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Bitcoin Power The Almighty Buck

Bitcoin Mining Council To Report Renewable Energy Usage (bbc.com) 183

Posted by BeauHD from the encouraging-renewable-sources dept.
A new Bitcoin Mining Council has been created to improve the crypto-currency's sustainability, following a meeting of "leading" Bitcoin miners and Elon Musk. The BBC reports: It's hoped the council will "promote energy usage transparency" and encourage miners to use renewable sources. According to a tweet by MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, who convened the meeting of the group and Elon Musk, the council includes "the leading Bitcoin miners in North America." But research from a group of universities suggested that China accounted for more than 75% of Bitcoin mining as of April 2020. The authors estimated that 40% of China's Bitcoin mines were powered by coal.

[T]he group needs to do more than "disclosing and promoting the use of renewables," Alex de Vries of the website Digiconomist told the BBC. "Even if we had disclosure, that doesn't change the natural incentive of these miners to search out the cheapest and most constant sources of power - which typically comes down to (obsolete) fossil fuels," he said. "Kentucky even came up with a tax break for Bitcoin miners to come and use their obsolete coalfields. So, I'm not seeing this trend towards more renewables." However council member Peter Wall, Chief Executive of Argo, argued that increasingly US Bitcoin miners were choosing renewable power. He felt the council could encourage change."It's early days, it's embryonic. There will be lots of discussions moving forward about the best way to promote sustainable Bitcoin mining and to do it not just in North America," he said.
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Bitcoin Mining Council To Report Renewable Energy Usage More

Bitcoin Mining Council To Report Renewable Energy Usage

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  • Jesus H Christ, who cares if its "renewable"? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25, 2021 @09:32PM (#61422150)

    They're still computers crunching numbers, you fucking idiots. A 100% conversion to heat.

    This shit needs to end. Cryptocurrencies are but the least efficient transaction mechanism ever invented - Bitcoin alone, for example, needs 1200 kWh, end to end, to validate a single transaction. Insanity.

    • Re:Jesus H Christ, who cares if its "renewable"? (Score:5, Informative)

      by NFN_NLN ( 633283 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2021 @10:12PM (#61422254)

      > Bitcoin alone, for example, needs 1200 kWh, end to end, to validate a single transaction. Insanity.

      The difficulty dynamically scales to guard against brute force attacks. Aside from moving to Proof of Work, you can't arbitrarily scale down Bitcoin difficulty unless you want to open it to attacks. However, if technology and resources were to scale back naturally, then yes it can get easier - but only if it scales back for EVERYONE including hackers.

      Feel free to read up: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Dif... [bitcoin.it]

      • I assume you mean moving to "Proof of Stake". Which, yes, is exactly the kind of solution that Bitcoin needs. That said, Bitcoin's problem is that it was the first ever cryptocurrency. Brilliant! But the inventor could not possibly foresee everything. Really, it's a proof-of-concept that has outlived its usefulness. It needs to be decommissioned, now, because much better solutions have been developed. Just as an example, if you want fast, low-cost transactions, try Solana.

    • you are imagining waste heat of electricity use in any way contributes to "global warming"? No it doesn't. The heat is not a problem.

      • The ecology of many rivers around the world would disagree with you. Cooling for power production is a major use of fresh water around the world, and even hydro-electric dams damage river water quality. These have devastated ecologies in many downstream areas. Even if the heat itself is not an issue, destroying the CO2 transforming capability of entire river deltas contributes to global warming.

        • Irrelevant to discussion, we're talking of heat at point of use that someone imagined is massive problem. Not at place of production.

          Sure, production can make greenhouse gasses that heat the world, or cause heat pollution of a lake or river... or not, depending on method of production.

          • It's a question: is the power consumed by the electronics a significant global warming contributor? Given that direct solar energy is far greater, and given that global warming is allegedly caused by slightly improving the conservation of solar energy in Earth's atmosphere, it's not currently a significant contributor by pure heat production. It _is_ currently consuming roughly 1/2 of one percent of all energy production in the world, and shows no signs of abating, and that _is_ contributing to heat polluti

            • No, the emission of heat at point of use has no bearing whatsoever on heat of globe, its mostly the nasty production pollution that causes the bad warming. The Earth receives more energy from the Sun in two hours (640 exajoules) than the human race consumes from all energy sources combined, un-renewable and renewable, in a year (430 exajoules)

    • Crypto miners are just as efficient as space heaters. It's all about what you do with the waste heat.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mysidia ( 191772 )

      for example, needs 1200 kWh, end to end, to validate a single transaction. Insanity.
      That's just a completely disingenuous argument and clear misinformation cryptophobes, ignorant people who fear new ideas like crypto are parroting - Bitcoin in fact does not consume any additional per-transaction Kilowatts.. when miners generate a block with 0 or 1 transactions pretty much the same amount of energy has been consumed as with a mined block on the Layer 1 network with maximum transactions.

