Energy which is used to mindlessly calculate dumb hashes, trillions of which are discarded every second for the winning 'hash'. Proof of Work is basically lottery, but which consumes energy instead of tickets.
Not a miner. I do use a computer to calculate dumb stuff all the time for entertainment purposes.
I mean… Cyberpunk 2077 could run acceptably on an integrated 65W APU but instead I chose to crank everything on max with ray tracing through a 4090 just to see some dumb frames on a screen that are discarded at a hundred per second.
And I don’t ever remember having to ask permission to use the kW h I’m paying for.
Are you suggesting the combined power usage of gamers specing their machines above average recommended system requirements is less than the power used by mining industry? I’m skeptical about that.
And its beside the point because again its none of your business.
> Are you suggesting the combined power usage of gamers specing their machines above average recommended system requirements is less than the power used by mining industry? I’m skeptical about that.
Yes, of course, I am absolutely suggesting that overspecced gaming PCs played by a minority of gamers in their spare time don't use more electricity than a medium sized developed country (or indeed the 24/7 running of industrial scale server farms deploying chips designed because even the most powerful gaming chips weren't anywhere near energy intensive enough to win the energy-burning competition). Why would you possibly consider the small number of people using high spec gaming PCs a few hours a day use more electricity than a developed world country?
> just to see some dumb frames on a screen that are discarded at a hundred per second.
If these frames were really discarded (that is, not shown on your screen), then yes, it would be a waste. But my understanding of your example is that these frames were displayed, and their light reached your eyeballs.
Agreed but I think people should be looking at power companies and how they generate energy for accountability instead of going for industry A and B. Wiping PoW from the face of the earth won’t make those coal plants in China go away.
No, but it will reduce the demand for what they produce. This isn’t hypothetical, even in the US there are examples of coal/natural gas plants getting brought back online for bitcoin mining (finger lakes NY; Hardin, MT)
I am not a fan of "destroying the planet" arguments mainly because anything goes, super ambiguious and not very precise. Buy our razors because cartridge razors are destroying the planet! https://bandisposablerazors.org/
Destroying the planet = Can't question it, can't argue about it, it is the end all of all arguments. How could you ever oppose something that destroys the planet?
We could also use this energy for better things than Bitcoin.
And while BTC doesn't make any value besides moving money from one person to another, it also produces hardware garbage like ASIC chips and power supply.
It also steals demand from others too.
There is only downside for most of us than benefit of allowing Bitcoin mining independent of it's source.
No, this is not wrong. You can't magically just "use it for something else". That's not how this works. You need to generate electricity where it is needed (or transport it, which costs money).
If there are landfills out there that are just spewing methane gas (20x worse than CO2, btw) into the atmosphere, why not make sure that is burned and used more efficiently? Please show me a realistic plan to do this. Bitcoin does it without forcing anyone and without taxes directed towards it.
Aren't landfills close to civilization usually, so it would not be hard to transfer the electricity some miles to charge Teslas, heat homes or power etc.
Where are landfills too remote to transport electricity away from?
I'm sure that's the case for some of the landfills, but definitely not all of them.
In the US 70% of the methane from landfills is vented, rather than flared. That means that for some reason, either it's too expensive to do or something else is blocking this. And that's just the US.
You can also imagine that landfills in the developing world are better targets. Infrastructure is not as good there as it is in the US or in Europe.
Generally though, conceptually the argument goes like this "You can't do X because it destroys the planet. Since we cannot destroy the planet, there is no other option but to accept banning of X". But, there is no limits or guards to this. You can easily go down the slippery slope and say X is the city of Chicago that needs to be destroyed for the collective good. It consumes too many resources.
Riddled with subjectivism. You cannot do less since there are no objective limits to what is "acceptable levels of destruction of the planet" means. It has a different subjective weight to different entities arguing the position. In the limit, this would mean we erase humanity all together and leave the planet alone.
You can bully a lot of things your way before any one can speak up against it. There is a level of insidious moral superiority built into it which makes it prime for exploitation. Corporations are doing exactly that.
I don't believe it's saying either. It's saying that the trend is towards net zero emission and that this will happen by the end of 2024. After that I would assume we go into the negatives and improve the current situation.
"Based on the estimated average growth rate of bitcoin mining operators using vented methane of 6.9 MW/month, the Bitcoin network will become Carbon Negative in Dec ’24."
So… we will solve global warming by running a network of computers with custom ASICs at 100% utilization, cooling them as necessary, performing useless computation, so a cabal of technobros can move imaginary internet money around 10 times per second?
Oh and increasing the power usage of this fire pile will, as you say, “improve the current situation”?
Your point is that the only way we can avoid burning methane is to use that to power bitcoin mining rigs???
No, I've never claimed that. Regardless of what you think about Bitcoin, if it's useless or not, don't you agree that net negative is better than zero?
Burning methane (flaring) is most definitely an improvement over not doing it. That's just a fact. It accounts for about 20% of global emissions and is 25 times as potent as CO2. https://www.epa.gov/gmi/importance-methane
You would use Bitcoin mining as a monetary incentive to flare methane. You could do other things but it requires more infrastructure investment and might not even be possible in certain locations that are far from where the electricity would be used.