
Bitcoin could cost us our clean-energy future - cardamomo
https://grist.org/article/bitcoin-could-cost-us-our-clean-energy-future/
======
unchocked
I wonder how many people defending bitcoin here are _aren't_ bitcoin holders.
I suspect very few, as I suspect that if you're holding an asset that's
appreciated 1000% in the last year you're going to have a hard time being very
objective about any criticism that seems to undermine that asset.

The amount of power bitcoin is sucking up is truly astounding. There will
eventually come a point where states are motivated to act against the network,
and I'd consider it wishful thinking on the part of bitcoin investors/true
believers that states have no real recourse. All that power comes from very
large physical sources, which can be controlled with violence. Short of that,
China could nationalize the miners and run a 51% attack, driving the price to
zero. TLA's have sufficient resources to deanonymize transactions and enforce
civil or criminal penalties.

People keep viewing bitcoin as this abstract cryptographic thing, but it
exists in the physical world, and in this world sovereign states hold ultimate
power. When major powers decide that bitcoin is not in their interest, they
will end the experiment. The truest believers will be left holding the bag.

~~~
mrb
«is truly astounding»

Would you say that the worldwide electricity consumption of Christmas
_decorative_ lights (2.3 GW assuming it's 3× the US) is "astounding"? Well,
Bitcoin miners consume less than that: I estimate 1.7 GW based on my previous
research bounding it to 0.6-1.2 GW as of July.

[http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-electricity-
consumption](http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-electricity-consumption)

Why do miners receive such a disproportionate amount of criticism considering
that so many other energy uses are vastly more wasteful by multiple orders of
magnitudes... Cars alone waste 95% of their fuel energy. The US wastes 61-86%
of its energy: [https://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/26/us-wastes-61-86-of-
its-...](https://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/26/us-wastes-61-86-of-its-energy/)
But, no, the average HN reader seems more concerned by these miners using
0.01% of the world's energy.

In the future, we _may_ eventually reach a point where the energy use starts
becoming worrying, but we are currently very far from that point.

~~~
panarky
Cryptocurrencies consume a miniscule fraction of the energy that the legacy
financial system wastes on office buildings, data centers, air travel and
commuting employees.

Why doesn't anyone complain that JPMorgan will "cost us our clean-energy
future"?

The great thing about a financial system defined by open-source software is
that true innovation happens every day. Already we see testing with proof-of-
stake, lightning network, etc. that are vastly more energy efficient.

------
rebuilder
Bitcoin's energy usage is getting a lot of press of late. Deservedly, I think
- it is a bit ludicrous. None of the articles I've seen really manage to get
at the economics of mining, or what's likely to happen in the future, though.
A Big Think article projected that by 2020, at the current growth rate,
Bitcoin will use as much power as is generated globally today. Obviously
that's not going to happen, something will give and that something is likely
to be Bitcoin's price.

But even though the articles I've seen are pretty fluffy, they probably stem
from an underlying issue that makes Bitcoin different from traditional,
energy-heavy industry: The value produced is not directly connected to the
energy expended in production. Bitcoin would work just as well with a small
fraction of the hashpower it has today. Security is an issue, but surely it
must be over-secured many times over at the moment.

Unfortunately no mechanism seems to exist to balance security vs cost, except
for the crash-boom market cycle Bitcoin constantly goes through. How much
hashpower is needed? The question is moot as there is no way to moderate it,
and I'm starting to think that may be Bitcoin's biggest design flaw. (Market
forces will certainly bring the energy cost of mining down one way or the
other, but it's not clear how much damage will be done to Bitcoin in the
process.)

~~~
modeless
> Unfortunately no mechanism seems to exist to balance security vs cost

Bitcoin _does_ include a perfectly good mechanism to balance security vs cost:
the transaction fee market. Users decide how much they want to pay in
transaction fees.

The reason for the high electricity use today is the _temporary_ block reward
for mining each block. The block reward halves every three years. Once it goes
away, the only thing funding Bitcoin's electricity consumption will be the
transaction fees users pay. Obviously if Bitcoin does not provide enough value
to users, they will not pay high fees. Electricity consumption will naturally
go down to a level that matches the value people get out of the network.

Remember this next time you see an article complaining about Bitcoin's
electricity use. I haven't seen a single article about this written by
somebody who understands the difference between the block reward and the
transaction fee market.

