[HN Gopher] Bitcoin consumes 2nd highest electricity per capita
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Bitcoin consumes 2nd highest electricity per capita
Author : rnadtiuyn
Score : 68 points
Date : 2021-09-15 20:38 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| [deleted]
| ramesh31 wrote:
| This whole thing is a racket. Bitcoin's actual market value is
| entirely a function of its' utility in facilitating cybercrime
| payments. There is precisely zero actual use for it beyond that.
| And now that all the biggest names on Wall Street are getting a
| piece of the pie, we can be guaranteed it's not going anywhere.
| nanidin wrote:
| > There is precisely zero actual use for it beyond that
|
| I was staying in a hotel in Nepal around 10 years ago. I was
| sharing a room with someone I met. I paid the hotel, and my
| roommate paid me in bitcoin. It was pretty convenient
| considering my home currency is USD, his was EUR, and the local
| currency was rupees.
|
| Anyway, as far as I'm aware there wasn't any cybercrime taking
| place that day :)
| exporectomy wrote:
| Stop ranking things with arbitrary categories! It's meaningless!
| I'll bet there's some aluminium smelter that has a far higher
| "per capita" electricity use than his bitcoin calculation if you
| only count the workers there as the population. Or how about the
| category "cooks" or "welders" who have high personal electricity
| usage?
| nanidin wrote:
| The tweet makes an assumption that there are 10 million people
| holding bitcoin, and the tweet goes on to imply that this is
| actually an overestimate.
|
| The first google result for "how many people hold bitcoins" says
| that an estimated 46 million Americans own bitcoin. The huge
| inaccuracy shows the author's bias and kills the credibility of
| the rest of the thread.
| qeternity wrote:
| Wow. Ok, where to start.
|
| For one, this is why reading articles and doing your own
| research (DYOR) is so important. That headline, which is
| attributed to NYDIG, a crypto proprietor, isn't actually
| sourced anywhere else. Gemini, the Winklevii crypto exchange,
| places the number substantially lower.
|
| Given that Coinbase has had a maximum of 8.8 million monthly
| active users, which is going to put us within spitting distance
| of the true number, suggests the true figure is much much
| lower.
|
| Additionally, speculating on bitcoin's price on an exchange
| does not mean you're utilizing the network (hell, you don't
| even need actual bitcoin to do this, futures will do). But this
| is what the overwhelming majority of people do with bitcoin.
|
| So the real question is how many people use the bitcoin network
| to transfer bitcoins. This is what POW enables. Do I believe
| that 10m are sending bitcoin to each other? No fucking way.
| Much much lower.
|
| So yeah, 10m seems conservative even if the assumption is
| poorly worded (network users vs coin holders).
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Are you saying "has a Bitcoin wallet" = "own bitcoin"?
|
| Only ~60M households (50%) have an investment account. I'm
| skeptical that there's a huge portion of households with
| bitcoin but w/o a traditional investment account. I'm also
| skeptical that ~80% of people with investment accounts have
| Bitcoin. Almost everyone I work with and most of my friends and
| family have an investment account. I only know a couple of
| people who currently have any Bitcoin. I know a lot of people
| that at one point owned Bitcoin, though.
| nanidin wrote:
| I'm not saying either way (as this wasn't specified in the
| tweet either) - just pointing out the huge discrepancy
| between easily accessible statistics and the story the author
| of the tweet is trying to tell. There is a huge assumption
| being made (10 million people hold bitcoin) and zero
| justification for that assumption.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| It also seems like there is zero justification for you 46M
| Americans figure.
|
| https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/how-many-bitcoin-users/
|
| There might be 46M wallets related to US accounts with
| Bitcoin in them, but 1 person could own 45M of them (I
| seriously doubt it, but you get the point).
| nanidin wrote:
| Yep - it seems we're getting deep into "73.6% of
| statistics are made up on the spot" territory no matter
| which source we choose :) Which then raises the question
| - why did the author of the tweet choose 10 million?
