes most helpful. This means renewable energy and bitcoin mining go hand in hand and bitcoin mining can play a huge role in making the world go greener quicker. Final point is, there is literally no other technology on the planet that can accomplish this. So this incredibly impactful ability to help grow renewable energy production can only come from Bitcoin.

If you understand what I just wrote it should be clear that not only is bitcoin mining not bad for the environment, but it is incredibly good for the environment because it has a unique and incredibly important role to play in ending the massive power waste of the energy production industry while at the same time benefitting renewable resources more than fossil fuels and therefore being a prime driver to making the world adopt green energy more quickly. This is only just starting the past few years as companies have started mining directly at power plants, so obviously this huge beneficial impact Bitcoin will have on the environment is still mostly in the future, but it is happening and it is the inevitable course bitcoin mining will take simply due to the economics of energy production and the economics of bitcoin mining.

So yes, when I say Bitcoin mining is GREAT for the environment I really mean it. Not just is it great but it is UNIQUELY great in that no other technology can provide this benefit to society and the environment. Bitcoin is on the path of going from being an end user of electricity on the grid to being a service that strengthens the global electrical grid and promotes the economics of green energy. Once you understand this it's like a lightbulb goes off in your head. I too used to think it's unfortunate Bitcoin is able to use so much energy, until I realized the obvious path bitcoin mining is heading and once you realize this bitcoin mining using energy goes from being an unfortunate necessary thing to secure the world's best money to being a huge side benefit to society and the environment irregardless of even the benefit mining has on Bitcoin itself.


If politicians and environmentalists understood this is how bitcoin mining works and is the direction bitcoin mining is going they would do a total 180 and be doing everything they can to promote this future for bitcoin mining.

I've posted this explanation of mining a few times on bitcointalk now yet it seems hardly anyone who is into Bitcoin understands this. I only know this because I heard a podcast or two from people who run companies in the bitcoin mining industry and this is what they are doing. If people understood this it would clear up so much of the bad public optics and misinformation around bitcoin.

I agree that Bitcoin is not bad for the environment like everyone claims but you cannot claim that it is good for the environment. It does produce co2 and that does make the environment worse and that is provable but so does every computer that stores information that every industry relies on so it is not a big problem. Bitcoin converting to renewable energy will take a long time and we will rely on the grid for many years to come.

Honestly its really easy to show why Bitcoin is not only NOT bad for the environment but is great for the environment and why Bitcoin mining is great for society.


Even getting beyond the whole it uses lots of renewables and stranded energy argument and stuff, which are good arguments, there is something much more powerful at work.



Power plants waste enormous amounts of energy by design to keep plenty of energy available for society whenever spikes in energy use occur so blackouts or brownouts don't happen. Bitcoin mining companies have already started to mine off this 100% wasted energy for a few years now. This is the future of bitcoin mining - entirely wasted energy. Not only does this mean Bitcoin won't use 'extra' energy, but it will stop the huge electrical waste in the energy infrastructure, greatly strengthen the energy infrastructure which is great for society, and hopefully this will mostly be done at renewable energy sources thereby bitcoin making renewable energy production for cheaper and more efficient than fossil fuels which will help steer the world to renewable energy and end our reliance on fossil fuels, which obviously is great for the environment.

Bitcoin mining is not only not a bad thing, its a fantastic thing! It provides benefits that literally nothing else provides, makes PoS consensus blockchains look hopelessly unhelpful to society in comparison, and is coming at just the right time when humanity needs it to push the world to renewable energy and stop all the electrical waste.


Granted Bitcoin isn't there yet, but this has already started and has been going on for a few years now. I don't know of a single other technology that can benefit society as much in the area of energy infrastructure and clean energy.

Honestly its comical when people talk about Bitcoin being bad for the environment and wasteful, because the truth is the exact opposite. If the people that hated Bitcoin because they think its an environmental disaster actually understood how it works they be doing everything they could to help Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining spread.

