[Stention314]

This is wrong and green washing.

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.

[kevinak]

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.

[netrus]

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?

[kevinak]

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.

[Stention314]

The profit is too small.

Easy to solve with laws. Shouldn't be allowed anyway to just pick the good things from a gas field...

[kevinak]

Yeah, let's use laws instead of something that makes monetary sense...?

It's not a gas field, it's a land fill.

[Stention314]

Just because it makes monetary sense doesn't mean it makes ecological sense. Therefore a law