Great Scott! Bitcoin to consume half a per cent of the world's electricity by end of year The energy required by the Bitcoin fad has been forecast to hit half a per cent of the world's entire electricity supply by the end of 2018. With the network estimated to already be consuming 2.55 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power most of Ireland (or send a couple of Deloreans back a few years to before the Bitcoin …
I bet a good percentage is spent on, say, displaying white pixels on computers for Google's home page.
On World Eco day they once went black and estimated the savings worldwide and it was a significant chunk.
Fact is, it's not money wasted if you profit from it personally, and many people who use Bitcoin are profiting from it even if they aren't millionaires or immune to the risk of it tanking overnight.
An alternate shot-in-the-arm is "Bitcoin creates jobs and increases product demands at electricity suppliers". It's not like they aren't PAYING for the electricity. And if people choose to pay for it, it gets taxed and (you would hope) invested into the electricity network. And, of course, they choose to pay because someone, somewhere will give them MORE money than the electricity costs to do it themselves, or they wouldn't bother.
I never get these anti-Bitcoin arguments. If someone was staring at a screen for 8 hours a day catching silly balls when they could be working - yes, we have a problem as a culture. That someone legitimately pays for a product, transforms it, and sells it on... why is that a problem?
If we then say "Oh, well, look, we're short of electricity", then surely it means the electricity company needs to profit as much as it can so they can provide more of it and investigate new ways to make more, and more cheaply.
It's like complaining that bookshops exist. If people weren't buying their product, they wouldn't exist.
@Lee D - "It's not like they aren't PAYING for the electricity"
Are you sure?
Power spike leads Chinese police to 600-machine mining rig
"That someone legitimately pays for a product, transforms it, and sells it on... why is that a problem?"
Externalities, opportunity costs: We die from pollution and global warming, and don't solve world hunger because of the extra electricity used and the rising cost of power.
Also, it makes Governments look dumb for asking people to use energy-saving lightbulbs.
"I bet a good percentage is spent on, say, displaying white pixels on computers for Google's home page.
On World Eco day they once went black and estimated the savings worldwide and it was a significant chunk."
Source?
This doesn't make sense, most displays are LCDs these days, and those don't consume less by displaying black... (because the fluorescent/LED backlight is always on)
Nice try but a fail.
The entire US' energy consumption for computing was calculated by the NREL back in 2001: http://www2.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/net-energy-studies.html
To put in terms of the article - which is presumably GW per hour - total computing and networking electricity consumption in the US in 2001 (peak of the Internet 1.0 bubble) was ~2 percent or ~8.4 GW per hour rate.
Or put another way: Bitcoin electricity consumption today uses 30% as much juice as the entire US computing and networking infrastructure in 2001 - the peak of Internet Bubble 1.0. The US consumes about 1/4.5 of the overall world's electricity; if the computing percentage is equivalent worldwide (which it is not clearly either higher or lower), then bitcoin alone is consuming 6.7% as much as the entire world's computing and network electricity usage. This is ludicrously high.
While internet usage has increased since then as has computing, efficiency has also increased - so it is unclear if the overall US computing consumption number has increased or decreased. Certainly overall US electricity consumption has not changed much since 2001 (3,9__ TWh in 2001 vs. 4,0__ Twh today).
"Fact is, it's not money wasted if you profit from it personally, and many people who use Bitcoin are profiting from it even if they aren't millionaires or immune to the risk of it tanking overnight."
It's power waster though.. solving each block is a race, first to solve wins, all the other miners have wasted their power
This influences rational behaviour. If my local sysadmins ask us to leave several thousand machines running over the weekend for "essential security updates" it makes you wonder what else they're doing with all that machinery. This goes all the way to people accepting an app which they don't pay for and has a mining trojan, viruses running on botnets and teenagers wasting their parents electricity bill.
>Yep - for only another 0.7GW (9.62GW) you could launch a Space Shuttle.
Which is part of why NASA was willing to say adios even before they had a replacement. The Space Shuttle was everything that was wrong with the Concorde on steroids. Granted would always prefer energy is spent on space exploration than unicorns but have to be smart in getting the most bang for our buck for the limited resources that often get diverted for bombing brown people.
>Bitcoin is burning electricity 24X7
The figures being discussed are the annual usage - and wildly estimated in extremis - they bear no resemblance to actual usage (in US power is about 18% of production cost - but it's a fraction of that for the massive mines in Iceland where cooling is free and geothermal power very cheap)
How much noise does a typical mining rig - one that would be powerful enough to contribute significantly to keeping a room warm - generate?
