> We should not have allowed to allow burning this on the spot ever.
You do understand that the alternative is the rig blowing up at times right? Kinda feels like arguing we need to reduce animal suffering by burning down the rainforest so there’s no animals left that can suffer.
> We are able to catch gas, store and transport it.
Great. Now you need to find way to make it profitable.
You could force-entangle it with something profitable with a law.
For example you could say that if you own a well you must not burn the gas, but you must capture it and transport it at least some distance before it's burned. Then people would have incetive to find a buyer that will burn it to get some utility out of it (heating something probably).
But! That law would reduce profits of rich people in USA and since only rich people in USA decide which laws are created (they can practically veto all laws they oppose) no such law will be created.
So you have two options. Either wells will be just burning gas for nothing except turning more potent greenhouse gasses like methane into less potent one like CO2.
Or you can burn it and mine bitcoins. Which makes bitcoin less profitable for everyone else since all miners compete for a fixed number of bitcoins.
If bitcoin mining is less profitable other miners must look for cheaper energy to keep mining which means laeger percentage renewables at peak production times.
So in current political reality of USA this news is actually good news despite everything.
Another positive factor in using this gas to mine bitcoin is that it turns that gas into valuable resource, so there's no incentive to "loose" it due to leaks accidental or intentional and that would be the case if you tried to force owners to transport it away to somewhere where it's useful. And this gas, as I mentioned, is more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 produced by burning it.
Just that BTC consumes the energy and probably need AC so even more energy and consumed additional CO2 through making the ASIC.
And we are not in a isolated world. The miners will search and find a cheaper energy source anyway. Either by buying a gas power plant or by moving to cheaper country. No one is forcing a miner to use 'excess' energy.
'excess' energy is energy we need to make viable and work together for finding solutions. Bitcoin destroys this motivation.
Thanks to Bitcoin a global market can not only strip poor people from normal resources like oil, ors, metals but also from energy in any usable form.
Whatever it is doing it will find the cheapest energy possible and will consume it as long as the Bitcoin price allows it, totally independent of they type of energy.
Earning money through Bitcoin also not only incentive to eat up all cheap energy, it strips our society from a beneficial dripping effect.
The supply chain of Bitcoin is minimal with little to negative effects.
Asics consume chip production capacity. Talking about Bitcoin creates mental load.
And of course let's be realistic: we have already a PoS system (our currencies) which is highly optimized. BTC doesn't even solve anything.
There is no positive thing we as a society gain from Bitcoin.
Yes. Because alternative to that is releasing it into the atmosphere which is way worse.
> Just that BTC consumes the energy and probably need AC
Just fans. But that's just decreases the amount of bitcoins mined per kWh
> so even more energy and consumed additional CO2 through making the ASIC.
Yes. We need to build more equipment to turn useless gas into something profitable. No matter how we do that.
> And we are not in a isolated world. The miners will search and find a cheaper energy source anyway. Either by buying a gas power plant or by moving to cheaper country.
Or renewables where the price of electricity on the market is lower than what can be earned by mining bitcoin with it.
> No one is forcing a miner to use 'excess' energy.
Only market will force a miner to use excess energy from renewables. Cheapest energy sources are renewables. Even now in some countries, at times energy price on the market drops below zero because renewables produce more than necessary at that time.
And we are nowhere near the amount of renewable sources that will allow us to phase out fossil fuels.
We need to overbuild renewables to the point that at times 90% of energy they'll produce will be the excess. Even transferring it away from the power stations would burn our energy grid to a crisp. We need to work on distributed energy sinks that can be collocated with renewable power stations that will be able to turn that excess energy into money. It might be bitcoins miners, it might be aluminum smelters. For our energy transformation to succeed it doesn't matter what it is as long as it incentivizes building renewable sources like mad.
> 'excess' energy is energy we need to make viable and work together for finding solutions. Bitcoin destroys this motivation.
I have no idea what do you even have in mind. This is a problem that is unsolvable by coming together and political action. It was proven conclusively by 50 years of attempts. Bitcoin along with technological progress in solar and wind are the first thing that points us to a solution to energy transformation that could happen even if people of the world were all against solving climate change.
Economy, not politics is what shapes the world at such large scales.
> Thanks to Bitcoin a global market can not only strip poor people from normal resources like oil, ors, metals but also from energy in any usable form.
> Whatever it is doing it will find the cheapest energy possible and will consume it as long as the Bitcoin price allows it, totally independent of they type of energy.
> Earning money through Bitcoin also not only incentive to eat up all cheap energy, it strips our society from a beneficial dripping effect.