| antonvs wrote:
| > the author of the tweet
|
| I think I see the problem.
|
| Why does anyone treat tweets as though they're academic
| papers? It's just some rando BSing.
| fkfowl3 wrote:
| where did you get the 60M households from and why are you
| counting households? Everyone in my family has an investment
| account, so you should be looking at per individual/capita
| which is closer to ~150 million. So the number of bitcoin
| holder is significantly higher even if you consider 20% of
| 150 million.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| That studies claims that 1 in 5 American adults hold BTC. I'm
| ... highly skeptical ... of that.
|
| Then I look and see that it was a small sample sized survey of
| higher income individuals, and was commissioned by an
| "alternative investments firm" who wants to tout Bitcoin
| annuities and life insurance.
|
| Since we're speaking of bias, after all...
| kevinh wrote:
| The first result is a survey done by a firm dedicated to
| Bitcoin that only surveyed people making $50k or higher. It's
| possible that 46m number is correct, but I wouldn't make the
| assumption that it's anywhere close to accurate.
| nanidin wrote:
| Agreed! Also consider that the first result is only meant to
| represent bitcoin owners in a country that makes up 4.6% of
| the world population.
| SahAssar wrote:
| Do you think that between a third and half of US households
| have people holding significant amounts of bitcoin?
| aresant wrote:
| If you want to get a read on the "Reduce your carbon footprint"
| camp's success, check out the top selling vehicle in America (1)
|
| Treating this as a "crypto problem" and not a general energy /
| fuels problem does almost nothing but sell clicks / views /
| newspapers.
|
| Trying to contribute here though on where we really are in crypto
| and angles of attack for discussion, vs an alarmist view:
|
| 1) BTC maximalists don't care and will argue to the teeth that
| the energy costs are baked into the economic value of the
| network. From a purely market argument they're not wrong here.
| BTCs energy use is "worth it" to a lot of people who truly
| believe BTC to be a store of value, a hedge against inflation,
| and a vote for decentralization.
|
| 2) Short term companies like Crusoe Energy are working on
| solutions to onboard "trapped" energy stores to reduce the carbon
| footprint. The most likely outcome of these efforts is likely not
| an overall reduced carbon footprint given the continued growth
| and interest in the overall market. (2)
|
| 3) Proof of Stake is much more efficient than Proof of Work (3)
| but it is unlikely that BTC moves in that direction short term.
| Or perhaps ever.
|
| (1) https://www.torquenews.com/9539/ford-f-150-continues-its-
| sal...
|
| (2) https://www.crusoeenergy.com/
|
| (3) https://www.coinbase.com/learn/crypto-basics/what-is-
| proof-o...
| aresant wrote:
| I'm not sure what I'm writing above that isn't objective
|
| I would love to hear responses vs downvotes to the floor
|
| Do you think that we can regulate crypto into lower energy use?
|
| Change hearts and minds?
| jessaustin wrote:
| Objectivity or its lack has very little to do with downvotes
| on bitcoin threads. These bring out all the would-be
| authoritarians to impose their will on HN posts in a way they
| can't impose it on crypto in the real world.
| 0xFreebie wrote:
| The other amazing thing in that tweet is that Norway uses more
| energy per capita than the next three countries combined? Double
| the USA? What is the explanation there?
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| 99% is renewable from hydro power. I would say they reached
| their goal.
| erehweb wrote:
| Norway's cold and rich?
| MBCook wrote:
| Could it be a lot if electric heating instead of fossil fuels?
| Pure guess.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I was curious too. Quick Googling shows this breakdown of
| energy usage by sector and source:
| https://energifaktanorge.no/en/norsk-energibruk/energibruken...
|
| The Tweet is specifically about electricity (kWh). It appears
| Norway uses mostly electricity in applications where other
| countries might use more natural gas (heating). This is likely
| because Norway has plentiful clean hydroelectric electricity,
| so they export their natural gas instead of burning it.