Willy Woo tweeted about a series of new graph tonight:



The concept is interesting, holding a bitcoin, from an act of selfishness contributing to planet Earth pollutions, turns out being an altruistic-crbon negative act!
Power of marketing.

Hodling a bitcoin is neutral, for what environment is concerned.
 

I don't think it will help. I mentioned earlier, playing the game of "look how green this project is" will never work with environmental doomsday-ers, the game works like this:

1. you: "is this much ok?"
2. Doomsday-er "NO. THATS EQUAL TO 5000 NUCLEAR WEAPPONS EXPLODING IN A RAINFOREST YOU ARE STILL TEH WORST PERSON EVA AND MUST IMPROVE"
3. go back to 1.

and you don't mean "greenhouse", greenhouse is now a bad word (these people are insane, but cult members usually are slightly)



hmmm, we will see then. will Bukele get coup-ed before his secret volcano of Bitcoins goes live? Will Saudi Arabia start doing camel racing with Bitcoin prize money? Will Greenpeace change their name to OrangeWar and challenge Satoshi to a sumo match to the death? we live in strange times

The El Salvador volcano energy project is one of its kind and if the project is fully operational or will open up a lot of opportunities for other development such as energy conversion and usage of waste to produce another thing, hydroelectricity has opened up quite a good number of possibilities aside from providing an alternative energy source to bitcoin miners, I read some were that the heat generation and conversation of other subtanceufrom the energy plants are converted to provide artificial heat to plants to replace sunlight and the experiment was successful but recently I have not had any progress in that regards, but the sure thing is that El Salvador volcano project will provide a blues print to what we should expect in greenhouse energy to kick against the Bitcoin environmental disaster slogans that have blinded so many bitcoin pos critic from seeing the opportunity that Bitcoin energy demand can open us up to.

Of the many fantasy adventures announced by Bukele during the infamous Miami Conference, there was the announcement of mining operations using the geothermal energy of a Vulcano (Vulcanode. I am sure I powered a  link to a video on this thread).

This is the perfect example of what you are referring to: a completely new Power plant built in a secluded area,  just because of cheap electricity to be used for mining operations.

that may be a significant test of this line of reasoning: would someone employ the massive resources to dam a river only for the purposes of bitcoin mining? Such a facility wouldn't need any kind of connection to infrastructure, as even modern satellite internet connections might have sufficiently low enough network latency to mine with (they would for sure still lose block races). Depends on the specific locale, FTTP would be better, of course.

that would be a real moment for sure, and of course, why not turn it into a military base also I can assure you, this is not the first time someone somewhere has been thinking along these lines...

The real game changer is when you set up energy producing facilities only to mine bitcoins. Gas flaring and mining from geothermal energy are perfect examples of this: those plants are usually too far from consumption sites that transporting energy is far from being profitable.
Bitcoin is opening a new use case for that wasted energy to be instead used to secure the network.

power plants may be private businesses but they have government contracts and grant/finance deals to provide a sustainable service to residents/retail. where by they cant just stop servicing residential customers and just put all that energy into industry customers

that said
when NEW power plants start up. they are not making just capacity to meet current need. they are building a 50 year plan to meet future demand.

this mean in the first couple decades they may have 50 users of a 100 user capacity meaning they are charging the 50 customers 2x the 100customer cost because there are only 50 customers

so by allowing industry to jump in and buy up the excess 50. it means the existing 50 customers pay less over all

I saw an interesting thread on reddit the other day

OP claimed that as more and more energy production/extraction facilities begin to mine bitcoin with their 'slack', that this will begin to both affect the dynamics of bitcoin's market price, and also that bitcoin mining and the BTC price will begin to affect energy prices too.