~~~
rebuilder
Users are not paying for security, they are paying for having their
transaction processed. In fact, I don't see that users have any way to measure
the security of the network granularly: if secure, everything works. If not,
systemwide chaos ensues.

~~~
modeless
The security of the network can be measured by any user. Multiply the mining
difficulty by the efficiency of mining hardware and the price of electricity
and divide by 2; this is the cost of running a 51% attack.

The beauty of the mining mechanism is that having transactions processed
provides security at the same time. As long as users see value in having
transactions processed they will be willing to fund miners with transaction
fees.

However, you're right that users aren't paying for security directly. The fee
market may not actually give miners enough revenue to ensure network security.
When the block reward goes away electricity consumption will certainly drop
(relative to transaction volume), but it may even drop _too far_ to the point
where the network is no longer secure from 51% attacks.

------
thisisit
I am sure this topic will be full of whataboutism - what about x, y, z
industry's emissions?

Here's the thing - Bitcoin hung the energy albatross around it's neck long
back - First by choosing SHA based PoW, then the one of the early transactions
in US being calculated using the energy required to mine those and then most
of the sold equipment focusing on hashes per watts consumed.

No other industry other than automotive has tied itself to energy so strongly.
So, it is quite disingenuous to not answer this criticism without devolving
into whataboutism.

There has been a solution in form of Proof of Stake but that has it's own
issue.

I am sure there will be more energy efficient PoW in the future, so let's wait
and see if Bitcoin is going to cost the future or not.

~~~
iainmerrick
Maybe I'm over-interpreting "work", in the physics sense, but won't any proof-
of-work scheme have the same problem? To get more coins, miners need to do
more work, and that takes more energy.

I can't see that it matters what the hashing scheme is, the work will always
expand to use the available energy.

~~~
TYPE_FASTER
> Maybe I'm over-interpreting "work", in the physics sense, but won't any
> proof-of-work scheme have the same problem? To get more coins, miners need
> to do more work, and that takes more energy.

Only if we assume mining, in it's current BTC implementation, is the only
acceptable PoW.

I think there are other PoW alternatives that could be used. And they'll be
identified and implemented soon, in the next couple years, as people realize
we can swap out SHA hashing for an algorithm that does something productive,
and use the output of that algorithm to be the proof of work.

The amount of computing power in ASIC miners running today is quite large, and
has grown quickly. If we think of those computing resources running something
else, and verifying work across nodes, then this is quite possible.

~~~
iainmerrick
I'm very skeptical that some task can be found that's really useful in itself
_and_ is predictable and cheat-proof enough to be usable for something like
Bitcoin.

I mean, are you thinking of something like SETI or Folding@home? Those are
arguably useful, but there's a ton of scope for playing around with the
problem scope and developing new variants that might require far fewer
resources but remain useful -- and that's a good thing! But it surely makes
them less usable as PoW systems.

~~~
TYPE_FASTER
Yes, exactly. I don't think requiring fewer computing resources is a bad
thing, having multiple nodes in the blockchain come to the same conclusion
could provide a level of trust similar to the existing mining algorithm.
That's wasteful as well, but not as wasteful.

~~~
iainmerrick
But how do you address the fundamental problem of an arms race between miners?
They could end up burning 90% of the world's energy production madly
calculating protein folds. Is that a good return on investment?

~~~
TYPE_FASTER
In my opinion, it's a better return than calculating SHA hashes with no aim
other than to do work.

We could prioritize computing problems by increasing the reward for working
"more important" problems (find asteroids that are going to hit us?).

