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SolarBatteryBitcoin

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Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#151

Post by amalcon »

thinkmassive wrote: post #134
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…

There are some situations where mining Bitcoin is a very good application of energy that will otherwise be wasted. Here are two that come to mind: 1. Flared gas from oil wells. Natural gas is a byproduct of extracting oil from the Earth. In the past this was vented straight to the atmosphere, which is a huge waste of energy and causes horrible air pollution. Capturing this gas isn’t useful for many applications becau…

I have no cogent argument with your first situation (there are some subtleties there that you omit, but it's basically correct modulo other uses for the energy). The second, however, is fundamentally inaccurate:

> Heat production for buildings and water. Most space and water heaters produce heat directly from their energy source (electricity or gas) without producing anything else of value. The primary byproduct of Bitcoin mining is heat, so it’s relatively straightforward to use mining hardware to produce, or at least augment, traditional heating elements. A company called Wisemining has a product called the Sato Boiler that does this now.

This is incorrect because a mining-based heater will be new and use electricity as its fuel source. You can't compare with an old electric heater because a replacement will obviously be new. You can't compare with hydrocarbon heaters, because you need to convert to electricity to run a computer. That means meaning we need to compare with a new electric heater. That comparison is unfavorable, however, because it will probably be based on a heat pump. Heat pumps have efficiency much greater than 100% (usually around 200%) by takng heat from the outside air or ground.

A better example would be something like an electric oven, which typically does just use resistive heating. However, this sort of undermines the argument, since the energy spent on heating food isn't that much compared to things like residential and commercial heating.

Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#152

Post by krobbn »

riffraff wrote: post #23
fny wrote: post #16

Can we please just invest more heavily in nuclear? My preference is thorium reactors given they are far, far less dangerous in all regards. Given ARKs time horizon, it would be a prescient investment. There's no way in hell were going to get stable power from solar and batteries alone. The bitcoin power problem is also solved.

I'm pro nuclear, but I'm afraid that ship has sailed. Renewable prices have been going down fast and are not stopping, and building a new plant is expensive. We should care about keeping the old ones operating as long as possible, but we've been hearing tales of new safer smaller easy to deploy nuclear plants designs for decades, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Nuclear is dispatchable, wind and solar isn't. There is still a chance for a future of nuclear but its more a political game at this point.

We currently use natural gas for this flexibility, which is better than coal, but still a big polluter.

Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#153

Post by root_axis »

thinkmassive wrote: post #134
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…

There are some situations where mining Bitcoin is a very good application of energy that will otherwise be wasted. Here are two that come to mind: 1. Flared gas from oil wells. Natural gas is a byproduct of extracting oil from the Earth. In the past this was vented straight to the atmosphere, which is a huge waste of energy and causes horrible air pollution. Capturing this gas isn’t useful for many applications becau…

Besides personal profit, using excess energy to mine for bitcoin is worse than letting it be wasted since the increased hash rate contributes to the increased difficulty which drives the cost of mining up for the entire network.

Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#154

Post by swensel »

wespiser_2018 wrote: post #24
jksmith wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there's nothing wrong with considering a store of value to keep you from being under the thumb of fiat. So there's works of art, maybe some other metals, some really unusual one-off earth property. So what you have left is crypto or gold. So invest in gold and encourage more gold mining. Or just trust your government and hold cash. Either way, you're losing a shitload of value. Hedge a small piece of your opinio…

How's is bitcoin even a hedge against the dollar when it's correlated with the U.S. stock market? So many things just don't add up, like is btc a currency or an investment? Fiat currency is really the only spendable currency.

I'm a Bitcoin fan and I actually do agree, some of the narratives conflict. From my perspective it is a new asset class and the world is still figuring out what it is.

It does, so far, seem to be a risk on asset, as it didn't perform well in March 2020.

It is already storing over $1 trillion of the world's wealth though, and in this case, money talks. Yes, it might have a correction, but the S&P 500 might as well.

That said, Bitcoin's properties may change over time, and it may become more of a hedge. It does seem to have a lot of believers, and IMO, the technology is what makes it very interesting.

It has been running successfully for a decade, and we'll be able to figure out more of what it is in 2, 3, or 5 years.

I think, why not hold some, even just a little bit? IMO, people shouldn't put 100% in, and definitely don't take out any loans to do so (maybe unless you are a company, but I'm against individuals taking loans out for it). You never know, maybe some of the current narratives are correct.

Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#155

Post by swensel »

lottin wrote: post #38
jksmith wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there's nothing wrong with considering a store of value to keep you from being under the thumb of fiat. So there's works of art, maybe some other metals, some really unusual one-off earth property. So what you have left is crypto or gold. So invest in gold and encourage more gold mining. Or just trust your government and hold cash. Either way, you're losing a shitload of value. Hedge a small piece of your opinio…

> So what you have left is crypto or gold. Right. Because there are no other investments.

What other investments would you consider? To me, if there are bubbles going on, the stock market is in one as well, as is real estate, etc. I've looked at the other investments available, and they also either seem very inflated, with room to fall, or stagnant and not able to keep up with inflation.

I'd prefer to hold cash in a savings account, but the rates are so low now it just doesn't make sense to hold a lot in cash. I don't feel that safe in the stock market either.

Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#156

Post by zepto »

rfd4sgmk8u wrote: post #143
Hermio wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To trust whom instead? How would a world, realisticly speaking, look like if we ever reach a dystopian level where we all stop using the currencies of our own countries? Srsly, if i stop trusting in the Euro, i can't imagine how our whole economy has to look like. I think we might have a lot of bigger issues at this point in time as bitcoin and probably not enough resources anymore to run bitcoin.

Math and Energy. That's the beautiful thing. If you trust the ECDSA is secure, and you trust that SHA256 is secure - You don't need to trust the individual network participants. If ECDSA or SHA256 were shown to be weaker than believed, they can be substituted in the bitcoin codebase (given approval of all participants, which are incentivized to ensure the computational security of the protocol). The energy is the bar…

You will still have political parties. They will be the ones with the militaries.

The endgame of HODL is a digital Fort Knox. Under the gold standard people didn’t actually exchange pieces of eight. They used paper money.

Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#157

Post by swensel »

space_rock wrote: post #20
gameswithgo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

delusional, this just continues to waste resources for peoole to speculate. resources wasted, lives ruined when they get the gambling wrong. everybody cut this crap out, please.

Is it only speculation or do people get utility out of Bitcoin? Can someone in Venezuela use it get their money out of the country?

Someone in Venezuela could put their money in Bitcoin to prevent against currency debasement of their native currency. They also could get their money out of the country using it.

Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#158

Post by matheusmoreira »

bottled_poe wrote: post #135
mekster wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Denying is easy but what other fair "waste" do you propose to keep a trustless decentralized system running? Waste is how it's fair and how it negates cheating by letting people stick to its investments.

Some might argue that it’s not worth the cost.

Some people never lived through hyperinflation or had their entire bank accounts frozen by a desperate government. Bitcoin itself is obsolete but everyone needs cryptocurrencies in general. Protection against government stupidity is absolutely vital and it literally doesn't matter how much energy it consumes as long as it accomplishes that goal.

Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#159

Post by matheusmoreira »

Hermio wrote: post #139
rfd4sgmk8u wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do NOT have money and trust today. Every single government ever has debased their currency. Central banks cannot be trusted not to destroy your hard earned savings. A dystopia is being enslaved to the existing economic debt machine, rather than being free to trade the hardest money ever invented by humans. When folks understand this, they run to the fiat exits.

To trust whom instead? How would a world, realisticly speaking, look like if we ever reach a dystopian level where we all stop using the currencies of our own countries? Srsly, if i stop trusting in the Euro, i can't imagine how our whole economy has to look like. I think we might have a lot of bigger issues at this point in time as bitcoin and probably not enough resources anymore to run bitcoin.

Nothing dystopian about it. Precious metals were standard currency for most of human history. It's the modern fiat currency system that's abnormal and highly inflated in value.

Re: SolarBatteryBitcoin

#160

Post by swensel »

christkv wrote: post #147

The amount of energy spent on this is breathtaking and it really has to stop. A single bitcoin transaction has a carbon footprint of 359.04 kgCO2 – equivalent to the carbon footprint of 795,752 VISA transactions or 59,840 hours of watching YouTube. https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/bitcoin-shocker-cr...

In all fairness I think we should consider the amount of energy spent to mine gold every year too (as well as the environmental impact), and that's just to mine it, not to mention refining, auditing, transporting, securing, etc.

The energy spent on Bitcoin includes mining, auditing, transporting, securing, etc. It is interesting, at least, to consider that mining Bitcoin is all inclusive. All the energy spent supports the global network.

I think it's worth looking into if Bitcoin actually has some benefits. I don't think this is a clear cut issue and outright statements like, "it really has to stop", IMO, isn't going to help at this time.

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