
Bitcoin emissions alone could push global warming above 2°C [pdf] - plesner
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0321-8.epdf
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_nalply
Fossil energy is just too cheap. If pollution, climate change and other
negative effects were really priced in, Bitcoin miners would stop mining or
switch to green energy, for example geothermal in Iceland. After all we know
there are big mining farms there already.

~~~
_nalply
Just got the electricity bill. I am mining at home. The electricity company
told me that my electricity is about two thirds renewable energy and one fifth
nuclear, the rest (exactly 8.2%) is unidentified, perhaps fossil energy. This
energy is not cheap, on average 28 cents/kWh, but should I ever reach ROI on
the mining appliance, I still have a net gain. If difficulty still rises, I
will switch to mining at night only (20 cents/kWh), and even later I will need
to speculate on rising prices to justify continuing mining.

It's a hobby, probably not profitable in the end. But hey, FOMO.

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FrozenVoid
There is no reason to assume developing economies suddenly stop using fossil
fuels, so the idea is irrelevant. Extrapolated crypto electricity trends are
rising until the cost of mining reaches above payout, there is no "exponential
curve until it consumes everything".

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unimpressive
Anyone have access to the full text? What's the quality of the analysis look
like?

~~~
Cypher
It's a 3 page document that makes a number of false assumptions. They
extrapolate bitcoin to having 300 billion transactions and means no lightening
or L2 solution and the block size would be 3gigs. Nor do they even factor in
the halving. Wasn't even researched properly, just utter nonsense for the
papers.

And Joe Rogan was showing how easy it is to publish fake papers in journals.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZZNvT1vaJg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZZNvT1vaJg)

here is the paper by the way behind a shitty paywall.
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0321-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0321-8)

~~~
laichzeit0
I thought Nature was one of the Big Journals that only publish high impact
things. How does stuff like this slip in then?

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corporateslaver
What are these people going to do in 25 years when none of these predictions
come true? Who will be held accountable for this?

~~~
deft
No one because it's a random offhand comment that will be forgotten. Bitcoin
mining would obviously transition to use renewables (it mostly does as it is,
cheap hydro is what most large scale operations are using), and no one will
care.

Why don't we see articles like this for more important bigger problems like
plastic waste that won't be solved by renewable energy? Because making random
claims about bitcoin STILL somehow gets clicks. And to the top of HN.

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akerro
How many °C will go up because of wasted power on not turned off computers and
AC in bank branches only in US?

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chx
D'oh, I submitted secondary reporting about this yesterday
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18333353](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18333353)
because this one is paywalled.

~~~
toomim
Free version: [http://sci-hub.tw/10.1038/s41558-018-0321-8](http://sci-
hub.tw/10.1038/s41558-018-0321-8)