~~~
iainmerrick
It's better but not much better. How do you avoid an arms race? Who gets to
decide what problems are important?

------
gremlinsinc
B.S. -- if we replace all electric grids with solar, it doesn't matter how
many miners spin up, they'll all be on solar thus renewable.

If anything -- it'd even make more sense for BTC companies to use solar since
costs are a LOT cheaper.

~~~
rebuilder
More power usage = greater overall cost of energy production. That's true
regardless of method of production. We are not now, and never will be (barring
radical changes in our economic system) living in a world with abundant
energy. Bitcoin miners compete for energy with other industries, driving total
energy usage up. Ultimately, there's a cap to how much energy we can produce
on Earth, and you'd be surprised how close we are to that limit, assuming
production growth similar to the historical average.

Edit: To expand on the last claim a little, I was thinking of this:
[https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-
energy/](https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/)

The graph of Earth's surface temperature assuming 2.3% yearly growth in energy
consumption is... illuminating. Basically, in a bit over 400 years, the
surface temperature on Earth would reach the boiling point of water, not due
to the complex effects of climate change, but simply because the amount of
waste heat generated by energy production and usage will exceed the Earth's
capacity to dissipate into space. Obviously disastrous temperatures would
occur rather sooner. Unfortunately our societies hinge on constant economic
growth, which, in turn, seems to hinge on growing energy usage.

~~~
gremlinsinc
Couldn't we beam energy from outerspace/moon as lasers to cooled facilities
that absorb/store the energy? How else would a dyson sphere work to get energy
to the planet without obliterating it?

~~~
rebuilder
Presumably when you have a Dyson sphere, you're not planetbound any more.

------
gersh
People seem to have some misconceptions. If we assume the cost of the mining
hardware becomes negligible over time, then the cost of mining bitcoin is the
cost of the energy. The amount earned by miners is: mining reward +
transaction costs. The mining reward will decrease over time, so in the end it
should be the transaction costs.

Now, we then get that as t --> big transaction costs = cost of energy because
spending more energy than you make on Bitcoin loses money. People should be
incentivized to reduce their transaction costs by going off-chain, using a POS
chain, or other means.

------
conanbatt
I'd say its the opposite. Bitcoin has the practical capacity for its
generation to happen in a place where you can put all solar panels. Maybe the
future of miners is a cave in the saudi desert.

------
rgbrenner
13 TWH globally? The US alone produces 4000 TWH of electricity [0].

This isn't a problem. It shouldn't be an article.

edit: global energy consumption is 110,000 TWH [1]

0\.
[https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_01_01.html](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_01_01.html)

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption)

~~~
unchocked
That's 1% of global energy usage, and you say it isn't worth writing about?

*edit yep math's wrong. It's still a shitload of power and worth writing about.

~~~
rgbrenner
Check your math. 13 / 110,000 = 0.00012. Or 0.012%. That's 1/80th of 1%.

If it gets to 1% -- 1100 TWH -- then sure, it'll definitely be worth
discussing.

------
tomaha
Proof of stake will solve this for Ethereum by not burning processing power to
secure the network. We'll likely end up with several of these methods and even
if proof of work is still part of this it's likely much more specialized and
just a small part of the system we'll end up with. So for the future this
really is no problem at all.

~~~
etr-strike
There’s no evidence Proof of Stake is a viable replacement for Proof of Work.

~~~
cantrip
I honestly had deja-vu when I saw this comment but then realized I guess it's
just a shill-bot.

------
gt_
It’s easy to conclude the inefficiencies brought on by the abuses of the
financial sector have done leagues more damage to our “clean energy future.”
Poverty cuts environmental concern clearly out of the picture.

-typed in the mid-winter warmth of x3 GTX 980 Tis running NiceHash

------
kbody
Talking about clean-energy yet failing to compare CO2 emissions but merely
refer to GWhrs is totally missing the point.

Several big Bitcoin miners are setup near or just being powered by
hydroelectric dams or other renewable energy sources. And all of them of
course target low costs, which a lot of times means that there's an oversupply
of power in essence helping in some cases use energy that would go to waste
otherwise.

You have to compare the gold or bank industry's to Bitcoin's mining emissions.
Gold is constrained by the gold mines positions, uses oil a lot, unless
someone does a proper study, all this articles are just sensationalistic
articles by clueless journos hunting pageviews and likes.

Sidenote, funny how this is filled under "Currency Manipulation"

