Topic: Does cryptocurrency mining produce more pollution? - page 3. (Read 580 times)
Compared to factories that product non-biodegradable products such as plastics, styrofoams, metal cans, and nuclear waste? Or compared to literal mining operations depleting our natural and limited resources rapidly? The idea that Bitcoin/Crypto mining is contributing to more waste compared to them is just some kind of black propaganda just to shift our minds in the real problem. This is just one of the things a nocoiner would just say just to point out a kind of negative towards Bitcoin yet they completely ignore more contributors to the pollution as compared to crypto mining. In crypto mining you just need electicity to power it and if you are using renewable energy then you aren't really contributing to the ecological damage in our world.
It uses quite a bit of electricity, and it's pretty obvious that the huge mining farms that are usually run in China don't help with the environment, but I don't think this is an issue that people need to be focused on.
Banking companies, tech companies, etc, etc, they all spend 100x more electricity and populate the planet more, if we truely want a solution, we need the big people to move towards a more renewable energy source and everyone else to follow.
Banking companies, tech companies, etc, etc, they all spend 100x more electricity and populate the planet more, if we truely want a solution, we need the big people to move towards a more renewable energy source and everyone else to follow.
there is no doubt that as long as we have PoW consensus based cryptos,we need more and more electricity and Crypto mining is consuming more electricity then electricities consumed by few small countries. The solution is PoS but I dont think BTC can be shifted to PoS. So I say yes crypto mining is not environment friendly at all.
Mining is environment-friendly and doesn't leave much carbon or waste. The only pollution that mining cause is the noise that comes from the GPU fans and the heat that comes from it. Mining rig can be set up by any body in their home and it's cost-effective.
Ever since cryptocurrency has existed people have started to mine it using their PCs or Miners’ GPUs. Considering that cryptocurrency mining consumes a lot of electricity because of it using a lot of processing power, does it really cause a large ecological impact on the world?
Every time I see mining operations around the world, there are multiple miners in one place ranging from dozens to even hundreds in for those who can afford a lot of miners. That got me thinking that since there are a lot of GPUs running at once then it must use a lot of electricity which means that power plants, as a result, will need to generate more electricity which will lead to more pollution.
Is the carbon footprint of these mining operations large enough to make a large impact on the world or it doesn’t really cause a lot of pollution in the long run.
What do you guys think and are there any greener solutions for mining cryptocurrencies?
Every time I see mining operations around the world, there are multiple miners in one place ranging from dozens to even hundreds in for those who can afford a lot of miners. That got me thinking that since there are a lot of GPUs running at once then it must use a lot of electricity which means that power plants, as a result, will need to generate more electricity which will lead to more pollution.
Is the carbon footprint of these mining operations large enough to make a large impact on the world or it doesn’t really cause a lot of pollution in the long run.
What do you guys think and are there any greener solutions for mining cryptocurrencies?
I know this has been discussed several times, but what you should ask yourself is:
How Long Will Bitcoin Mining Be Sustainable? If miners now complain that they have losses or make very little profit, then I wonder what mining will be like 10 years from now? the cost of electricity will be much higher 10 years from now and how will mining be? Some people may tell me that the bitcoin price will also be much higher than the current price, but I ask again what if the bitcoin price is not much higher 10 years from now?
Ever since cryptocurrency has existed people have started to mine it using their PCs or Miners’ GPUs. Considering that cryptocurrency mining consumes a lot of electricity because of it using a lot of processing power, does it really cause a large ecological impact on the world?
Every time I see mining operations around the world, there are multiple miners in one place ranging from dozens to even hundreds in for those who can afford a lot of miners. That got me thinking that since there are a lot of GPUs running at once then it must use a lot of electricity which means that power plants, as a result, will need to generate more electricity which will lead to more pollution.
Is the carbon footprint of these mining operations large enough to make a large impact on the world or it doesn’t really cause a lot of pollution in the long run.
What do you guys think and are there any greener solutions for mining cryptocurrencies?
I think it's not exactly pollution which these mining procedures are making. Atleast directly. They are consuming Electricity and emitting heat obviously. We generally don't constitute it as any type of pollution. But yes it's leaving a hell lot of carbon footprints. But the truth is almost every activity of ours is leaving such carbon footprints. There are far more polluting industries much useless than Bitcoin which needs to be take care of first. Moreover, most of mining is being done in developed or developing countries which are more or less on renewable sources of Energy which ensures it's not even effecting pollution indirectly. Every time I see mining operations around the world, there are multiple miners in one place ranging from dozens to even hundreds in for those who can afford a lot of miners. That got me thinking that since there are a lot of GPUs running at once then it must use a lot of electricity which means that power plants, as a result, will need to generate more electricity which will lead to more pollution.
Is the carbon footprint of these mining operations large enough to make a large impact on the world or it doesn’t really cause a lot of pollution in the long run.
What do you guys think and are there any greener solutions for mining cryptocurrencies?
It has been discussed a lot of times in this forum. Some mining farms use alternative energy since it is more cost-efficient and environment-friendly. Even paper money, digital cash, banks cause pollution, imagine the amount of plastic and papers and energy they consume to produce cards, money, coins, ATM, receipts and etc.
Another overlooked point of energy use is video streaming. ref https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45798523From the article:
Quote
The lead scientist, Rabih Bashroush, calculated that five billion downloads and streams clocked up by the song Despacito, released in 2017, consumed as much electricity as Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Somalia, Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic put together in a single year.
