Ask HN: Is the Bitcoin community doing anything about its environmental costs? - febin
======
tasubotadas
Bear in mind, that I would answer this differently about Bitcoin efficiency
and energy usage if the question would be asked in a different manner, BUT:

While some claim that it's a "yes", it's actually a NO.

Bitcoin doesn't care (or people mining it) about environmental impact. Heck,
most of the people in general do not care about environment.

Currently, the entire community is riding a speculative hype train to earn
money, not to save the planet. Also, most miners (one of the most influential
groups in Bitcoin) are based in China - does that strike you as an
environment-savvy place?

This question reeks of the Californian idealogical bubble. What's next? Is
Bitcoin diverse enough?

~~~
heckerhut
China is actually quite environment savvy. They understand that
environmentally friendly tech is an economic growth machine. The US less so. I
do t worry about China as much as I worry about US.

~~~
tasubotadas
I agree that they started caring about it more now (cancelled plans for future
coal plants, big plans for electric cars).

But overall, my impression is that disregard for the environment is rampant:
\- 60% of the country's rivers suffer from pollution to such an extent that
they cannot be safely used as drinking water sources
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_resources_of_China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_resources_of_China)
\- [https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/24/river-
rubbish...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/24/river-rubbish-ugly-
secret-china-beautiful-guilin) \- [http://www.businessinsider.de/china-
factories-shut-down-to-c...](http://www.businessinsider.de/china-factories-
shut-down-to-curb-pollution-2017-10?r=US&IR=T)

As is it stands now, it is a pretty disgusting place to live in and these
habits need a lot of time to be fixed (just because government announced they
care environment, it doesn't mean that people/businesses will suddenly start
caring as well). However, as you say - they are at least on the right
direction for the change.

------
wsc981
Maybe not necessarily the Bitcoin community, but other cryptos are figuring
other solutions to fix this problem. One of these solutions is the Proof of
Stake [0] instead of Bitcoin's Proof of Work.

Perhaps after all Bitcoin coins have been mined (currently around 17.000.000
mined, 21.000.0000 total IIRC), not much energy would be needed afterwards,
for Bitcoin at least?

\---

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-
stake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-stake)

~~~
sanxiyn
> Perhaps after all Bitcoin coins have been mined, not much energy would be
> needed afterwards, for Bitcoin at least?

Nope, "mining", which is proof-of-work solving, is needed as long as Bitcoin
is used, even after coin generation is complete.

~~~
AndrewDucker
But the competition may lower, if the reward they get drops.

~~~
innot
For some blocks I checked a week ago the transaction fees amounted for approx.
1/3 of the reward. Like, 12.5btc of newly generated coins and 6btc of fees.
Although, to compensate for the next reward halving the fees would need to go
further up, and they already aren't acceptable for smaller transactions.

~~~
wsc981
But this is a problem (the high fees) that should be solved by the Lightning
Network [0].

From what I understand this will bundle many smaller transactions into 1 big
transaction or something like that. This should happen off-chain therefore
small transactions will be quicker and cheaper.

\---

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network)

------
clarents
This isn't exactly the Bitcoin community per se, but Ethereum is working on a
proof-of-stake algorithm to replace proof-of-work. This is a much less energy
intensive intensive algorithm, and while I'm a bit skeptical that it's as
secure as proof-of-work, I'm glad they are trying something.

------
Mtinie
Yes, both within the formal Bitcoin Community, and extending to the larger
crypto asset business space. There are a few broad initiatives that I know of,
forwarded by different groups:

* Tennet and Sonnen collaboration to stabilize European power supplies with renewable sources; built on IBM’s blockchain tech[0]

* New tokens with “green” focuses and schemes, represented by SolarCoin, KWhcoin, EverGreenCoin.

* Significant research into “proof-of-anything-but-work” hashing schemes, as previously mentioned by others in the thread. This includes long-running experiments such as Peercoin.

* I count the on-going efficiency gains made by the major mining hardware suppliers. That work isn’t altruism, sure, but arguably more efficient miners are better for the environment...though more efficient miners can also be run in denser clusters, so let’s call this one a wash.

* Anecdoteally, I’ve heard of direct seed and early stage investments by people I know in the community to bootstrap renewables. Partially because they are “pet” interests, partially because they were early miners and would like to find a way to bring a cost effective and sustainable electrical source to the networks they contribute to.

——-

[https://www.coindesk.com/tennet-sonnen-ibm-renewable-
energy/](https://www.coindesk.com/tennet-sonnen-ibm-renewable-energy/)

------
asar
If you look at Bitcoin as a store of value like gold, the energy consumption
is actually not that high.

From a wired post

 _But in his paper, Vranken counters that in the 100MW to 500MW range, bitcoin
mining requires between 0.8KWh to 4.4KWh per year, but the energy required for
mining and recycling gold – which backs US currency – is 138KWh a year, while
printing paper notes and minting coins is 11KWh._

[http://www.wired.co.uk/article/how-much-energy-does-
bitcoin-...](http://www.wired.co.uk/article/how-much-energy-does-bitcoin-
mining-really-use)

~~~
pjc50
Can we have the actual paper, because those numbers without context are
obviously nonsense? "0.8KWh to 4.4KWh" isn't the _total_ consumption of
anything, I'm guessing it's supposed to be per bitcoin mined or is it per
dollar value?

> "gold – which backs US currency"

Not true.