Yes. And that's why energy price will eventually rise to a point where mining bitcoins will be barely profitable and even that not at all times.
Energy will be more expensive and smart governments at this point should work tirelessly on creating solutions offsetting rising energy prices for poor people. Some form of Universal Basic Income will be required.
> Earning money through Bitcoin also not only incentive to eat up all cheap energy, it strips our society from a beneficial dripping effect.
What is a dripping effect?
> Asics consume chip production capacity.
Yes. Another area where we have way too little manufacturing than we need. Which current chip shortages clearly indicate. Demand for ASICs can incentivize overbuilding fabs same way mining will incentivize renewable energy generation. And bticoin is not the only game in town. Mining ETC requires fairly complex chips. Like GPUs. It is already sending price signals to GPU manufacturers making manufacturing GPUs way more profitable than it would be without it. And GPUs power ton of scientific computation and our early ventures into AI.
I've seen presentation by a scientist who, for his research, which was the point of presentation, used cluster of basically gaming hardware. And in an off hand note thanked the gamers for creating so much demand for such powerful hardware which made it a cheap commodity, so cheap that his research was possible.
Overbuilding GPUs and fabs in general for crypto will power our future of scientific computing.
> And of course let's be realistic: we have already a PoS system (our currencies) which is highly optimized. BTC doesn't even solve anything.
Bitcoin solves nothing about money beside minor things in niche applications. It solves some problems that gold has which makes it attractive for investors. And BTC being attractive vessel for investment is what will finance global energy transformation. With zero political action required.
> There is no positive thing we as a society gain from Bitcoin.
> 99,999999% of all humans are getting hurt by it.
> We all pay for Bitcoin.
We'll see. Bitcoin is still decades from equilibrium. It turns money of greedy people who seek investments into energy production. I don't see how this won't make us move to renewables since they are already cheapest way to generate energy.
If we got bitcoin when cheapest energy came from coal it could end us. But with technologies we have it can save us.
> Yes. Because alternative to that is releasing it into the atmosphere which is way worse.
That was not my point i made. We don't need BTC to change methan to co2.
>> Just that BTC consumes the energy and probably need AC
> Just fans. But that's just decreases the amount of bitcoins mined per kWh
'Not just'. In Texas summer weather there is probably AC running.
>> so even more energy and consumed additional CO2 through making the ASIC.
> Yes. We need to build more equipment to turn useless gas into something profitable. No matter how we do that.
Not profitable. Beneficial. Feel free to see ith through a pure economy standpoint but we are not in a 100% free market. There are plenty of examples how our markets are controlled to be more than just profitable. Its absolutely feasible to do this through politics. Easiest thing would be a proper co2 tax.
>> And we are not in a isolated world. The miners will search and find a cheaper energy source anyway. Either by buying a gas power plant or by moving to cheaper country.
> Or renewables where the price of electricity on the market is lower than what can be earned by mining bitcoin with it.
Lets talk about this after we fixed climate change. After we increased grid 'movecapacity' and after we increased storage.
>> No one is forcing a miner to use 'excess' energy.
> Only market will force a miner to use excess energy from renewables. Cheapest energy sources are renewables. Even now in some countries, at times energy price on the market drops below zero because renewables produce more than necessary at that time.
> And we are nowhere near the amount of renewable sources that will allow us to phase out fossil fuels.
> We need to overbuild renewables to the point that at times 90% of energy they'll produce will be the excess. Even transferring it away from the power stations would burn our energy grid to a crisp. We need to work on distributed energy sinks that can be collocated with renewable power stations that will be able to turn that excess energy into money. It might be bitcoins miners, it might be aluminum smelters. For our energy transformation to succeed it doesn't matter what it is as long as it incentivizes building renewable sources like mad.
It is clear what it should be. Its clear what it should not be. It should not be bitcoin. For bitcoin to be okay, we will have to transform a lot. We can't afford bitcoin right now at all.
>> 'excess' energy is energy we need to make viable and work together for finding solutions. Bitcoin destroys this motivation.
> I have no idea what do you even have in mind. This is a problem that is unsolvable by coming together and political action. It was proven conclusively by 50 years of attempts. Bitcoin along with technological progress in solar and wind are the first thing that points us to a solution to energy transformation that could happen even if people of the world were all against solving climate change.
> Economy, not politics is what shapes the world at such large scales.
You see, its easy: IPCC tells us what the issue is. Politics only need to enforce what economy is allowed to ignore: To pay the right price. We do not enforce that producing co2 costs us things like our health, our living space etc. We ignore it. We accept it as given. You don't need to pay a third world country money for the destruction of their living space. You and i and everyone else who can fathom this, has to push for this. Those countries need to push for this (and they start to do).
