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Topic: It takes the same amount of energy released by the Hiroshima bomb to mine 33BTC (Read 187 times)

legendary
Activity: 2338
Merit: 1775
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Personally, I see this as a big problem. The energy industry was developing rapidly in the sixties of the last 20th century.

It was then that many modern nuclear and hydroelectric power plants began to be designed. However, since then, there has been no particular progress in the development of energy.

At the same time, not only bitcoin mining requires huge energy costs. Artificial intelligence also requires them. Many experts say that humanity is now experiencing a crisis moment - a basic technological transition. And they largely associate the way out of this crisis with the development of artificial intelligence.

However, if humanity does not have enough electricity, then the question of a complete ban on bitcoin may arise. For example, in my country, the energy costs of bitcoin mining exceed the costs of developing agriculture.
legendary
Activity: 4424
Merit: 4794
I still think that Bitcoin mining people should find a good location, and figure out what it takes, and then build their own power plant, to both, sell power to the people, and to mine their own Bitcoin at the same time. Double pay this way.

power stations are not built for current/at the time consumption needs, but instead the consumption needs of the next few decades. and so instead of having low demand/consumption initially(running at 10% capacity) these power stations happily sell upto the other 90% to anyone that wants it, and they do it at a discount(thus power companies get ROI of build cost faster (years instead of decades))

many asic farms already know this and for the last decade have set up facilities within range/region of these power plants and do special deal purchases of energy in 2 year locked contracts thus get a great price for energy to cover a lifecycle of their asic farm before they upgrade their asics to the next gen and then buy new contracts of energy.

these reciprocal relationships between power stations with available excess energy and asic farms, have been a known thing even as far as the first gen asics of 2013
legendary
Activity: 3990
Merit: 1385
I still think that Bitcoin mining people should find a good location, and figure out what it takes, and then build their own power plant, to both, sell power to the people, and to mine their own Bitcoin at the same time. Double pay this way.

Cool
legendary
Activity: 3234
Merit: 5637
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Just an interesting calculation I made that serves no practical purpose but is fun to think about. Smiley


Another idea that can be used by those who promote the agenda of BTC mining as something that consumes huge amounts of electricity and also contributes to global warming. I personally have nothing against comparisons, but only if things are put into a wider context, so for example it would be good if you calculated how much energy the world banking system consumes in one year, or how much electricity is lost every year - the last time I looked at the data the estimate was around 50 000 TWh.

Bitcoin is at the bottom of the pyramid, from any angle we look at it - otherwise things would be much less favorable for Bitcoin and all of us.
sr. member
Activity: 1400
Merit: 268
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I hope that this is still on the context of this discussion, but many mining farms are increasingly powered by hydropower, wind, or solar energy, which helps reduce the environmental impact. If anything, some estimates have it that over 50% of Bitcoin mining globally uses renewable energy.
https://cryptoslate.com/more-than-50-of-bitcoin-mining-uses-renewable-energy/

Thus, while the energy comparison is interesting, it must be put into context that miners and, in fact, the entire industry are striving towards sustainability over time. Moreover, the very drastic comparison of Bitcoin mining to a nuclear event may make this sound like a strident case, while in fact, the actual context of the use of energy due to mining itself varies across regions and sources of energy, turning out to be way more nuanced than the raw figures themselves suggest.
legendary
Activity: 3990
Merit: 1385
If only the Japs had Bitcoin back in WW2 times.      Cool
legendary
Activity: 3822
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At a 'lower' energy level, from mid-'70's data regarding pumping a laser using high explosives, 1 kg of standard TNT releases 1MJ of energy in under 100us. While the peak power works to 10,000,000,000 watts (10GW), stretched out to 1second that is an average of only 100J/sec or 100w/sec.

Wonder what the time scale of nukes is? I'd think 1ms at most for the main reaction.

edit: found it, per https://www.atomicarchive.com/science/fission/time-of-reaction.html the primary reaction takes about 1micro-sec
sr. member
Activity: 490
Merit: 397
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That's a surprising analysis, I'm quite surprised that the energy released by the Hiroshima Bomb was quite much despite been in such era.
Well method are been implemented to improve energy efficiency in Bitcoin through the use of renewable sources like wind.
Despite mining difficulty increasing consumption, development has been able to keep up/outpace the rate of consumption.

I guess they can't really be compared while one is an ongoing process to offer financial freedom, the other is instantaneous that took lives.


legendary
Activity: 4424
Merit: 4794
network hashrate is about 650exa on average.. so thats 2.77m asic

so 3510*2.77m =9,749,997,270 tj/s *600= 5,849,998,362,000 to mine a block

so math checks out so far.. BUT (BIG BUT)

a nuke releases the 63TJ in one second.. yet the math of bitcoin is energy used over a period of ~11 blocks (~6432 seconds(~1hour 47mins))

so 33 bitcoin might be same energy as hiroshima, but spaced out over 1hour 47minutes not one second(hiroshima)

or more precisely bitcoin is 6432 times less energy than hiroshima per second
hero member
Activity: 952
Merit: 555
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Most efficient miners used today are similar to Bitmain S21 Pro, it uses 3510 Watts (joules per second) to generate 234 Terahashes per second. At current difficulty it would take one of these miners 54 years to mine a block, or you would need 54 miners to mine a block in 1 year. Multiplied by the wattage it takes 5.9 Terajoules to mine a block, or 1.91 terajoules to mine 1 bitcoin. The bomb in hiroshima released 63 TJ of energy, or about 33 bitcoin

Just an interesting calculation I made that serves no practical purpose but is fun to think about. Smiley

In this life, things could happened the way we don't expect, we have to see it as something more of taking a cognizance observation for, whereby in some situations, you will discover that some are using a particular energy they would have invested on something qualitative on what is not of useful to them and others, which also means that, there is more efforts needed in doing what is wrong to doing what is right.
copper member
Activity: 1498
Merit: 1619
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Hmm, Interesting comparison I would say. Never seen someone compare this earlier (Even though if it's 33 BTC today, could be any value before). So you deserve a merit for being this crazy or innovative. On the other hand, I would say this explains the security of Bitcoin Network and no one can manipulate or do any sort of attack on it easily. Kind of a bullish thing I would say Cheesy
newbie
Activity: 3
Merit: 0
Most efficient miners used today are similar to Bitmain S21 Pro, it uses 3510 Watts (joules per second) to generate 234 Terahashes per second. At current difficulty it would take one of these miners 54 years to mine a block, or you would need 54 miners to mine a block in 1 year. Multiplied by the wattage it takes 5.9 Terajoules to mine a block, or 1.91 terajoules to mine 1 bitcoin. The bomb in hiroshima released 63 TJ of energy, or about 33 bitcoin

Just an interesting calculation I made that serves no practical purpose but is fun to think about. Smiley

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