Quite a lot.... My rigs have to be housed in the basement, they were in the next room, but I could hear the hum of over 40 fans....
Modern industrial cooling installations simply do not have the "escape rate" to explain the spike size. It would have to be a pretty crap aircon to leak that much.
It is more likely that this is construction and/or household chemicals - freon used for foam and propellant. Once again (and as usual) a Chinese manufacturer not giving a damn about environmental regs.
I think the old "tulip" trope is getting a bit, er, old. Bitcoin et al. are becoming more and more assimilated into the mainstream banking system in particular and into 21st century culture in general. Ignore and mock all you want but I suspect you will turn out to be on the wrong side of history.
It's amazing to think people might soon start using global warming as a reason to make bitcoin mining illegal.
It has happened four times since 2011 that the bitcoin price went 10x in a few months. If it does that again, it's going to have such an impact that I think governments will intervene.
What would be their reasoning? I don't see that they would really care about some people valuing big numbers, or small ones actually, at a lot of money as a big issue. Also, it would be rather difficult to prevent cryptominers from operating, as it could be hard to tell if someone was using power for that or something else. It's always easy to find a country that cares less about something if you want--it seems that the Chinese miners find it rather straightforward to steal electricity, so if some other country tried to ban mining, you could just set up there.
"I think governments will intervene."
A government that thinks it can intervene is living in a fantasy land.
I guess the UK government qualifies as they already proved they dont know the difference between dreams and reality when they started trying to fiddle with the maths of encryption.
https://goo.gl/images/LunXPM
Going up to 900KWh per transaction? That would be around US$45 per transaction at those quoted rates of $0.05 per KWh! Can someone provide a viable use-case for bitcoins? Not just a fanciful one, but one that makes even a tiny bit of sense?
And something that'll consume more than a few % of the world's entire electricity output? For what exactly? What is the actual benefit over, say, the current banking system, which flawed though it may be, at least isn't quite that energy-hungry.
I've said this before, but as far as I can see, bitcoin is only a tool used by criminals and hackers. It has no real-world application. Not really. Not when you think about it.
What is the actual benefit over, say, the current banking system, which flawed though it may be, at least isn't quite that energy-hungry.
Well.. there's the mining PC themselves... someone's making money on them. The power companies make money. Hmm.. other benefits....? Have to get back to you on this one.
It used to be that only governments could "create" or issue money. With Bitcoin, et al, that has left the hands of government. So maybe that's a use?
It used to be that only governments could "create" or issue money. With Bitcoin, et al, that has left the hands of government. So maybe that's a use?
Bitcoin (and all other cryptocoins) aren't creating any money. They're just moving existing money into the hands of early adopters and electricity generators. There's no economic productivity involved.
There are lots of ways:
- dig up some gold, silver, diamonds, or something else of value
- turn a canvas and oil paints into a masterpiece
- write the great American novel
- write the next killer app
You aren't creating money when you "mine" a bitcoin, anymore than you create money by finding a $100 bill someone accidentally dropped on the sidewalk.
I've said this before, but as far as I can see, bitcoin is only a tool used by criminals and hackers. It has no real-world application. Not really. Not when you think about it.
With all due respect, that statement says more about your lack of vision and, dare I say it, ignorance of the technology, than it says about crypto-currencies.
I've said this before, but as far as I can see, bitcoin is only a tool used by criminals and hackers. It has no real-world application. Not really. Not when you think about it.
its that attitude that prevents it from being used mainstream. if everyone thinks its just for criminals and hackers...
If you want a real world application, heres one... you pay for something online. Its an internet equivalent of a cash transaction. heres another one. Its digital currency I can pay for something that its not the banks or anyone else's business what it is.
admittedly its a near perfect platform for criminals, but don't think for a minute that its not tractable...
I don't fully understand the technology - I'll be the first to admit that. But what the hell is the point of a currency that needs 900KWh of energy to verify a transaction? And it's not just my attitude that prevents it becoming mainstream. It's fiendishly complex to use (especially buying and selling) and it seems that every other site that purports to help you convert bitcoins is trying to scam you.
No way is it ready for prime time... it needs to be simplified, made more efficient and regulated.
Your point that it's nobody's business what a transaction is, doesn't take into account that each individual piece of bitcoin can be tracked. So proceeds from crime (eg ransomware) end up being easily traced.
It doesn't *need* "900KWh of energy to verify a transaction".
It *did* need a way to incentivize miners to run the network.
