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SolarBatteryBitcoin

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Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#41

Post by oleganza »

hyko wrote: post #35

Increasing bitcoin mining capacity allows the energy provider to “overbuild” solar without wasting energy. Nope. “Free” PoW undermines the whole system. Mining has to be a sacrifice, otherwise it won’t work anymore. There is no “and I can use the resulting infrastructure for X”. Every joule of energy that goes into proof of work is a joule wasted by design . There is no free lunch. I’m starting to think that maybe cr…

It could be the opposite: a way out through the great filter. Due to imperfection of gold or any resource-based money (symmetrical security), people can never stop fighting for it and build wasteful political hierarchies with ever-escalating arms race. Bitcoin being cheaper to secure than to steal (asymmetrical security) solves two problems: de-escalates arms race and flattens the hierarchies because now savings can be more organically spread in society. This allows redirecting a lot of energy from wars onto cooperative multi-planetary infrastructure or whatever.

Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#42

Post by AYBABTME »

barathr wrote: post #7

I'd like to believe that something like this is possible, but I just don't get how this gets around the fact that every Joule that is used for bitcoin mining is a Joule that wasn't used somewhere else. Even if many Joules of renewable power get wasted during periods of overproduction (mid-day in the summer in California), other more worthwhile loads could be shifted to use that power, because today it's negative-pric…

On boats with extra solar, running a dump load when batteries are full often happens by producing fresh water (desalination) or heating up water. If useful dump loads are available (pumped water?) then it's a good idea but bitcoin mining is better than nothing I guess.

However having bitcoin mining as defacto dump load would probably demotivate work needed toward creating useful dump loads. I'm also wondering what incentives bitcoin as dump load would have in less wealthy regions where purchase power is no match to compete with BTC mining.

Think of a world where most electricity is unaffordable to people, being wasted to hash some coins instead, because it's more "efficient" from a monetary standpoint.

Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#43

Post by lottin »

oleganza wrote: post #40
lottin wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Bitcoin, the Snapchat data centre isn't designed to waste as much electricity as fast as it possibly can. Bitcoin is designed to be wasteful, so don't be surprised if people takes issue with that.

Snapchat data center uses as much energy as needed to extract value from Snapchat-the-product. Same goes for employee's time invested in support, development and research. If Snapchat makes money, it attracts investing resources into it until marginal cost equals marginal revenue. Same for Bitcoin or literally any other human activity. Miners are not going to consume more energy than mined bitcoins are worth.

It seems that you're confusing allocative efficiency with cost efficiency.

Anyway, the production costs of "a Snapchat" depend on the costs of inputs and the current state of technology. Specifically they are not a function of how much a Snapchat is worth in the market. Snapchat can increase the production costs arbitrarily, for instance, by wasting energy, and they could totally decide to waste as much energy as the market price of a Snapchat would allow. How moronic would that be? This is what Bitcoin does. It's important that people understand how Bitcoin works, because once they know how stupid it is a lot of them don't want to have anything to do with it. This has been my experience so far.

Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#45

Post by ben_w »

erentz wrote: post #39
lottin wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Bitcoin, the Snapchat data centre isn't designed to waste as much electricity as fast as it possibly can. Bitcoin is designed to be wasteful, so don't be surprised if people takes issue with that.

This really is just your moral judgement not a fact. You think Bitcoin is wasteful. Others think it’s useful. And the debate has raged for a decade. I think Snapchat is wasteful. It clearly has no beneficial use to society. But you think it is beneficial somehow. Enumerating every use of electricity like this, and convening some panel to judge and decide if they should be allowed or not will never get us anywhere goo…

> What should be the rules for deciding what should and shouldn’t be allowed?

You wanna burn your own house to the ground, your problem. You live in a flat? Now it’s bigger than you.

I’m optimistic about future tech and green energy and expect PV to solve greenhouse emissions. BTC is, by design, such that allowing it to succeed would lead to an arms race that has no upper bound — build a Dyson swarm, and the entire output of Sol gets spent fighting over who can find the right random numbers that hash in the right way, and it still doesn’t end.

