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Buying a Tesla car in Bitcoins cancels 4 times the CO2 savings for its lifetime

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Re: Buying a Tesla car in Bitcoins cancels 4 times the CO2 savings for its lifetime

#101

Post by lukev »

high_priest wrote: post #28
lukev wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any evidence that Bitcoin is actually displacing traditional banking? Using BTC for your savings or checking account would be an absolutely terrible idea given its volatility. No rational person would ditch traditional banking in favor of Bitcoin. So really, this is just whataboutism to deflect from the fact that, environmentally speaking, Bitcoin is one of the worst inventions of the century.

The "Volatility" is purely temporary because of the market still being built. Eventually, the limited supply will make the currency super-stable and make calculations of actual worth of something super-easy. https://youtube.com/shorts/5jsY7YSJBs4

The value of Bitcoin is driven almost entirely by speculation. Speculative assets are not known for their stability.

Re: Buying a Tesla car in Bitcoins cancels 4 times the CO2 savings for its lifetime

#102

Post by africanboy »

EdSchouten wrote: post #96
cwkoss wrote: post #80

Lol, that the author isn't accounting for Bitcoins being used more than once makes this comparison one of the most laughable "bitcoin is too energy inefficient" arguments I've seen yet. This is basically like saying, "If you only account for the first passenger on the bus, busses are way less efficient than everyone driving their own sportscar!".

Still, how much energy would it take to print an equal amount of money in the form of banknotes?

as a data point: the entire Bank of Italy consumes around 700Mw/year, 100% of them comes from renewable sources since 2015 (vs at least 100Tw for bitcoins, it's 140 thousand times less energy).

the whole Bank of Italy emits 14.8 thousands tons of CO-2 a year, the equivalent of buying 185 Tesla in bitcoins.

Re: Buying a Tesla car in Bitcoins cancels 4 times the CO2 savings for its lifetime

#103

Post by HDMI_Cable »

EdSchouten wrote: post #96
cwkoss wrote: post #80

Lol, that the author isn't accounting for Bitcoins being used more than once makes this comparison one of the most laughable "bitcoin is too energy inefficient" arguments I've seen yet. This is basically like saying, "If you only account for the first passenger on the bus, busses are way less efficient than everyone driving their own sportscar!".

Still, how much energy would it take to print an equal amount of money in the form of banknotes?

How many people are buying a Tesla in cash though?

Re: Buying a Tesla car in Bitcoins cancels 4 times the CO2 savings for its lifetime

#104

Post by HDMI_Cable »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #21

Are there any good papers on the BTC network robustness in the event of war. It is well known that major military powers have the ability to cut essentially every ocean-floor optical fiber bundle handling the backbone of the internet at a moment’s notice. If this happens, how would the bitcoin network respond without active connections to other mining nodes? E.g. would the Chinese miners automatically (algorithmicall…

> It is well known that major military powers have the ability to cut essentially every ocean-floor optical fiber bundle handling the backbone of the internet at a moment’s notice.

I'm not doubting your statement, but I would love to hear where you got that point from, since it seems really interesting.

Re: Buying a Tesla car in Bitcoins cancels 4 times the CO2 savings for its lifetime

#105

Post by TrackerFF »

hggh wrote: post #4

And what about the CO2 impact of using traditional banking (air conditioning, heating, commuting...)

Tbf, traditional banking is more than just moving cash from one account to another. If anything, the vast majority of activity inside / within banks is dedicated to the numerous services they offer.

Re: Buying a Tesla car in Bitcoins cancels 4 times the CO2 savings for its lifetime

#106

Post by aeternum »

filleduchaos wrote: post #85
cwkoss wrote: post #80

Lol, that the author isn't accounting for Bitcoins being used more than once makes this comparison one of the most laughable "bitcoin is too energy inefficient" arguments I've seen yet. This is basically like saying, "If you only account for the first passenger on the bus, busses are way less efficient than everyone driving their own sportscar!".

Each subsequent transaction still uses a significant amount of energy, no?

The miner hash power secures the blockchain and is independent of transaction rate.

Increasing the transaction rate does not require any additional energy expenditure and transaction rate (block size) has already been increased twice since Bitcoin's inception.

Dividing the total power consumption of bitcoin by the relatively small transaction rate makes for good headlines so I'd expect it to continue even though the two are unrelated.

Re: Buying a Tesla car in Bitcoins cancels 4 times the CO2 savings for its lifetime

#109

Post by [deleted] »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #35
nooneiswatching wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting thought. I believe that chains would initially split, effectively being forks of each other. However, the consensus algorithm of Bitcoin dictates that the chain with the most work is the valid one, meaning that in the event of a "reconnection", one of the chains would be abandoned (and everyone would agree which one to keep, namely the one with the most work). In the case of a total disconnect betwee…

Philosophical question: At what point do divergent chains become irreconcilably and separately valid? Is this a property we would ever want in a should-be decentralized currency? One way this can happen today is with intentional forks.

[deleted]

Re: Buying a Tesla car in Bitcoins cancels 4 times the CO2 savings for its lifetime

#110

Post by BelenusMordred »

lxgr wrote: post #39
BelenusMordred wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Renewables don't exist in a vacuum Yes they do, like all energy sources there's a physical limit on how far you can transmit it, all power generators live in a regional bubble. There's a reason all that excess hydro energy in Sichaun province goes into negative prices multiple times a year and can't be bought elsewhere in the country or even exported to other countries, it's simply too far away.

> it's simply too far away. Brazil has a 2500 km long ultra high voltage direct current line running from a hydroelectric power plant to Rio de Janeiro. I'm pretty sure there's a medium-sized city or two within that radius of Sichuan.

That's the longest in the world, not exactly representative of the norm. There's grid bubbles everywhere, they do all live in a "vacuum", you can't just magically transport it without decades long mega infrastructure projects to build super grids and accepting large transmission losses.
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