      Then there's the Bi

      • Then there's the Bitcoin Lightning Layer 2 network that can handle millions of transactions at higher speeds and throughput in between mined blocked, which of course likewise the cryptophobes and academics are glazing over/pretending doesn't exist, because it doesn't go with the narrative/FUD they're trying to create.

        Congratulations, you just have reinvented banks. Now, tell me more about decentralization...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mysidia ( 191772 )

          It's not like banks. The lightning network is a decentralized system.

          • Dude, you're building your own mini-transaction networks on top of Bitcoin. This is literally the current hub-and-spoke model for banked financial systems, where pretty all transactions happen through intermediaries.

            Each one of these sub-networks is completely separated from Bitcoin's too so, yeah, "decentralized" my ass - if your transactions are going through these and hub servers crash, there's no recourse.

    • Re: Jesus H Christ, who cares if its "renewable"? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by beelsebob ( 529313 ) on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @02:50AM (#61422796)

      Plus, even if you hook all those computers up to solar panels, until every single *useful* use of electricity is powered by renewables, youâ(TM)re still just taking renewable electrons that someone else could have used, and making them burn coal.

      This is nothing but a greenwashing attempt by one of the most wasteful activities on the planet.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jeremyp ( 130771 )

        Even after the World is entirely powered by renewables, renewables don't have zero environmental impact.

  • Bitcoin maxis are worried (Score:4, Informative)

    by Lanthanide ( 4982283 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2021 @09:36PM (#61422158)

    They've finally woken up to the existential regulatory threat they face - world powers banning Bitcoin mining because of it's huge power usage, which is not compatible with climate change legislation and efforts to reduce waste.

    There are dozens of coins out there that use far less energy and are far more effective at transferring / storing value than Bitcoin is.

    So this is a PR move, and a laughable one at that since it only includes US miners, which make up something like 3% of all mining hash power. And they aren't actually doing anything to improve bitcoin's energy efficiency (because they can't), they're just publicizing how they use 'green energy' so we shouldn't hate them, ignoring the fact that electricity is fungible and every watt of 'green energy' that is used by bitcoin is a watt that can't be used by a household.

    • Re:Bitcoin maxis are worried (Score:4, Interesting)

      by chuckugly ( 2030942 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2021 @09:59PM (#61422206)

      .... world powers banning Bitcoin mining because of it's huge power usage ....

      I suspect that the world powers are trying to ban it because they can't control it, and energy use is the current excuse. They tried teh drugs, then organized crime, now they're going for the green deal. I might have skipped a couple, and I'm sure there are more excuses queued up.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by cas2000 ( 148703 )

        yeah, it's just like how governments ban ponzi schemes because they're spoilsports who want to stop new investors from getting as rich as those who bought in early.

        also, they hate sublimely beautiful things of the natural world, like tulips.

        • yeah, it's just like how governments ban ponzi schemes

          I didn't know ponzi schemes used a lot of electricity, or the other things that BTC has been (or soon will be) accused of. Like facilitating ransomware. Or maybe it's not "just like" after all.

          This is not ascii art

    • Re:Bitcoin maxis are worried (Score:4, Insightful)

      by NFN_NLN ( 633283 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2021 @10:14PM (#61422268)

      > They've finally woken up to the existential regulatory threat they face - world powers banning Bitcoin mining because of it's huge power usage, which is not compatible with climate change legislation and efforts to reduce waste.

      Do they calculate the energy used by the banking sector and credit cards - every branch, office and datacenter required to keep the digital currency of all countries running smoothly so we have something to compare to?

      • Re:Bitcoin maxis are worried (Score:5, Informative)

        by Lisandro ( 799651 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2021 @10:18PM (#61422284)

        Do they calculate the energy used by the banking sector and credit cards - every branch, office and datacenter required to keep the digital currency of all countries running smoothly so we have something to compare to?