If you owned an energy production/extraction facility, and you could (momentarily) make more money mining BTC than selling energy, you'd do it, right? That's pushing energy prices up (and correspondingly down again when mining profits return to parity with the BTC market price)

So bitcoin's status as a reserve currency, possibly even as the currency hydro-carbons are traded for, from now on is a mere formality. Big political interests (big gangsters, really) are now openly in the market, because it's a perfect complement to their operation. Bitcoin and energy are (and always have been) inextricably linked.


I'm pretty sure someone said something along these lines years ago (here on bitcointalk). Cue environment cultists crying into their Starbucks frapaccinos

I wonder if TSMC would be interested to build ASICs themselves... they have the edge in microchip wafers.

Not sure what you mean by that.
For the owner of the nuclear power plant being the owner of the datacenter also and having it fed first to the miner and balancing the need to the actual grid with the demand from the data center or the actual physical thing being inside, cause the second one is not going to happen. A nuclear power plant can choose to have electricity sent directly to a close consumer without the need to raise the voltage for long-distance purposes but the IAEA will never allow a major consumer with cooling needs and fire hazard to settle anywhere near the facility, never!

The deal is as good as it could ever get, is a partnership between a reliable 24/7 electricity producer and a mining company, built in an area nobody can complain about heat and noise, and with minimal loss, it doesn't affect anything locally as a town grid and it can still function as a grid load balancing if emergencies arise.

Finally, we have some true reliable no carbon mining done that is not hydro at a large scale, not the jokes like solar and wind.

Today there was news about a Bitcoin mining data centre being powered by nuclear power plant:

America’s first nuclear-powered Bitcoin mining center to open in Pennsylvania

The data centre is separated from the Nuclear Plan, so there is no synergy for the electrical producer. The data centre is plugged right away from the center is a good news, but actually not a major development.

The real game changer would be the data centre inside the power plant, with the miner revenue directly competing with electricity sold elsewhere.

So it is a little bit of a marketing stunt, but positive as it helps the narrative of a “clean bitcoin mining”.

Now with the interesting part and what I like the most: back-of-the-envelope calculations.

48 Megawatt are sufficient to power roughly 15,500 Bitmain
Antminer S19j Pro (104Th), one of the most energy efficient miner around.

Those nice army of beasts can churn roughly 1,610,400 Th/s, or roughly 0.6% of the total hash power.
This means the total bitcoin mining network can be visually represented as 170 of those datacenters!

The bitcoin mining Council released their quarterly presentation:



A lot of numbers inside. Of course always questionable metrics, but at least they are improving.

Curtailment results seems also very promising.

the foolish utilisation of "the cambridge report" is where many lies lay

everyone know these facts:
network hashrate is peaking at 272exa this week. does not mean that miners hashed at 272exa every day for the previous year. (thus energy report estimates are already too high)

s9's, s11, s15 and s17's asics are not profitable in reality. no one is still mining using outdated hardware. (thus energy report estimates are already too high)

when asic farms set up within xx miles of a green renewable power generator. they are using green energy physically. (although reports sets them as generalised in a wider region/area to set them in the report as using a 'mix energy source')

when asic farms form 6month-2 year contracts with power generation companies. they are rightfully buying an allotment that the power company would else waste, as that allotment is outside of the residential retail 'demand' thus usually goes unpaid for if it were not for the asic farm

the power usage is more so near the 50TWH per year.. not 150
the green % is more then 60%

my feeling is these 'cambridge report' numbers have been fabricated as worse case fudged numbers, so that given a few years politicians can ask cambridge to supply real numbers so politicians can say they fixed the problem. even when there was none..

for those wanting the most basic paper/brain maths that doesnt need a calculator
the average network hashrate for the year 220exa
the average terrahash/watt for asics 0.025

the average 100terrahash/kw for asics 2.5
the average 100petahash/mw for asics 2.5
the average 100exahash/gw for asics 2.5
the average 200exahash/gw for asics 5
the average 220exahash/gw for asics 5.5
5.5*24*365=43800gwh/year
=48.18twh/year