[jimmaswell]

If the energy comes from a source where gathering and expending it doesn't have any adverse environmental effects then it's hard to say using it is "wasteful" - the only real problem comes if you assume using more power means more coal is burned and the like. Heavy coin mining tends to be done around the cheapest energy sources like hydro, and in the interim before burning fossil fuels is fully phased out I don't think the additional use from coin mining is going to be that big of a deal compared to people using inefficient air conditioner setups, heating their homes with electric too much, leaving all the lights and the TV on when they go out, or a bunch of other things that can add up to the additional power miners use.

[llukas]

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

I beg to differ - currently just Bitcoin mining uses as much energy as country of Iceland - anything consuming energy on a scale of entire country (even small one yes) is environmentally significant.

[melling]

“Bitcoin's electricity consumption as a percentage of the world's electricity consumption 0.09%“

By definition 0.09% is not significant. Eliminating it would not significantly impact climate change.

[Nomentatus]

Excellent. Please send me a check for this insignificant amount, at current wholesale (business consumption) rates.

[melling]

What does the amount of money have to do with anything? If someone found a way to reduce the $20 trillion US deficit by 0.09%, and someone said that it’s not significant, would it rate the snarky “well, then send me a check for that amount”?

Would you optimize a program by refactoring a function that used 0.09% of the execution time?

[Nomentatus]

Yes, I often have done such refactoring. It's hard to get that last 20% of speed, much less last 5% without making a large number of small changes in code, usually after getting accumulated trace results (however presented.) .1% = one in one thousand. Keep stacking up those improvements and you do get somewhere, and often you'll easily find one hundred very small improvements in a day (10% altogether!) if it's green code, along with the bigger inefficiencies to fix. Not to mention that ignoring a presently-small inefficiency is predicting that future use won't swell that into a problem - which can be most unwise. Also, looking for tiny improvements gives you a good chance to stumble upon larger improvements you'd missed earlier. Optimize much?

[melling]

You’re doing a lot of hand waving: “One hundred small improvements in a day” That’s a lot of work in an 8-10 hour day...

“if it's green code,..”

My point is that you don’t start by looking for 0.09% improvements when you’re profiling your code.

As for climate change, we are looking for cleaner energy options. The world’s energy use is going to increase greatly as billions more come out of poverty. China, for example, is going to increase nuclear energy to be almost on par with the US over the next decade:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/09/china-will-more-than-d...

[Robotbeat]

How much of the economy uses Bitcoin, though? That's the denominator to use.

[LoSboccacc]

this is it, we reached peak strawman

[Nomentatus]

Do explain.

[LoSboccacc]

argument: 0.09 is insignificant for climate impact

counterpoint: 0.09 is a lot of money for one person

the rebuttal has zero to do with the point given and even less to do with the overall thread about mining being wasteful.

[llukas]

Please do not move goalposts - I wrote "environmentally significant" not "significantly impact climate change".

I don't think our technology is so advanced that producing 18TWh of energy per year can be done without impact on environment.

[melling]

You are the one moving the goalposts because the article is about climate change.

“Bill Gates has committed his fortune to moving the world beyond fossil fuels and mitigating climate change”

Back to my original comment: “You derailed the entire point of the article by taking a tangent into a completely different...”

If we move beyond fossil fuels and use 100% wind, solar, and nuclear energy, for example, does the electricity use for Bitcoin matter?

[noncoml]

I think 0.09% is mind blowing!

Think about it, almost a thousandth of world's electricity consumption completely wasted on BTC alone.

[novalis78]

Actually there is a great article by Nick Szabo on the social cost of organizing by third party that Bitcoin replaces - if you take the energy it costs to run governments/banks with everything they utilize in terms of energy cost then that's what Bitcoin tries to 'free up' also in terms of energy usage (and still comes out ahead)

[mikeash]

Cheap energy sources like hydro are usually connected to a grid, so that electricity could be used to reduce fossil fuel demand elsewhere if it wasn’t being used for mining.