

Virtual Bitcoin Mining Is a Real-World Environmental Disaster - bitdiddle
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-12/virtual-bitcoin-mining-is-a-real-world-environmental-disaster.html

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killermonkeys
Given that all work takes energy, it seems vastly stupid to call "a disaster".
It also costs money to click cows, watch cat videos, make toast, and cuddle
babies. Relatively speaking the impact is low. The intrisic value is based in
the difficulty of obtaining it, like many other assets.

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zizee
Unless I am mistaken, the majority of energy that goes into generating
bitcoins (and any computation) is generally lost as heat.

It would be interesting if a bitcoin miner could replace a large building's
furnace with their equipment, using the "waste" energy to provide heat to
offices/apartments.

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zizee
I wonder if any large bitcoin mining operation has thought about locating
themselves in Denmark:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5547979>

As bitcoin mining boxes can be spun up at a moments notice, they could be used
to take advantage of the "free" electricity that is generated when Denmark's
wind turbines are producing more electricity than there is demand.

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RockyMcNuts
If new bitcoins were worth billions, billions in energy would be wasted mining
them.

(the denomination of newly-created bitcoin is adjusted to keep the growth rate
at the prescribed amount regardless of how much CPU power is dedicated to
mining. So regardless of the bitcoin price, the energy needed to mine new
bitcoin is close to the value of bitcoin created. Otherwise mining would be a
free lunch.)

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senthilnayagam
US dollar and economy prospered for last 40 years with its power to print
paper money without anything to back it. with 2 trillion dollars debt, US
Paper money is now worth the paper and this bubble will burst someday , so
people are going behind a currency with some Mathematical principles .

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Zarkonnen
So this is turning real coal into imaginary value. Great.