        Yes. Visa transactions alone, for example, are ~80000000% more efficient in energy usage than Bitcoin.

        No. That is not a typo.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

          I would be interested in the source calculations if you have a link.

          I would also be interested if you're comparing a single Visa transaction (1) to a block of transactions (many). And if you're including the overhead of processing, billing, backups, etc.

        • Yeah, but what if you include the energy and materials for Visa logo stickers, Visa marketing, mailed bills, credit card processors, etc.

          This calculation is comparing the cost of a Visa transaction to the cost of a Bitcoin transaction PLUS the amortized cost of setting up the network. Not an apples to apples comparison.

          Add to that the fact that Bitcoin energy use for the network is heading to 0 over the lifetime of the network, and the reality that future energy use will be much more green, and the energy u

          • Yeah, but what if you include the energy and materials for Visa logo stickers, Visa marketing, mailed bills, credit card processors, etc.

            Even if i were to humor your strawman, are you really suggesting those make Visa 800,000 times less efficient, energy-wise? Because if that's the case, i'd like to discuss with you about buying this beautiful bridge i own.

            • No, what I'm suggesting is that the problem address itself over time. If you don't understand why the energy cost of the Bitcoin network asymptotically approaches 0, then you can't really have an informed opinion. And if someone is publishing an analysis and excluding this reality, then it's probably because they're shilling for the legacy financial system.

              • If you don't understand why the energy cost of the Bitcoin network asymptotically approaches 0, then you can't really have an informed opinion.

                Wait, what?!

                Dude. I don't think you understand how Bitcoin works, at all.

                • No, it is you who doesn't understand.

                  By around the year 2100, the Bitcoin mining reward will have plummeted dramatically (halving every four years). At some point, the mining reward becomes insignificant compared to the transaction fees.

                  For an apples to apples comparison with Visa, the mining reward essentially is the cost of setting up the network, while the transaction fees are the permanent fixture that remains into the future. The network cost asymptotically approaches 0, while the transaction fees bein

                  • Ok, so you definitely don't understand how Bitcoin works, but neither the concepts of "energy cost", "asymptotic" and "zero". Hell, even "informed opinion".

                    Hint: just because every single Bitcoin (the token) is mined, doesn't mean block mining goes away, nor its associated energy/infrastructure. In fact, if anything, they should go up if the idea of cryptocurrencies go full mainstream.

                  • No, you really don't understand how bitcoin works. Sorry.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by jeremyp ( 130771 )

                    Do you understand that it is not the "mining" of the Bitcoins that uses the electricity? It's the solving of the hashes that validate transactions that takes the electricity. Once all the Bitcoins have been mined, the costs will be covered entirely by transactions fees but the work will be the same. The electricity consumption will be the same.

          • Yeah, but what if you include the energy and materials for Visa logo stickers, Visa marketing,

            Bitcoin does have an advantage there. Plenty of free marketing from the faithful.

            This doesn't look like heading to zero. [digiconomist.net]
            How long is this lifetime you're talking about? When does bitcoin energy become free?

      • Do they calculate the energy used by the banking sector and credit cards - every branch, office and datacenter required to keep the digital currency of all countries running smoothly so we have something to compare to?

        Are you proposing bitcoin as a replacement for all of that?
        Or is bitcoin an addition to it? Like it currently is in this reality.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shanen ( 462549 )

      Mod parent insightful, though you didn't mention the lottery aspect.

  • Bitcoin is decentralized and those mining it control the network, and there's no chance in hell they'll agree to changes that'll lower their profit. If they change how BTC is mined, it will hurt current miners profits so none of this will get off the ground. It would be a much better use of peoples time and energy to move to a cryptocurrency that has negligible energy usage eg Ethereum once its next update is complete.

  • It doesn't matter if it's mined by 100% renewables (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2021 @09:50PM (#61422190)
    Unless and until we have unlimited energy creation capacity then it's an insane waste of electricity. And It's hard enough to get renewable capacity built to fight climate change. Plus we don't need these guys driving up the price of solar panels and wind turbines for this nonsense. It's not like the laws of supply and demand are put on hold for crypto coin.

  • Hey this is [your favorite digital currency]. We're completely on renewable energy now, and use only the total hydroelectric resources of the five largest rivers in the world! It's all cool (speaking loosely).

    • Hey this is [your favorite digital currency]. We're completely on renewable energy now, and use only the total hydroelectric resources of the five largest rivers in the world! It's all cool (speaking loosely).

      All good. Climate change will increase rainfall. And give us...more rivers!
      It's the circle of life or something. Water cycle maybe.

  • ...making renewables more expensive for other users, pushing them back to fossil fuels. A giant waste of energy is still a giant waste of energy.

  • Carbon waste is the source of the value (Score:4, Insightful)

    by isdnip ( 49656 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2021 @10:49PM (#61422346)

    Bitcoin is a modern, super-harmful variation on an old theme. Gold is not worth very much inherently; it's over-valued because some people think it's currency. But the easy gold has been found, so miners will put in huge effort for it, so long as the value of the gold exceeds the cost to mine. The cost of mining helps set the value.The money supply, in a gold standard, depends to some extent on the success of miners, and is divorced from the needs of the economy. Too much gold created inflation -- Spain's pillaging of Mexico tanked its economy.
    Bitcoin is similar. The value is based on the cost of mining, which is predominantly the cost of electricity. So it is almost literally created out of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Even if you were to use "renewable" energy to mine BTC, that energy could better be used displacing coal and oil. The total amount of CO2 on the plant is what matters, and BTC causes huge amounts to be generated. It is stupid, evil, and existentially harmful to everyone on the planet.

  • For quite a quite a while people have been pointing out the wasteful energy use for Bitcoin - feels to me they're now scrambling to try to fix that "image" now.

  • Bitcoin and its peers were designed for the black market, to conceal where resources came from and to evade government control. To proclaim a "mandate" to control any aspect of it, especially to regulate where the energy to generate bitcoin comes from, is to expect the pigs to tell the butcher what steel is permitted for the meatgrinders.

    • Being secret or private was never really a goal for Bitcoin. It's only private enough to get people to use it without having their purchases made public a la Venmo.

      It's made to be government resistant to being shutdown. But not so much resistant to government inspection of the ledger.

      • The "Silk Road" exchange, which was eventually shut down for blatant criminality, disagreed with you for years of business. So does the New York Times: see https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0... [nytimes.com]. So do ransomware attackers who've favored bitcoin as the means of payment for their victims.

        While I dislike citing the behaviors of criminals as evidence, there is a decent analysis of the problem, and of the policy failures, at https://www.elliptic.co/blog/b... [elliptic.co]. What the article doesn't mention is how explicitly bitco

        • There's no reason to believe the Silk Road or its ilk was at all the intention of the creators of Bitcoin. It's private enough. And it can't be seized or frozen. And the system can't be bailed out by taxpayers. Consider the context of the year it was released.

          • > There's no reason to believe the Silk Road or its ilk was at all the intention of the creators of Bitcoin.

            Given that Bitcoin was designed not have the oversight of banks or governments, how can you say that black markets was not its direct intent? They can be profitable, especially if you can avoid prosecution for their worst atrocities, and they have been for the creators of bitcoin and its earliest investors.

  • Don't belong in the same sentence. if you disagree, then tell me what Bitcoin's prosocial use case is.

  • Irrelevant (Score:4, Interesting)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @04:12AM (#61422940)

    Any renewable energy that Bitcoin is *wasting* is renewable energy that doesn't get used somewhere else where people actively need the energy for productive reasons, such as living or contributing to the economy.

    If your mining farm is powered by a wind farm congratulations you're still an arsehole for denying more productive members of society that windfarm. Their carbon emissions are now on your hands.

  • The problem with BitCoin: Anyone can create BitCoin, but it costs real money (real electricity). And checking transactions also costs real money (real electricity), although it's not quite as bad. And due to the distributed nature of bitcoin, it has to be that way: If anyone could create BitCoin cheaply, then BitCoin couldn't be worth much. And if checking transactions could be done cheaply, then an attacker could fake the checking.

    Now if a national government did the same thing, it would be a lot easier
  • It is still a colossal waste of energy and I wouldn't trust the people doing the mining to know or accurately report the energy they're wasting is "green" or not.
  • I guess they need to get together and find a way to hide their energy use, too late for that one.
  • Can we please stop fetishizing Elon Musk like he's the answer to everything? When will people just start calling him "42".

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