All in all it makes the energy used by crypto mining rather insignificant. 
It has been discussed a lot of times in this forum. Some mining farms use alternative energy since it is more cost-efficient and environment-friendly. Even paper money, digital cash, banks cause pollution, imagine the amount of plastic and papers and energy they consume to produce cards, money, coins, ATM, receipts and etc.
Indeed. Cryptocurrency mining is environment-friendly because it doesn't produce gases that come from cars, factories, volcanoes and so on. The things that you only need in cryptocurrency mining is a lot of graphics card in a computer and an air-conditioned place to cool down your computer while mining, that is why there are no any chances for crypto mining to produce more pollution.
This has been discussed many times before. Have a look at the following threads:
[2019-06-16] Bitcoin Mining Consumes 1% of Global Energy, Report Reveals
Here's food for thought: Bitcoin's carbon footprint
Coinshares research: 74% of Bitcoin mining is powered by renewable energy
The report discussed in the first thread I linked to above, shows that bitcoin mining was estimated to use around 0.2% of global electricity production at time of release (the news article incorrectly stated 1% - see my post in that thread for a breakdown). Hashpower is steadily increasing, but the efficiency of mining equipment is increasing faster, so this percentage is likely to drop rather than increase as one might expect.
Also note the report in the last thread linked above, which shows that almost three quarters of bitcoin mining is powered by renewable energy, again a figure which is likely only to increase. Note that only 15% of general electricity consumption in the US is from renewable sources.
When you compare to other things that you don't even give a second thought to - lighting, heating, air con - the amount of energy used by bitcoin is an order of magnitude or two smaller. Add in the fact that bitcoin uses over 4 times more renewable sources, and the pollution caused by bitcoin is minuscule in the grand scheme of things.
[2019-06-16] Bitcoin Mining Consumes 1% of Global Energy, Report Reveals
Here's food for thought: Bitcoin's carbon footprint
Coinshares research: 74% of Bitcoin mining is powered by renewable energy
Is the carbon footprint of these mining operations large enough to make a large impact on the world
Not at present.The report discussed in the first thread I linked to above, shows that bitcoin mining was estimated to use around 0.2% of global electricity production at time of release (the news article incorrectly stated 1% - see my post in that thread for a breakdown). Hashpower is steadily increasing, but the efficiency of mining equipment is increasing faster, so this percentage is likely to drop rather than increase as one might expect.
Also note the report in the last thread linked above, which shows that almost three quarters of bitcoin mining is powered by renewable energy, again a figure which is likely only to increase. Note that only 15% of general electricity consumption in the US is from renewable sources.
When you compare to other things that you don't even give a second thought to - lighting, heating, air con - the amount of energy used by bitcoin is an order of magnitude or two smaller. Add in the fact that bitcoin uses over 4 times more renewable sources, and the pollution caused by bitcoin is minuscule in the grand scheme of things.
It has been discussed a lot of times in this forum. Some mining farms use alternative energy since it is more cost-efficient and environment-friendly. Even paper money, digital cash, banks cause pollution, imagine the amount of plastic and papers and energy they consume to produce cards, money, coins, ATM, receipts and etc.
You need to understand that it needs to take energy which is valuable to be able to secure the network. If it didn't require any actual work then would it be as secure? Probably not.
So just like banks and offices leave their lights on at night for security bitcoin is no different. It needs to require something that is available for most at a cost for decentralization and security.
This is why the miners who use electricity and pay for it get rewarded with block reward and fees. I'm sure it's possible to make it greener but most likely wouldn't be efficient.
There is wind power and solar energy but how much of bitcoins hashrate does that equal too? Probably not even 1%.
So just like banks and offices leave their lights on at night for security bitcoin is no different. It needs to require something that is available for most at a cost for decentralization and security.
This is why the miners who use electricity and pay for it get rewarded with block reward and fees. I'm sure it's possible to make it greener but most likely wouldn't be efficient.
There is wind power and solar energy but how much of bitcoins hashrate does that equal too? Probably not even 1%.
Ever since cryptocurrency has existed people have started to mine it using their PCs or Miners’ GPUs. Considering that cryptocurrency mining consumes a lot of electricity because of it using a lot of processing power, does it really cause a large ecological impact on the world?
Every time I see mining operations around the world, there are multiple miners in one place ranging from dozens to even hundreds in for those who can afford a lot of miners. That got me thinking that since there are a lot of GPUs running at once then it must use a lot of electricity which means that power plants, as a result, will need to generate more electricity which will lead to more pollution.
Is the carbon footprint of these mining operations large enough to make a large impact on the world or it doesn’t really cause a lot of pollution in the long run.
What do you guys think and are there any greener solutions for mining cryptocurrencies?
Every time I see mining operations around the world, there are multiple miners in one place ranging from dozens to even hundreds in for those who can afford a lot of miners. That got me thinking that since there are a lot of GPUs running at once then it must use a lot of electricity which means that power plants, as a result, will need to generate more electricity which will lead to more pollution.
Is the carbon footprint of these mining operations large enough to make a large impact on the world or it doesn’t really cause a lot of pollution in the long run.
What do you guys think and are there any greener solutions for mining cryptocurrencies?
Jump to: