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Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

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Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#111

Post by dcanelhas »

newaccount74 wrote: post #60
vadfa wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is clean and sustainable and can allow people to mine bitcoin and even heat their homes, which seems to be a problem currently in some regions of Europe.

Nuclear energy may not release CO2 into the atmosphere, but that doesn't make it clean and sustainable: - you need to store radioactive waste for hundreds of years - "safe" permanent storage sites often end up not not being actually safe 50 years later - warming rivers by using the water for cooling may wreck local ecosystems The only thing that is actually sustainable is not using all the energy in the first place.…

Readily fissile materials aren't just found lying around next to the reactor though. There is a non-negligible amount of CO2 emitted to get fuel, even for nuclear power.

Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#112

Post by swarnie »

themihai wrote: post #101
swman wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly do we really need cryptocurrency? I don’t want my transactions public. I like exchanging cash for weed (legal in California) and nobody needs to know regardless. I also don’t understand what’s wrong with USD. I grew up in a third world country so maybe it could help people there but in USA? I’m happy with the dollar fluctuations vs four digit fluctuations daily. Can someone give me a good explain?

Crypto doesn't try to replace cash. It tries to replace digital payments (i.e. bank transfer, paypal, credit card etc) and I'm totally fine with that. Some people like paypal, visa and mastercard, some people don't.

Do digital payments need replacing?

I haven't seen physical cash in almost two years (one exception, a contractor wanted to dodge some tax) and the system just works effortlessly.

Tapping a card is easier and faster then counting change.

I don't see how paying a $20 gas fee and waiting 15 minutes would improve the situation.

Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#113

Post by skohan »

VMG wrote: post #71
rebuilder wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would still raise the cost of mining. And those countries that do not ban mining will face increasing pressure to do so, due to miners pushing energy prices up. But yes, an international treaty banning PoW crypto mining would be more effective. Then confiscate the equipment and use it to attack the networks.

High mining cost is what provides network security. I doubt there will be popular support for military interventions against Bitcoin. But if a "War against Bitcoin" were to happen, it would probably be as successful as the "War on Drugs" and "War on Terror"

Security is the argument of last-resort for so many bad technologies.

Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#114

Post by gefhfff »

skohan wrote: post #104
newaccount74 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear energy may not release CO2 into the atmosphere, but that doesn't make it clean and sustainable: - you need to store radioactive waste for hundreds of years - "safe" permanent storage sites often end up not not being actually safe 50 years later - warming rivers by using the water for cooling may wreck local ecosystems The only thing that is actually sustainable is not using all the energy in the first place.…

That all might be true, but there are ways to improve on those points. For instance thorium reactors are much more efficient in terms of waste, and they are much safer. A lot of problems we have with Nuclear is because the tech most widely used was created with a side goal of advancing nuclear weapon production. I'm by no means a nuclear maximalist, but I could see better nuclear being a component of a larger sustain…

Thorium reactors are a castle in the air

Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#115

Post by vadfa »

gefhfff wrote: post #103
vadfa wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not externalising their cost to the rest of society. They are paying the exact cost of the energy they spend just like the rest of people.

Which is externalizing the cost to the rest of society as there is either no or a too small carbon tax while the estimated cost on society varies between 700 Euros [0] and 100.000$ [1] [0] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/umwelt-wirtschaft/gesel... [1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-020-02785-4

If the estimated cost on society "varies between 700 Euros [0] and 100.000$ [1]" then those scientists should be back to the drawing board because those two numbers can't make sense at the same time.

Also I don't see why only a small part of society should be paying for that "carbon tax" - all citizens should pay an amount corresponding to their energy spending and then we are back to miners not externalising anything.

Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#116

Post by avereveard »

seu wrote: post #3

"If we were to allow extensive mining of crypto-assets in Sweden, there is a risk that the renewable energy available to us will be insufficient to cover the required climate transition that we need to make. This energy is urgently required for the development of fossil-free steel, large-scale battery manufacturing and the electrification of our transport sector. Based on estimates from Cambridge University, it is cu…

Option c: price energy usage accordingly and profit off cryptominers. You'll have the funds to expand energy production capacity to both solve today problem and future proof infrastructure

Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#117

Post by polaris_mars »

seu wrote: post #3

"If we were to allow extensive mining of crypto-assets in Sweden, there is a risk that the renewable energy available to us will be insufficient to cover the required climate transition that we need to make. This energy is urgently required for the development of fossil-free steel, large-scale battery manufacturing and the electrification of our transport sector. Based on estimates from Cambridge University, it is cu…

This is a feature not a bug. What I'm hearing is, it takes the energy necessary to drive 1.8m kilometres to forge one bitcoin. Perfect.

And humanity is not on the verge of climate extinction, although it is the dogma of our times.

Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#118

Post by lvs »

themihai wrote: post #101
swman wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly do we really need cryptocurrency? I don’t want my transactions public. I like exchanging cash for weed (legal in California) and nobody needs to know regardless. I also don’t understand what’s wrong with USD. I grew up in a third world country so maybe it could help people there but in USA? I’m happy with the dollar fluctuations vs four digit fluctuations daily. Can someone give me a good explain?

Crypto doesn't try to replace cash. It tries to replace digital payments (i.e. bank transfer, paypal, credit card etc) and I'm totally fine with that. Some people like paypal, visa and mastercard, some people don't.

It's more of a haven asset. It doesn't make sense as a payment system, and it hasn't in a decade really succeded in that role. It has accumulated a lot of capital, however, that might otherwise have gone into other haven assets.

Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#119

Post by Fragoel2 »

swarnie wrote: post #112
themihai wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto doesn't try to replace cash. It tries to replace digital payments (i.e. bank transfer, paypal, credit card etc) and I'm totally fine with that. Some people like paypal, visa and mastercard, some people don't.

Do digital payments need replacing? I haven't seen physical cash in almost two years (one exception, a contractor wanted to dodge some tax) and the system just works effortlessly. Tapping a card is easier and faster then counting change. I don't see how paying a $20 gas fee and waiting 15 minutes would improve the situation.

First, physical cash is still the norm in most of the world.

Second, higher competition in the payments ecosystem would force providers to reduce their fees. The glaring example is what is happening in San Salvador, where by using Bitcoin they are likekly to save 450 USD millions/year in fees.

Re: Swedish government agencies say energy-intensive crypto mining should be banned

#120

Post by shadowfox »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #69
JustinVx wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear doesn’t produce any greenhouse gasses, but with the radioactive waste it generates it of course isn’t really clean. It’s also expensive and takes decades to build.

That waste is much easier to dispose that the waste created by "renewables" like solar panels, especially with newer generation plants that burn old nuclear waste.

I am not sure how much you have looked at these newer plants? While must can use since amount of nuclear waste (which is great), their biproducts are only somewhat less toxic than the original. These are nowhere as clean as people seem to imagine.
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