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We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

theatlantic.com

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Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#51

Post by melling »

llukas wrote: post #23
melling wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Bitcoin's electricity consumption as a percentage of the world's electricity consumption 0.09%“ By definition 0.09% is not significant. Eliminating it would not significantly impact climate change.

Please do not move goalposts - I wrote "environmentally significant" not "significantly impact climate change". I don't think our technology is so advanced that producing 18TWh of energy per year can be done without impact on environment.

You are the one moving the goalposts because the article is about climate change.

“Bill Gates has committed his fortune to moving the world beyond fossil fuels and mitigating climate change”

Back to my original comment: “You derailed the entire point of the article by taking a tangent into a completely different...”

If we move beyond fossil fuels and use 100% wind, solar, and nuclear energy, for example, does the electricity use for Bitcoin matter?

Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#52

Post by xxxdarrenxxx »

pkulak wrote: post #34
ekianjo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Really? Last I checked, taking the averaged of the top 10 most efficient mining setups, BitCoin network was pulling 9GW+. And where is the comparison vs physical money? You know, with trucks moving around every day, and the cost of insurance, special facilities, salaries, etc...

Except that cash is used in about a third of consumer transactions, and basically not at all otherwise. Everything else is chain of trust and essentially free, in terms of energy and every other resource. Besides, a single truck can move millions of dollars, and I doubt reaching out to take my money and then making change contributes very much to the salary of a shop keeper. Probably far less than scanning my phone a…

Physical currency per bill needs to travel once and in big quantities in the same truck. Then it circulates on "residual human energy" from pocket to pocket for years.

There is an absolute initial cost, but then there is none. CC servers (and digital banking in general) needs a permanent upkeep of power.

I think the cost for paper money is neglible. Coins however is more interesting. Their face value tends to be less, yet weight is substantial compared to a paper bill.

Here I can see more an argument for cost.

This actually was very relevant going back a bit in history when we used silver and gold for money. You get a whole issue of material cost vs it's face value as well.

In case of heavy deflation, people might just melt pennies (copper) and sell them for other (ie. international) currency. To increase the person's actual buying power.

There's also a general argument to be made for copper and in the past gold for currency, as these materials hold an inherit value for their atomic makeup and it's applicable use which simply can't be justified/compared vs it's value as a human usable currency.

In general, both currencies have their values.

Physical: needs no power upkeep, nor situational power and data connection to work.

This is great for reliability.

A nice thing about digital currency though, is the power we get. Instant transfer over physical irrelevant distances is pretty nice.

Another nice thing is I feel more comfortable with just 20 bucks cash. If I wanted to go out in a world without digital transfers, I would carry a lot with me, for the drinks, the food, buy a situational ticket for some party you come across, money for a taxi/train.

In a world without digital currency, "hitting jackpot" for a robber is statistically absolutely higher, and thus it would potentially increase crime levels quite a bit.

Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#53

Post by That-one-thing »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #38
That-one-thing wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, now I have trouble finding English sources and I need to go in a while. But no wind power does not work in large scale in a electric system. The problem is that you need to have a lot of extra power and power electronics to stabilize the effect of wind power. It disturbs the frequency of the electricity in the network and you have to balance it with other sources you have complete control over to keep the power s…

Sweden has had more than 7% wind for a few years now, so we can safely say it's higher than 7%. There's actually a single giant windfarm due for completion in 2020 that on its own will provide more than 8%. There are some reasons to think solar and wind have physical limits and can't provide 100% on their own (or even together) economically just as nuclear on its own doesn't really make economic sense, but there's a…

You are correct in that the first estimate my the energy department was wrong. But the idea that it is all solved and that we can just build lots of it without having to worry is not a good strategy for a society in my opinion. Yes sometimes they sometimes make predictions that are wrong, but I still think that we should listen mostly to scientific prediction than anything else.

Yes and that the UK peaked at 28% is irrelevant ( EDIT: I used to harsh wording, yes it's a bit relevant but there are still problems with applying one solution to another place ) because they have different system with different possibilities. You can't implement the same systems everywhere since they have different conditions.

Maybe we can have almost exclusively power by wind in the future. But until then I prefer to listen to scientists and hear what they have to say.

Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#54

Post by lozenge »

A response: https://thinkprogress.org/no-bill-gates-we-dont-need-energy-...

> What is particularly unfortunate about Gates’ mistaken rhetoric is that it can disempower people and policymakers and pundits into thinking that individual or even government action is not the central weapon needed to win the climate fight and that our only hope is some long-term deus ex machina strategy to avoid catastrophic warming. Nothing could be worse than leaving people with the impression that humanity’s only hope is future miracles...