~~~
asar
This seems to be the paper referenced
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877343517...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877343517300015?via%3Dihub)

>Not true.

Massive gold reserves are still held by all central banks, so I'd say it is
true. Gold and the military back the US currency.

~~~
pjc50
This is not how "backing" is normally understood, though; the currency is not
exchangeable for gold at a fixed rate. People like to say the military "backs"
the currency too, but I've never understood what this means in practice. The
stability of the US dollar has caused it to be used by all sorts of countries
as a reference, entirely voluntarily.

~~~
asar
Receiving tax payments is essential to countries in our current global
monetary system. USD are spent by citizens but also by the government itself,
both depend on system stability. Now assume that one day a large enough number
of people/corporations decides not to pay their USD taxes anymore. The FED
would issue new bonds to ensure liquidity of the government. Banks would have
to buy these bonds from the government and how would these banks be convinced
that this is a one time event and tax payers will return to normal behavior
and their large USD reserves don't turn worthless? The military. Trust in the
military force is also what gives foreign and domestic investors trust in the
dollar.

~~~
pjc50
So you're saying the US would become a military dictatorship, and this is
supposed to be reassuring? It's a weird kind of fantasy scenario about a tax
strike.

~~~
asar
I agree that it's far fetched and an extreme example, but still interesting to
think it through. As it does shed some light on the different actors and their
potential motivations.

~~~
pjc50
> interesting to think it through

I see a pre-determined conclusion there rather than very much kind of thought.
Tax strikes are hard to organise and much tax is collected automatically. If
some organisation has the power to organise a tax strike, what are their
political demands? Why wouldn't this just result in electoral victory for the
Anti-Tax Party? Is there a general strike as well?

There's no need to _force_ people to buy US treasuries either, the open market
can support a lot of demand and there is a lot of room to increase yields if
they're not selling. Finally there is the option to simply "print", physically
or virtually, in order to support operations. This runs the exchange rate down
but since the US is pretty physically self-sufficient, especially in terms of
oil production, food and pharmaceuticals, that's less of an immediate problem.

------
ManlyBread
Most initiatives, businesses and factories doesn't care until there's a risk
of paying a fine, a way to make additional profit or a way of cutting costs.
Why would Bitcoin be any different?

------
s_dev
What would you suggest?

The currency -- like the internet is so decentralised it could survive a
nuclear apocalypse. Even attempting to corral this into an some
environmentally friendly structure is far beyond trying to herd cats.

The problem isn't Bitcoin -- it's using fossil fuels for energy -- solve this
at a global level and the Bitcoin issue is solved as well.

~~~
johnchristopher
I wonder: if there truly was a nuclear apocalypse, could bitcoins be used ?
Would it be more practical than barters or leftover coins and jewels ?

~~~
throwanem
As long as the nuclear apocalypse in question leaves the Internet effectively
untouched, sure. Oh, and shipping companies, to deliver things people buy. And
power generation infrastructure, to run the Internet, and fuel infrastructure,
to run the trucks. To whatever extent the nuclear apocalypse leaves these
things functional, Bitcoin can still be used. That the extent to which the
nuclear apocalypse leaves these things functional, is inversely proportional
to the extent to which the nuclear apocalypse is a nuclear apocalypse, seems a
detail not worthy of much regard among serious-minded cryptocurrency
aficionados.

(On a more local level, if your postapocalyptic enclave finds it more
practical to denominate transactions in cryptocurrency instead of barter or
some physical medium of exchange, congratulations! The power, time, and effort
required to maintain such an infrastructure, in such a time and place,
represent unimaginable luxury. Try to enjoy it, in whatever moments you can
spare from repelling raiders drawn by the prospect of gaining access to a
working power plant and all your other riches.)

------
weddpros
Scalability solutions should help (SegWit and Lightning Network), but energy
cost is closely related to the potential gains.

Other crypto currencies use Proof of Stake instead of Proof of Work for
consensus. I think one of them will emerge as a better technical solution and
will dethrone Bitcoin.

------
thisisit
I wrote an article on this topic:

[https://hackernoon.com/dummies-guide-to-bitcoin-energy-
use-5...](https://hackernoon.com/dummies-guide-to-bitcoin-energy-
use-5f38e91c3253)

------
J_cst
Andreas has given his point of view about the matter recently:

[https://youtu.be/2T0OUIW89II](https://youtu.be/2T0OUIW89II)

------
MadSudaca
There are new promising minerless coins on the works that look promising. They
might end up being a substitute or alternative to bitcoin.

------
LeanderK
This sounds like an academically interesting question. Is there an academic
community around these questions?

------
sharemywin
Driving up electrical demand/prices so, power stations have more money to
invest in solar and stuff.

------
zunzun
No.

------
la_fayette
Green Mining ;)

------
nahm8
No

------
vbezhenar
Bitcoin doesn't have this problem. Each mined block have limited bitcoins in
reward and bitcoin price won't skyrocket to the infinity, so sum of all miner
expenses is limited by some fixed number, nobody would spend their money and
mine with negative result.

~~~
Dumbdo
> Each mined block have limited bitcoins in reward

This is true, but the value of bitcoin is not limited. If more people buy
bitcoins, it's value (compared to USD) rises and so will the reward if
converted to USD. Because you pay the mining costs in a real currency like
USD, the total mining expenses are definitely not capped.

~~~
vbezhenar
World economics is finite, so bitcoin price is limited, even if we would
assume that it'll skyrocket and other currencies would collapse.