|
| This inflates their electricity consumption numbers but given
| the mostly hydroelectric source and reduced fossil fuel burning
| it's actually a net win.
| j_walter wrote:
| Is there a way to differentiate clean hydro and dirty hydro?
| In the US the most recent "green" standards exclude
| hydroelectricity as renewable energy.
| eikenberry wrote:
| Really? That seems dumb. Have any references for why they
| made this decision?
| verdverm wrote:
| If you want to be nice to the environment, damming
| (damning?) rivers would intuitively seem like a bad thing
| for wildlife.
| bujak300 wrote:
| Dumb or not, hydroelectric has its own ecological
| problems and as the dams near the and of life, the costs
| associated with that will be most likely "externalized"
| j_walter wrote:
| I don't have the details, but when my company went to
| purchase RECs for 2021 we were told that hydro is no
| longer considered to be in the level of REC we were
| targeting (extra green something or other). So the cost
| for this year was much higher than 2020.
| 1ris wrote:
| The only truly green energy is the energy you don't use.
| All electric is dirty to some degree. Hyrdo is cleaner than
| almost anything else, but not a clean as not using it at
| all. On top of that "clean" is not a very well defined
| metric. Carbon emissions are not the only thing to
| consider.
|
| The exclusion of hydro from "green" is of tactical nature.
| It's mature technology and without spectacular learning
| curves.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Norway is high up but not the top of the per capita list that
| Wikipedia uses:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...
|
| Iceland is small but has some power-hungry industries (that's
| the point, to produce Aluminum with cheap power), influencing
| their total.
| butmuh wrote:
| Yeh no it doesn't.
|
| "this work was supported by PayPal" - lol
|
| Anytime research is done by an incumbent under threat, probably
| not worth the paper it's printed on.
|
| Guess how much the current banking system uses when you calculate
| worldwide all the physical money and coin printing, the servers,
| the electricity and environmental impacts of buildings and ATM's,
| the staff commutes, the marketing collateral and advertisements,
| the pamphlets and the brochures etc.
|
| Oh that's right, we're not allowed to talk about that because
| narrative = bitcoin bad/energy use.
| [deleted]
| kloch wrote:
| The only meaningful comparison is to the energy usage of the
| legacy banking system. Banks have a lot of data centers, office
| space, employees who drive to work etc.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| The banking system finances all commercial activity, it's
| essential to civilization.
|
| BTC is not.
|
| (DeFi is used to speculate on crypto prices with leverage,
| which is also not essential)
| humaniania wrote:
| Based on screenshots posted to an unverified twitter account? Why
| would this get upvotes?
| mdoms wrote:
| The source is in the very next tweet.
|
| https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s12599-020-00656-x?sh...
| jessaustin wrote:
| From the conclusion to that link:
|
| _...we found that they do not pose a large threat to the
| climate, mainly because the energy consumption of PoW
| blockchains does not increase substantially when they process
| more transactions._
| hereme888 wrote:
| I wonder what the energy consumption is from things like video
| games and brainless media (tiktok, mindless YT videos, etc).
| 1ris wrote:
| Well, give an estimate. Sounds like a Fermi problem.
| wyager wrote:
| Good. I want to incentivize the progression of humanity to a
| kardashev type 1 civilization and beyond.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Even if that's your goal, wasting electricity on Bitcoin might
| not be the optimal route to getting there...
| javert wrote:
| Are you really incapable of understanding that bitcoin might
| not be a waste?
|
| An unfathomable transfer of wealth from normal people to the
| rich is happening because of the Fed. How? The rich can
| borrow money from the Fed at near zero rates. They use that
| money to buy assets. Meanwhile, the government borrows money
| from the Fed at near zero rates. The government spends the
| money, inflating the circulating money supply. That causes
| the value of money to go down.
|
| The rich can repay their loans to the Fed using money that is
| worth less than when they borrowed it. I.e., borrow $100M in
| 2021 dollars and repay $100M in cheap 2050 dollars.
