[xvector]

All of crypto barely uses more power (120 TWh) than a single hydroelectric dam produces (111 TWh.) The "bad for the environment" is a meaningless talking point used by people that are jealous they didn't "get in on it" early enough.

[audunw]

Oh, it only requires ALL the energy from by far the largest and most environmentally destructive hydroelectric dam on the planet? One that accounts for 10% of China's energy use? Oh, that's nothing at all then! /s

How do guys like you keep a straight face saying things like this? This is an utterly insane amount of power. And putting into context the utility these crypto services are providing to most people (very little), it's even more insane. How much power would we be using if everyone actually started using PoW crypto for useful transactions regularly?

And it's not just electricity, it's high-end silicon too.

Cryptocurrencies is the first example of an algorithmic cancer IMO. (I cell that's tricking its host into thinking it's useful, but which mainly replicates and takes over resources as much as it can regardless of the utility the cells have to the host.)

[tptacek]

Those numbers --- lower than numbers you can get from Google, but sure --- appear to say the same thing as "all of crypto uses barely more power than any but the top 28 energy-consuming countries in the world". Do let me know if I got the math wrong there!

[xvector]

Now you know that most most countries barely use any power! A single dam could power them! This is why the "crypto uses more power than X country" is a meaningless talking point.

[tptacek]

The list includes Sweden, Norway, Argentina, the Netherlands, the UAE, the Philippines, Finland, Belgium, Pakistan, Austria, the Czech Republic, Israel, Switzerland, and Singapore, among (obviously) many others. I don't think that statistic was the mic drop you thought it was.

But sure, let's give them all 111TWh hydroelectric dams.

[juliusdavies]

The Site C damn in British Columbia (5.1TWh) has been under construction since 2015 with a 2025 completion forecast. Estimated cost: $12.3 billion (USD).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Site_C_dam

[gus_massa]

Can you remove Argentina from the list? :)

I'll copy an old comment by me, and the 2 parents comments for context. It was posted in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28420667 (8 months ago)

>>> So let's use the article's figure of 140 TWh of power used per year. Let's compare that to domestic energy usage by country https://yearbook.enerdata.net/electricity/electricity-domest.... That's more than Argentina and about half of what the UK uses.

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

>> Bitcoin would be the 27th most energy using country: ahead of Argentina (30), Sweden (29), and Ukraine (28); just below and about to overtake Malaysia (26), and below Egypt (25) and Poland (24).

> A big chunk of our economy in Argentina is transforming sunlight into soybeans. So we should add it. Just imagine that we covered all the Pampa with solar panels and then use that energy to ... illuminate hydroponic soy.

> From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Argentina#Produ... the cultivated area is 250.000km^2 . Let's assume 1000W/m^2 and a 10% of efficiency, 12 hours of sun per day, and 1/3 of the year of grow of the plants. Then I get 36.5TWh https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=250.000km%5E2+*1000W%2... (I had to guess a lot of things. I'd love to see a more accurate calculation.)

> So with an additional energy of 36.5TWh, we jump from 132.7TWh to 169.2TWh that is more than the value of Poland 168.8TWh. (But other countries may want to add their solar->plants power too.)

[piva00]

The single largest hydropower dam in the fucking world could power them... I really don't think you know the scale of the power generation you are eluding to here, energy is a currency for development, there is nothing being developed in the real world with the amount of power that crypto uses. Absolutely nothing.

Compare the real-world value of economies powered by the energy consumption of crypto and let me know if you think that crypto is creating more value for humanity than these countries, I'd love to hear your arguments on that.

[saalweachter]

> The Hoover Dam generates, on average, about 4 billion kilowatt-hours (4 TWh) of hydroelectric power each year for use in Nevada, Arizona, and California - enough to serve 1.3 million people.

Edit: Looks like the "single hydroelectric plant" is the Three Gorges. Hot dam, that really puts Hoover to shame.

> The Three Gorges Dam has been the world's largest power station in terms of installed capacity (22,500 MW) since 2012 (10% of China's electricity).

[iciac]

111TWh is well beyond a typical hydroelectric dam output (most are an order of magnitude lower storage and generation). As an example, the very sizable Australian Snowy Hydro 2.0 upon completion is estimated to have storage for 350GWh (the Australian national energy market is ~190TWh). The original Snowy Hydro (9 stations) has annual energy production of ~5GWh.