If you don't believe in this and economy wins without paying the right price, a lot of people are fucked.
>> Thanks to Bitcoin a global market can not only strip poor people from normal resources like oil, ors, metals but also from energy in any usable form.
>> Whatever it is doing it will find the cheapest energy possible and will consume it as long as the Bitcoin price allows it, totally independent of they type of energy.
>> Earning money through Bitcoin also not only incentive to eat up all cheap energy, it strips our society from a beneficial dripping effect.
> Yes. And that's why energy price will eventually rise to a point where mining bitcoins will be barely profitable and even that not at all times.
> Energy will be more expensive and smart governments at this point should work tirelessly on creating solutions offsetting rising energy prices for poor people. Some form of Universal Basic Income will be required.
Energy prices will increase the cost of living for people who can't play the same game as bitcoin on a global gambling market does. Do you really think this is okay? You write yourself 'creating solutions offsetting rising energy prices for poor people'. Why is the only solution for you to accept bitcoin as something which is here and can't be regularted? You do understand that we regulate everything else right? Have you tried building a nuclear plant? Coal plant without a filter? A car without any security standards and driving it on public roads?
Why is it, that everything you counter, only assumes that we have to live with shitcoin?
>> Earning money through Bitcoin also not only incentive to eat up all cheap energy, it strips our society from a beneficial dripping effect.
>What is a dripping effect?
Sry dribbling effect.
>> Asics consume chip production capacity.
> Yes. Another area where we have way too little manufacturing than we need. Which current chip shortages clearly indicate. Demand for ASICs can incentivize overbuilding fabs same way mining will incentivize renewable energy generation. And bticoin is not the only game in town. Mining ETC requires fairly complex chips. Like GPUs. It is already sending price signals to GPU manufacturers making manufacturing GPUs way more profitable than it would be without it. And GPUs power ton of scientific computation and our early ventures into AI.
> I've seen presentation by a scientist who, for his research, which was the point of presentation, used cluster of basically gaming hardware. And in an off hand note thanked the gamers for creating so much demand for such powerful hardware which made it a cheap commodity, so cheap that his research was possible.
> Overbuilding GPUs and fabs in general for crypto will power our future of scientific computing.
I'm fully aware for a long time, that GPUs and CPU advances have also beeing payed by consumers. But this is a beneficial ecosystem: We get creativity, entertainmen or lets say a cheap idle function for a lot of people. And this is a good thing. Its still discussable to which extend this is good, but the benefit of this exists while it doesn't for bitcoin.
We do not need bitcoin demand to cross finance the rest. Its a negative play we do. The ASIC calculating a hash is only good for bitcoin. My gpu, i can use for ML, Image and Video rendering, 3D Rendering and yes of course also for gaming but also for cancer research. Do you know what i can do with a BTC Asic? Searching for Bitcoins.
>> And of course let's be realistic: we have already a PoS system (our currencies) which is highly optimized. BTC doesn't even solve anything.
> Bitcoin solves nothing about money beside minor things in niche applications. It solves some problems that gold has which makes it attractive for investors. And BTC being attractive vessel for investment is what will finance global energy transformation. With zero political action required.
Are you ignoring all the negative effects bitcoin already has? A uncontrolled btc system already hurts people. There is a reason why Iran blocked/banned bitcoin mining for a while. There is a reason besides political ones why China doesn't allow it anymore. Its always the same issue: overloading the power grid and consuming too much power. We can't afford to play out a future without intervention were we accept that BTC will consume more and more without direct benefit UNTIL it is getting 'outleveled'.
>> There is no positive thing we as a society gain from Bitcoin.
>> 99,999999% of all humans are getting hurt by it.
>> We all pay for Bitcoin.
> We'll see. Bitcoin is still decades from equilibrium. It turns money of greedy people who seek investments into energy production. I don't see how this won't make us move to renewables since they are already cheapest way to generate energy.
> If we got bitcoin when cheapest energy came from coal it could end us. But with technologies we have it can save us.
We don't need Bitcoin. We need to advocate against bitcoin and for real solutions which will help us to do the right thing in a 'free' market for the whole planet.
> That was not my point i made. We don't need BTC to change methan to co2.
Yeah, we just need it to earn money from burning methane that's a side product of operating an oil well. If owner of the well doesn't care about money he can just burn it directly as a flare.
> 'Not just'. In Texas summer weather there is probably AC running.