|
| This is turning America into a nation of renters, rather than
| a nation of homeowners.
|
| It's also turning us into a nation of debtors, via the
| Federal debt, which will become overburdensome soon. We will
| either default, or the debt will be erased through
| hyperinflation, making the rich even richer again (as they
| get the money first and buy assets at the old prices).
|
| Bitcoin fixes this.
|
| And only bitcoin, or something almost exactly like it, _can_
| fix this.
|
| The impoverishment of normal people via the banking system is
| exactly what the Jeffersons of the world were trying to
| prevent the Hamiltons of the world from doing.
| ephbit wrote:
| This is pretty much how I interpret what's happening in the
| US and Europe as well.
|
| Anyone here who can point their finger on any of the above
| statements and explain why it's wrong?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > Are you really incapable of understanding that bitcoin
| might not be a waste?
|
| Quite capable of understanding, thank you. I just think
| you're wrong.
| [deleted]
| wincy wrote:
| Bitcoin really feels like a paperclip maximizer type
| situation.
| wyager wrote:
| It's probably pretty close to optimal. Leaving aside the
| mischaracterizarion of "waste" (that's been covered plenty of
| times), Bitcoin is economically unique in that it provides a
| guaranteed price floor on power consumption, allowing us to
| overcome the "bathtub curve", distribution costs, and other
| problems associated with novel green energy sources.
| dougmwne wrote:
| It would be a neat trick to let Bitcoin energy consumption grow
| till it was more than half of global energy consumption while
| ramping up carbon taxes, then regulate it into oblivion
| overnight. Boom, instant massive energy surplus!
| wyager wrote:
| Bitcoin is one of the few energy sinks where carbon-producing
| power sources are not economically optimal. Because Bitcoin
| facilities have constant 24/7 demand at a pretty stable price
| floor, it actually makes sense to use energy sources like
| geothermal and nuclear for Bitcoin where it wouldn't make
| much sense for industrial or residential generation.
| Uehreka wrote:
| Right now very few people are actually using Bitcoin for everyday
| transactions, and yet still the carbon footprint rivals many
| large countries. If this became the world's primary currency (as
| many crypto fans seem to want) it would increase our total carbon
| footprint by multiple orders of magnitude.
|
| I do not see many people in the crypto community approaching this
| with the deadly seriousness it deserves. Most conversations seem
| to devolve into:
|
| - wishcasting about how energy is produced: "There are a whole
| bunch of miners in South America running on hydro!" This ignores
| that we are decades away at least from a solarpunk world where
| energy isn't a zero-sum game, the hydro energy being used by
| miners just means the people in nearby cities have to resort to
| fossil fuels.
|
| - wishcasting about Proof-of-Stake: "We could just switch to this
| and the carbon problems go away!" I admit it would be great if
| this happened, but No large coins use it, and I'll believe
| Ethereum when I see it. Proof-of-Stake also has downsides that
| some crypto people won't accept, so by their own admission it's
| not credibly considered an option (certainly not for Bitcoin).
|
| - wishcasting about carbon offsets: "We can buy our way out!" The
| recent California wildfires have burned through a lot of the
| trees planted as "carbon offsets", releasing their carbon back
| into the atmosphere. Offsets were a neat idea, but they don't
| seem to have panned out well, and I have yet to hear a credible
| case that carbon capture can ramp up fast enough to match
| crypto's growing carbon footprint.
|
| - whataboutism: "You ride planes don't you? Those have huge
| carbon footprints!" I have yet to hear a compelling argument that
| a Planes+Bitcoin world would have a smaller carbon footprint than
| the current Planes+Mastercard world. And no one is talking about
| Bitcoin making planes go away.
|
| I'd love to hear a clear and credulous case for how we get out of
| this problem, but I have yet to hear one from the crypto
| community. If the crypto community won't take this seriously and
| propose real solutions, people from outside the crypto community
| will come up with solutions that will involve banning crypto.
