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>At current levels, bitcoin uses very roughly 0.1% of global electricity but electricity only represents 25% of fossil fuels emissions so current PoW contribution to global emissions = 0.025%, ie a rounding error.

How does this argument make sense? Let's split up the world's energy consumption into 0.025% emission sized chunks in some arbitrary way we choose. Does nothing then make any difference, since everything is just a rounding error? The question is, does bitcoin provide value for the emissions it generates? For what it's worth, estimates seem to put the current usage at around 0.6% of total worldwide energy consumption.




I see your point but my first bit just meant to highlight the unfair disproportionate energy attention PoW has been getting specifically vs just about any other use case.

I don't personally think you should be making moral judgements about energy use though. Let the market decide what's a good use of energy. If you have a carbon problem, tax / regulate that, PoW won't care. It will adjust through difficulty adjustments.

But if you are worried about PoW boiling the oceans if left unchecked, the numbers should comfort you it's at worst going to tap mostly into wasted energy / mostly renewable and probably not have a noticeable impact even extrapolated to a peak outcome (and probably even be a net positive).




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