Since electronics happily operates at 80C various cooling options should be available for dedicated mining installation. But that's irrelevant. Cooling is just part of bitcoin minining that decreases it's profitability slightly by increasing capital and operational costs. No matter what technology it uses.
> Not profitable. Beneficial. Feel free to see ith through a pure economy standpoint but we are not in a 100% free market. There are plenty of examples how our markets are controlled to be more than just profitable. Its absolutely feasible to do this through politics. Easiest thing would be a proper co2 tax.
Tax that we still don't have even though we should have it for the last 50 years? Beneficial is not enough. Rich make the laws. If something is not profitable for the rich it simply doesn't happen.
> Lets talk about this after we fixed climate change. After we increased grid 'movecapacity' and after we increased storage.
We won't fix the climate change if we don't overbuild renewables. Climate change won't wait till we figure out storage. We have to solve it with current technologies.
> It is clear what it should be. Its clear what it should not be. It should not be bitcoin. For bitcoin to be okay, we will have to transform a lot. We can't afford bitcoin right now at all.
We are living in the real world that's not concerned with what should or shouldn't be. Only what can be and what cannot not be.
Bitcoin is the first thing that can be the solution for distributed energy sinks that transfer wealth from Wall Street into renewable energy production without an ounce of political action required.
> You see, its easy: IPCC tells us what the issue is. Politics only need to enforce what economy is allowed to ignore: To pay the right price.
And yet, nobody who makes the decisions cares. That's a huge 'only' that needs to be enforced globally in a world where countries compete with each other and taxing your own economy cripples it when compared to others. I am not at all surprised that in 50 years we achieved nearly zero coordinated global action in that area.
> You and i and everyone else who can fathom this, has to push for this. Those countries need to push for this (and they start to do).
It won't matter because neither you nor I are billionaires so our voices don't count at all no matter how numerous. End even if we were billionaires it still would be a hard sell for our billionaire colleagues. The rich are told directly for few decades that if they don't reduce the wealth gap they'll eventually get literally eaten by the poor and they still don't care. The only thing they care is how much money they are earning right now. The only way to achieve energy transformation is to make it profitable for them and bitcoin is a way of doing that.
> Energy prices will increase the cost of living for people who can't play the same game as bitcoin on a global gambling market does. Do you really think this is okay?
Yes. It's perfectly ok that a person could not afford to buy even a fraction of the electricity they need to live. You know why? Because the electricity people need to live should not be something that they should buy at market rates.
Same way they don't have to buy all the roads they drive on or they don't have to pay for the clean air to breathe. Those things have their own markets and economies but citizens shouldn't be involved directly in those markets to be able to live.
It's fine if energy costs 100$ per kWh if every household gets 1mln$/year in non-transferable energy credit from the country they live in.
> Why is the only solution for you to accept bitcoin as something which is here and can't be regularted?
It's not the only solution, it's just a solution that will actually happen. Because even though we regulate many things, we are almost unable to regulate globally. And any country that doesn't join the ban on bitcoins that you promote will get massive benefits of increased investments into bitcoin mining and clean energy production financed by global bitcoin investors.
> Why is it, that everything you counter, only assumes that we have to live with shitcoin?
Because I wanted to show you consistent and clear vision of the future you are unable to imagine yourself because you made you mind on morality of bitcoin and energy waste and it closed off your mind to possible scenarios.
> Sry dribbling effect.
Still no idea what you might have in mind? Maybe you can share some link to some description or definition?
> I'm fully aware for a long time, that GPUs and CPU advances have also beeing payed by consumers. But this is a beneficial ecosystem: We get creativity, entertainmen or lets say a cheap idle function for a lot of people. And this is a good thing. Its still discussable to which extend this is good, but the benefit of this exists while it doesn't for bitcoin.
You don't recognize that gaming is a frivolous pursuit? And that those additional 400W my computer uses sometimes for 16 hours per day should be better used for other more utilitarian purposes? And that GPU I have should be used solely for scientific computing?
Regardless of whether we want it or not we have capitalism and our progress comes from excess not from optimal use of our resources. Scientists can afford hardware needed to push us forward only because millions of us use same hardware inefficiently for entertainment while wasting a lot of energy and materials.
Crypto is also a frivolous pursuit that will force us to expand which will make everything cheaper for all purposes (also noble ones) due to economies of scale.
> The ASIC calculating a hash is only good for bitcoin
Yes. But fab that makes BTC ASICs can pivot to making something else after demand for ASICs drops due to market saturation.
