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by frankenst1 1147 days ago
> No, this needs to have the plug pulled on it if we're to keep global warming to 2C.

Bitcoin accounts for <0.1% of global CO2e and has one of the highest shares of renewables in any industry (since it competes globally for the cheapest energy).

It incentivises renewables (by being a location agnostic buyer of first and last resort which buys all excess energy 24/7), reduces CO2e (by making it profitable to combust CH4 instead of venting it), stabilises energy grids (by providing flexible demand response, i.e. can be turned on and off at moment's notice), provides banking services for the global unbanked and financially discriminated, shields from gambling bankers and inflation of the money supply, ...

In comparison to all these use cases and benefits, mere "luxury" energy uses such as air-conditioning, tumble drying, video games, porn, ... all consume more energy and produce more CO2e (e.g. A/C ~100x more). Yet nobody calls to have the plug pulled on them.

Regulate the production of energy, not the consumption.

1 comments

Can I get a source on video games and porn using more energy than Bitcoin?
BTC used 123 TWh annually. [0]

Computers, data centers and networks consume about 10% of all the world energy. [1] 4 percent of websites are estimated to be porn [2] a single gaming computer costs about up to 1400 kWh annually. [3]

So the porn websites are about 3X bitcoin and BTC represents around 8.7m gaming computers.

[0]https://www.moneysupermarket.com/gas-and-electricity/feature...

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IT_energy_management#:~:text=S....

[2]https://www.statista.com/chart/16959/share-of-the-internet-t...

[3]https://computerinfobits.com/how-much-energy-do-gaming-compu....

I would like the source too. I would be very surprised if Bitcoin energy consumption passed even half of what is consumed for porn and video games. I expect the amount of energy being used to maintain Bitcoin to be a rounding error in comparison.