
Bitcoin can push global warming above 2 C in a couple decades - castlenine
https://phys.org/news/2018-10-bitcoin-global-couple-decades.html?fbclid=IwAR38ZYJs34BVybWmia0sWSVqjse05OmObNiSW9_aKOAKk0BUKIB3WJ-vINQ
======
phiresky
Actual source since this is almost impossible to find from the link above:

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0321-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0321-8)

[https://github.com/moracamilo/Bitcoin/](https://github.com/moracamilo/Bitcoin/)

Edit: The study seems to have a major flaw in that it ignores the effect of
the block subsidy in its calculations: Though it mentions the block reward
halvenings, it ignores them in the CO2e calculations. They basically calculate
the CO2e emissions per transaction in 2017, then multiply that by a predicted
number of transactions that will be made in future years [1]. Currently,
transaction fees only account for 1-2% of the miner reward - (in 2017 on
average 17% of profit was the fees, in 2018 6% and in the past 6 months only
1.5% [2] )

The study makes predictions in a very long term (15+ years) - but they ignore
that what is currently 95+% of the reward (and thus 95% of the energy used)
automatically halves every four years. This ratio will forcibly change over
time - in 20 years bitcoin is either dead or fees will account for almost all
of the reward - which means you have to divide the predicted emissions in the
paper by at least 5.

In the long term the amount of energy one BTC transaction burns is pretty much
the same as the fee paid for that transaction times the cheapest electricity
in the world.

[1] "The CO2e emissions of projected Bitcoin usage were estimated using the
CO2e emissions for Bitcoin transactions in 2017 as a reference. We randomly
sampled blocks mined in 2017 until their total number of transactions were
equal to the projected number of transactions, then we added the CO2e
emissions from computing such randomly selected blocks. The approach was
repeated 1,000 times."

[2]:
[https://gist.github.com/phiresky/a6755c650b3bbb340c4d641f89f...](https://gist.github.com/phiresky/a6755c650b3bbb340c4d641f89f01b42)

------
omarforgotpwd
Assuming we don't find better ways to generate electricity. This ignores that
a lot of mining power is concentrated in China hooked up to cheap renewable
sources like hydro-electric power. If we can generate electricity without
emissions and run miners off that (wind, nuclear, solar, hydro-electric...)
then there is no need for Bitcoin to warm the planet at all.

------
lozenge
"should it follow the rate of adoption of other broadly adopted technologies"

Rather than, should it follow a realistically low rate of adoption.

------
unstatusthequo
Satoshi is really just a consortium of electricity companies?

------
gimmeDatCheddar
That garbage ponzi scheme really should just be banned.