> Are you ignoring all the negative effects bitcoin already has? A uncontrolled btc system already hurts people. There is a reason why Iran blocked/banned bitcoin mining for a while. There is a reason besides political ones why China doesn't allow it anymore.
Yes, we are in a pinch at the moment. But rising energy prices and hitting the limits of our capacity is exactly what we need to expand it. And cheapest way to expand it is by going into renewables.
Pain is unfortunate but without moderate pain there can be no change. Shortage of chips is painful, but without that pain we wouldn't have so many new fabs being built right now.
> We don't need Bitcoin.
Perhaps. But Bitcoin is not going away. Not with its distributed nature, both good and bad effects and billions of dollars invested in it. Bitcoin is here to stay same way bittorrent is or drugs are.
> We need to advocate against bitcoin and for real solutions which will help us to do the right thing in a 'free' market for the whole planet.
Ask yourself. Did trouble with orchestrated political action on climate change start with bitcoin?
If not why do you think advocating against bitcoin, even if you managed to achieve global total ban, will bring you any further in real climate change action than we were in year 2000?
By all means advocate for the correct political decisions. By my estimate we'll achieve global consensus about year 2080. Then, when you'll be Great Tzar of Earth you'll be able just swap out all the bitcoin miners collocated near power plants with carbon capture carbon factories that will use abundant electricity to power clever fuel cells to separate CO2 from air and turn it into carbon with the use of gallium that you'll be able to promptly toss back into the mine shafts.
For me Bitcoin has enough reasons to fail (hopefully fast).
If it will not, your future will come true anyway after BTC consumes a lot more resources. After BTC consumes a lot of renewable demand and supply for the downside of us all.
Quick note on GPU: I did say that gaming is beneficial for us. It's a cheap idle process.
Quick note on dribbling down effect: catching those gases needs jobs, new or updated cheaper technology or a gas network. Something which does not circumvent many in-between jobs like Bitcoin does.
Did you read the article? This is ‘waste’ gas that you encounter in the oil drilling process.. they are using that to extract some value from an otherwise harmful waste. What is wrong with that approach?
This is certainly odd, but I feel like the article expects that you will get some sort of warm fuzzies from this? This usable energy was turned into heat by a crate of asics rather than just being combusted.
Somewhat strange if someone can't see the value in that, they are displacing more harmful sources of cryptocurrency hashing, while also creating value out of waste. They are also giving fracking and drilling companies a reason to rein in fugitive emissions of methane which plague the industry.
Taxes should provide the reason to rein in fugitive emissions. If the negative externalities were properly priced in, they would already be reducing the methane pollution. I’m pretty skeptical they are “creating value” - at this point increasing the hash rate adds approximately 0 marginal security.
if you can find a way to turn methane into something useful (ie sellable) that will probably work better than taxes, because it applies regardless of jurisdiction and because taxes can always be cheated (e.g underreport your emissions) whereas corporations will always earnestly chase profits
Why do people think it is better to make Bitcoin out of that gas and consume more energy due to hardware and required ac instead of catching it and actually using it.
Nothing was Gaines by this. Nothing for you, nothing for me.
We even got owned by this dick. Guess who will feel the effects of clima change? All of us
Isn't that just creating more electronic waste that has to be disposed of or recycled?
Now what will be clever is using the flare divert technology to distill a portable energy source from that electricity that can be used for more productive uses. Creating a block of some reactive X that can more easily be shipped than the gas that created it.
Crypto is like motor sport is to car production. It's mostly pointless in itself, but may lead to technology improvements in computer science that can be employed usefully elsewhere.
Costless atomic swaps between existing banks for example.
Once the equipment is paid for, they could keep running the generator even if it's not competitive anymore. The fuel is free and they still need to burn off the methane.
If the electronics needs be taken out, I suppose there are heaters that are lower maintenance. But maybe someone decides that the generator is worth reselling?
There is no "displacing" going on. The amount of hashing going on is independent of the amount of BTC mined or transactions verified per unit time.
Until such time that the hashrate rises to the point that BTC mining costs more than the power to run the same miners, nobody will be turning off the machines. Unfortunately that hasn't happened and won't for years ( barring BTC price drops).
The difficulty increases pushing out inefficient miners who no longer can afford to mine due to electricity costs. This is a process that always happens.
"The green focus appears to be helping Crusoe, which recently raised $128 million to help expand its flare capture technology to more than 100 units, from around 40 currently. Investors included Valor Equity Partners, Bain Capital, and the Agnelli family's Exor." https://markets.businessinsider.com/currencies/news/bitcoin-...
We should not have allowed to allow burning this on the spot ever.
We would now have cost effective counter measures or storage system for it.