> What is particularly ironic about Gates’ mistaken energy-miracle-centered strategy, as I’ll discuss at the end, is that it is the exact opposite of the deployment-driven innovation strategy Gates himself used to make Microsoft a software giant and to make personal computers the “miracle” that Gates calls them today.

Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#55

Post by novalis78 »

Caveman_Coder wrote: post #21
melling wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You derailed the entire point of the article by taking a tangent into a completely different, essentially irrrelevant, discussion. “Bitcoin's electricity consumption as a percentage of the world's electricity consumption 0.09%“ How about Bill Gates and Terrapower trying to build a new generation of nuclear power in China? https://qz.com/627113/bill-gates-says-china-is-the-best-plac...

TerraPower is interesting, especially since it recycles previously enriched uranium. On a side note, as far as the future of nuclear power goes, I'm more interested in LFTR designs and I think Flibe Energy is going to someone to watch here in the near future. http://flibe-energy.com/

...or Thorcon Power. Bitcoin mining puts an interesting economic incentive on cheap energy production and chip efficiency. That and its implications always fascinated me.

Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#56

Post by novalis78 »

noncoml wrote: post #48
melling wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Bitcoin's electricity consumption as a percentage of the world's electricity consumption 0.09%“ By definition 0.09% is not significant. Eliminating it would not significantly impact climate change.

I think 0.09% is mind blowing! Think about it, almost a thousandth of world's electricity consumption completely wasted on BTC alone.

Actually there is a great article by Nick Szabo on the social cost of organizing by third party that Bitcoin replaces - if you take the energy it costs to run governments/banks with everything they utilize in terms of energy cost then that's what Bitcoin tries to 'free up' also in terms of energy usage (and still comes out ahead)

Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#57

Post by TeMPOraL »

openfuture wrote: post #16
noncoml wrote: post #3

All this cryptocurrenty craziness doesn't help either. I don't understand how the HN crowd that is usually so pro-environment, is also happy with the tons of wasted energy from crytptocurrency mining.

It's still young technology and the energy efficiency will improve with the lightning network or proof of stake or different concepts like filecoin. The societal gain from these technologies is potentially very large and will hopefully realign interests in the direction of saving the environment rather than bailing out businesses.. But the most sane definition of money is actually energy imo Also comparing the energy…

As I keep pointing out, energy costs of "classical" money is considered an upkeep that's to be reduced. You can earn money by making the process more efficient. In cryptocurrencies, energy use is considered a feature - people are incentivized to waste more and more electricity.

Or put differently, it's replacing a system that's O(log n) with respect to energy usage with a system that's O(n²), for questionable benefits.

Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#58

Post by eip »

alexasmyths wrote: post #20
eip wrote: post #11

The military has been suppressing advanced energy tech for 70+ years in order to maintain the stability of the global financial (slavery) system. Decentralized energy production means loss of control.

The military, particularly DARPA has been introducing tech into the world that has utterly improved it for the better. If I could be so bold: every piece of tech in your house depends in some way on military R&D. Heyzeus - you even owe 'canned food' to Napoleon's supply-chain R&D. It's a surprisingly long list when you account for actual history, not just the 20th century, which was huge.

I never claimed otherwise. They have unlimited R&D budget and the ability to kidnap scientists/inventors and steal their tech. They release tons of goodies all the time. Just not advanced energy tech.

There are two reasons for this:

1. The stability of the petrodollar global control grid is based on the centralized production of energy. Any tech that would lead to widespread decentralization is a threat. Power is power.

2. People are too retarded and selfish to be trusted with unlimited energy. They would inevitably split the crust of the earth and kill us all.

So until both of those things change you won't see permanent batteries, cheap hydrogen from water, high efficiency solar, or any of the other energy tech they are sitting on.

Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#59

Post by Nomentatus »

melling wrote: post #46
Nomentatus wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I often have done such refactoring. It's hard to get that last 20% of speed, much less last 5% without making a large number of small changes in code, usually after getting accumulated trace results (however presented.) .1% = one in one thousand. Keep stacking up those improvements and you do get somewhere, and often you'll easily find one hundred very small improvements in a day (10% altogether!) if it's green…

You’re doing a lot of hand waving: “One hundred small improvements in a day” That’s a lot of work in an 8-10 hour day... “if it's green code,..” My point is that you don’t start by looking for 0.09% improvements when you’re profiling your code. As for climate change, we are looking for cleaner energy options. The world’s energy use is going to increase greatly as billions more come out of poverty. China, for example,…

Ya made me look - but no, you weren't saying starting. Nothing of the kind.
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