~~~
jcranmer
Which do you think uses more computing hardware, every Bitcoin miner in the
world, or the VISA payment network? Even today, the answer is quite clearly
the total Bitcoin mining network--now consider expanding the scale of Bitcoin
transactions to the VISA network, a 1000× scale increase.

Almost by definition, cryptocurrency requires spending useless energy. In
electronic transactions as they exist today, you essentially only have to
update the tables in two institution's databases (plus all the replication and
backups that entails). A cryptocurrency requires everybody to record their
transaction--and do a bunch of useless cryptography to to ensure that they do
so.

Asking how much emissions it costs to mine the gold or grow the cotton to
satisfy my paycheck is misleading. Exactly 0 joules were spent: no gold needed
to be mined, nor coins minted, nor dollar bills printed to satisfy the
electronic transactions to decrement a number at my employer's bank and
increment the number at my personal bank appropriately.

~~~
hossbeast
It uses more energy, but means you don't have to trust anyone to transact. It
remains to be seen just how much that property is worth. (Quite alot, I
suspect).

~~~
jcranmer
You don't have to trust anyone to carry out the financial part of the
transaction. You still have to trust that the business side of the transaction
goes through.

~~~
hossbeast
True, and a useful clarification

------
bamboozled
I would love to see a comparison of what current financial institutions
greenhouse emissions look like.

Think of all the banks, branches, employees, servers, dirty investments, the
works. I'm pretty sure BTC would pale in comparison.

On a side note, I've heard similar wild claims be made about the electricity
used per Google search.

~~~
bdcravens
Wouldn't you then have to compare the entire Bitcoin ecosystem, not just
mining?

~~~
Frogolocalypse
Because bitcoin has a striking lack of middle men, unlike banking.

------
matte_black
Sometimes I wonder if Bitcoin was a plot to destroy the world through
exponentially increasing energy consumption that leads to accelerated global
warming that ends the human race. Whoever created such a thing would have
reason to hide.

~~~
cwkoss
Sometimes I wonder if Bitcoin was a plot to transfer wealth from cynics to
optimists.

------
briantakita
Same with the Military Industrial Complex, Big Agriculture, & mass
prescriptions of Pharmaceuticals. Funny there aren't any complaints there from
this outlet. I suppose it's not in their priorities to notice...

~~~
jasonmp85
Those outfits often actually produce something of value.

~~~
briantakita
Each of the topics provide different value to different parties. The crux of
the matter is noticing this type of distinction.

For example, Bitcoin seems to provide independence from the Banking
Establishment, which alters what sorts of activities are funded.

Industries such as the Military Industrial Complex, Big Agriculture, & Big
Pharma has largely been co-opted by established interests. Public Relations is
utilized to convince people to adopt philosophies that are friendly to these
industries while not looking out for their own interests.

On the surface, there seems to be a dialectic between decentralized (Bitcoin)
& centralized (the Establishment) forms of control.

It's easy to see the possibility for media outlets or NGO's are nothing more
than fronts using the "greater good" as an argument to advocate for the
interests of their benefactors. Edward Bernays describes this technique in
some of his books.

------
GreaterFool
Just like burning coal fueled industrial revolution proof of work fuels
bitcoin revolution. This is a stepping stone. Alternatives to proof of work
are coming but slowly and that's fine. But we'll get there.

Bitcoin is not "Money 2.0" but is a necessary stepping stone.

