Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course it does. Even green/renewable energy has costs. Solar farms take up a lot of land, which competes with farming, puts pressure on ecosytems, etc. Wind turbines also require land, they make noise, disrupt views and kill birds. Man-made hydro requires flooding large areas; even tapping hydro on to existing lakes creates a flooding risk downstream. Hydro also has severe geopolitical implicications (e.g. Egypt's…
Really? I thought the first principle of green energy was to stop polluting. There's no need to reduce consumption unless green energy tech can't meet the demand (and given advances in battery tech, I have no reason to believe it can't)
Even with such a laughably limited definition, "pollution" would include:
- Noise pollution, e.g. from wind farms, construction, etc.
- Chemical pollution, e.g. from batteries, photovoltaics, mining, etc.
- Non-recyclable waste, e.g. many wind turbine blades, structural elements, etc.
- Airbourne particulates, e.g. from transport and construction (tyres, road wear, brake wear, etc.)
These are certainly less bad than "pollution" from fossil fuels; but it would be stupid to increase them for the sake of partially-inverting SHA256 on a few inputs.