| lhorie wrote:
| Forgive me if this is a dumb comment, but my understanding is
| that bitcoin's footprint is largely due to mining, correct? But
| bitcoin itself is considered an asset (in the US, at least). So
| in theory, it's possible to just trade bitcoins off-chain
| (either on another blockchain or just using boring centralized
| tech) without necessarily incurring a corresponding increase in
| mining-related costs, right?
|
| IIRC Polkadot staking has a 28 day minimum unstaking cool-off
| period, yet one can stake/unstake instantaneously in Kraken, so
| I'm led to believe that off-chain transactions must already
| happen to at least some extent.
|
| Am I missing something?
| cesarb wrote:
| > So in theory, it's possible to just trade bitcoins off-
| chain (either on another blockchain or just using boring
| centralized tech) without necessarily incurring a
| corresponding increase in mining-related costs, right?
|
| The mining-related costs are mostly unrelated to whether the
| bitcoins are traded on-chain or off-chain. The mining-related
| costs are more directly related to the price of bitcoin, or
| rather, how much a miner can earn with the block rewards and
| transaction fees. By trading bitcoin, even off-chain, you
| increase the demand for bitcoin, and therefore indirectly
| increase its price; the only difference is that by trading
| off-chain, the miners don't receive the transaction fees
| (which are currently less than 2% of the block rewards).
| Uehreka wrote:
| But if you're trading bitcoins "off-chain", doesn't that mean
| you're negating the point of a blockchain-based currency?
| lhorie wrote:
| Yes, but for my purposes as a layperson using a currency,
| I'm choosing to trust a system that is opaque to me anyways
| (be it a bank/exchange/other financial institution vs a
| validator pool). One could argue, for example, that anti-
| fraud mechanisms in off-chain systems don't have a on-chain
| counterpart, despite being a desirable feature, so IMHO, if
| the argument goes that crypto can't do things on-chain that
| regular currencies can, it seems most feasible to just
| treat them as digital assets to be tradeable over existing
| centralized systems, no?
| arebop wrote:
| If the cost of electricity rose 100% now, the kwh used to mine
| bitcoin would drop correspondingly.
|
| IOW, Bitcoin isn't a scheme to destroy the world by exhausting
| energy or destroying the planet, it's just a bunch of people
| who want distributed consensus and they're willing to pay for
| it and you can't fathom why. You don't complain about aluminum
| fiends or anybody else spending money and potentially
| exploiting carbon externalities, ask yourself why not.
|
| If you care about the environment so much then impose pollution
| controls rather than singling out one particular use you don't
| understand.
| ericb wrote:
| Except exponential scarcity is built in, we're not near the
| end yet, and the scarcity is causing exponential growth in
| energy expenditure, carbon release, and heat. Bitcoin would
| be the _perfect_ scheme to destroy the world.
| ephbit wrote:
| Scarcity is built in, yes .. but block reward halving is
| built in as well.
|
| Now if there were a time to come, when lightning network
| allowed wide adoption of bitcoin as an actual payment
| system ... and the speculation on ever rising price were
| obsolete, because the price was more or less stable ...
| then the limited mining rewards would put a stop to
| exponential growth in energy expenditure.
|
| Where do I get it wrong? (Serious question)
| Uehreka wrote:
| I mean yeah, I'd love to propose a worldwide carbon tax and
| solve the root problem here! But that seems unlikely to
| happen on a short timescale, and without it we'll see coal
| plants that were driven out of business by solar's cheapness
| re-open now that there's all this extra demand for energy
| (and solar isn't keeping pace).
|
| And don't tell me what I don't complain about ;) I'm plenty
| concerned with other sources of carbon emissions too.
|
| As for the rest: I feel like another bad trope I see in these
| debates is the "you just don't get it. Enjoy your
| irrelevance" thing. If crypto is misunderstood, then explain
| it. If there's something people like me aren't getting, help
| us get it. The burden of proof is on crypto-boosters to
| demonstrate why this is worth it and what the actual endgame
| here is.
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