One would be right to say that *currently* it gives too much to miners
(the reward halves every ~4 years until it's 0 in ~2100),
but, as they say, "hindsight is 20/20"...
>That would be around US$45 per transaction at those quoted rates of $0.05 per KWh!
Not far off the median transaction cost just before Xmas (approaching $40 then) - it's now about 75 cents.
Time to do a little more reading - you should probably start with finding out what a transaction actually is in this context.
So what is the estimated % used by such as faecesbook and twitter?
At least faecesbook has some use, connecting friends and groups. Twitter not so.
And all the hot air produced by twats ( isn't that the name given to twitter users?) leading to global warming, shouldn't that be banned too.
Huh, what's that? Global warming is now Global change.
Computers should be shaped to resemble electric baseboard heaters. In fact, resistive baseboard heaters should be banned, and all baseboard heaters should be Network-enabled CPU farms, with a government incentive sponsoring their installation. The wall-mounted thermostat would simply initiate start-up and controlled shutdown.
One trivial residual issue is the lack of population in the extreme South. Somehow we need to convince several billion people to move to (for example) South Georgia Island, so that we'll have substantial heating demand during the Northern summer. That shouldn't be too difficult.
anyone done a study of the costs of current physical money (coins, production of, transportation of, same with notes) and of credit cards, production of, delivery of, statements for), payment terminals (wireless and fixed) , ATMs , the filling of etc and worked out that energy use? just saying.....
I have done this study:
Bitcoin uses about the same amount of electricity as the entire country of Ireland uses for everything.
Transaction volume on the bitcoin network is equivalent to everyone in Ireland doing two transactions per month.
The EU average is that everyone does 17 transactions per month.
So even if every single kWh of electricity in Ireland was used to support the currency / banking network, it would be 8.5x more efficient than Bitcoin.
In reality, the proportion used by banks is so small, that it is included in the "other" category.
So even if every single kWh of electricity in Ireland was used to support the currency / banking network, it would be 8.5x more efficient than Bitcoin.
you are missing the point of how bitcoin works.... the amount of electricity used is not just to support transactions but for mining new coins as well, so in your calculations you need to take into account the cost of not only banking transactions, but the cost of making bank notes and coins, distributing them and replacing them as well as the gold value that sterling is an equivalent to...
They should invent a new coin called s--e-x coin who value is based on all the energy consumed during rumpy pumpy.
actually starting a new cryptocurrency is very easy. the hard bit is giving value to the original currency offering, then encouraging people to mine/trade them.
I believe that is what the honourable JuJuBalt had in mind.
Everyone here is rightly saying that electricity costs (both in equipment power, cooling, maintenance and whatever else) are starting to cost as much as the end product.
Next step is electricity theft similar to what weed growers use when they bypass the meter for their hydro farms. I'm presuming this is already happening too.
Why dont they make the computations usefull rather than pointless? Im thinking of the old SETI screen saver (20yrs ago...)and there was a medical number cruncher as well
You mean Folding@home I presume?
Problem is, you can't expect speculating to make money from that, just helping real people in the real life.
ok, i may be being thick here. why cant we reward someone for doing x amount of computations instead of rewarding someone for doing x amount of useless computations?
like generate 1 NHScoin every time you work out how many useless managers there are in a given department?
1 NHScoin can be redeemed to put your appointment ahead by, say, 1 hour, for a , say, category c injury (mild headache, or something that you think needs antibiotics).
or similar. the possibilities are endless.
The computations are not useless, there is an end goal that needs to be reached and you can't just drop in another algorithm which gives a different result and expect it to still work.
The current process is to (as I understand it) find a value that when fed into a function with the previous blocks hash and the hash of the current block gives you a prime number (I might have really misunderstood this, thinking about what would be involved... I must be wrong, but it's along those lines).
So changing the algorithm to give you the result of some protein folding exercise isn't going to work.
ok, whatever the calculation is, is has a result. when you arrive at the result, you get a bitcoin. or something similar right?
the end result is useless, unless your only goal is to make money. in which case, it is usefull.
but, if you could make money and also perform a useful calculation....
so give it a different problem. one where the answer is usefull but as yet unknown.
there must be millions of unknown chemical compounds / seti data / methods of mixing chemicals / protein structures / christ knows....lots of things that could be worked out but havent been yet.
When the 'rational behaviour' so beloved of economists can be relied upon to eliminate the 'sunk costs fallacy', I'll believe in their 'rational actors'. Until then I'll stick to my decades-long observation of human psychology and behaviour and go with the hypothesis that economists are paid too much to be rational observers of reality - because they don't live in it themselves.
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