(Of course, civilization doesn’t last that long, because the moment energy is priced in BTC it becomes worthwhile doing anything physically possible to get a 51% double-spend attack).

Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#46

Post by Blumfid »

erentz wrote: post #39
lottin wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Bitcoin, the Snapchat data centre isn't designed to waste as much electricity as fast as it possibly can. Bitcoin is designed to be wasteful, so don't be surprised if people takes issue with that.

This really is just your moral judgement not a fact. You think Bitcoin is wasteful. Others think it’s useful. And the debate has raged for a decade. I think Snapchat is wasteful. It clearly has no beneficial use to society. But you think it is beneficial somehow. Enumerating every use of electricity like this, and convening some panel to judge and decide if they should be allowed or not will never get us anywhere goo…

Snapchat actually entertain people and has some kind of value.

Bitcoin burns resources for a handful people. A tremendous amount. It doesn't provide jobs in comparison to snapchat and other services.

And independent of snapchat: feel free to see snapchat as a resource waste but that doesn't make bitcoins better.

Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#47

Post by krageon »

lottin wrote: post #34
erentz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that every Joule that is used for bitcoin mining is a Joule that wasn't used somewhere else. This applies to so many things. Snapchat data center? YouTube using gigawatts to process and stream cat videos? On and on. It’s really hard to control what people do with energy. Much better to focus on ensuring its priced correctly and all it’s externalities are properly included in that price. Then we don’t have to involv…

Unlike Bitcoin, the Snapchat data centre isn't designed to waste as much electricity as fast as it possibly can. Bitcoin is designed to be wasteful, so don't be surprised if people takes issue with that.

Literally every joule that goes into snapchat datacenters is wasted. It's not necessary, it doesn't make anything happy and it's primarily a way for a large company to harvest a lot of data on young people. Nobody wins with the way this power is used.

Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#48

Post by pyinstallwoes »

barathr wrote: post #7

I'd like to believe that something like this is possible, but I just don't get how this gets around the fact that every Joule that is used for bitcoin mining is a Joule that wasn't used somewhere else. Even if many Joules of renewable power get wasted during periods of overproduction (mid-day in the summer in California), other more worthwhile loads could be shifted to use that power, because today it's negative-pric…

I joke, but I also do not. The inevitable conclusion of this path with bitcoin mining is the fastest path towards creating a black hole. It's the exactly perfect incentive structure to maximize speed towards a blackhole ecological disaster.

Caveat on disaster: Unless blackholes aren't real, or they are something else entirely.

Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#49

Post by Blumfid »

erentz wrote: post #32
riffraff wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that is that you have to get the whole planet to agree, or you're just shifting the problem to a different country.

But does banning something do anything different? Say the USA bans Bitcoin mining due to concerns about its energy use. That doesn’t stop mining in China or elsewhere. On top of that the US now needs to set up an invasive investigation system for enforcing the ban within its own borders. Applies just as well to YouTube cat videos or any other poor use of energy in the digital realm. Banning YouTube in the USA doesn’t…

That would break bitcoin very fast.

No american will continue to infest in bitcoin if the majority of miners is in china only

Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#50

Post by Blumfid »

gruez wrote: post #11
barathr wrote: post #7

I'd like to believe that something like this is possible, but I just don't get how this gets around the fact that every Joule that is used for bitcoin mining is a Joule that wasn't used somewhere else. Even if many Joules of renewable power get wasted during periods of overproduction (mid-day in the summer in California), other more worthwhile loads could be shifted to use that power, because today it's negative-pric…

> Even if many Joules of renewable power get wasted during periods of overproduction (mid-day in the summer in California), other more worthwhile loads could be shifted to use that power, because today it's negative-priced during such periods. Clearly there aren't such worthwhile loads available, which is why the rates go negative in the first place. >pre-cooling of buildings during the summer (run the AC in houses f…

That money should be used to invest in real energy storage and not burning it through asics and useless calculations.
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