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Bitcoin as a Battery

nickgrossman.xyz

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Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#61

Post by microtherion »

Even if one accepts the underlying assumption that bitcoin "store" the energy wasted on "mining" them, the theory espoused in the article simply does not hold water.

If a new energy source becomes available, so 10x as much energy as before gets put into aluminum smelting, you end up with 10x as much aluminum.

Bitcoin "mining" does not work that way. The computations are an artificial hurdle erected to hit a predetermined level of scarcity/difficulty. If 10x as much energy as before gets put into bitcoin "mining", difficulty levels will adjust, and you end up with exactly the same amount of bitcoin as before.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#62

Post by darkerside »

eganist wrote: post #46
delaaxe wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin mining is good for the environment https://pomp.substack.com/p/bitcoin-mining-is-good-for-the-e...

The post is making the free-market argument: > In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Bitcoin is actually one of the greatest financial incentives to transition the world to clean energy. without bothering to explain why any one point they highlight would beget any one outcome claimed by the post. In fact, there are some backwards incentives that are missed. An example would be their claim with regards…

I'm sure many of those 75% would be using renewable energy for something more productive

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#63

Post by imtringued »

speedgoose wrote: post #47
scotty79 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be utilized for heating human occupied spaces. Humans need a lot of heating.

If you are going to use electricity to heat human occupied spaces, you should use a heatpump which has much better efficiency, above 100%.

Cooling technologies just move the heat around. A datacenter produces a lot of heat that is then subsequently moved out of the building. Capturing that heat shouldn't be too difficult because it passes through central AC or central chillers.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#64

Post by jokethrowaway »

It's rational for people invested in bitcoin to try to justify its wasteful architecture.

I sympathise with the need to break off governments and giant like Visa and MasterCard. But we need to be better than them before transitioning.

Btc is pure speculation and fomo

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#65

Post by skohan »

merlinscholz wrote: post #33
nickez wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If bitcoin would be fully powered by renewables, do you still think its energy consumption would be a problem?

Not the energy consumption in itself, but the amount of heat and physical electronic waste generated certainly is.

Yes it's not like solar panels are condensed out of the air with zero waste. They have to be manufactured, in a process which almost certainly isn't carbon neutral yet. The materials used to make them have to be extracted from somewhere. They're transported to the installation site on the back of diesel-burning trucks.

Cleaner energy sources are a necessity, but simply reducing consumption will always have the best impact on sustainability.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#66

Post by jokethrowaway »

scotty79 wrote: post #28

I'm so happy that other people start to notice this dynamic. Why are we not yet fully running on renewables? Why don't we have trillions of dollars pouring into solar panels and wind turbines and pumped storage hydroelectricity and battery storage? The answer is there's not enough demand for excess electricity to create and keep excess electricity. I read about new pumped storage hydroelectricity installation closed…

It's not because we consume too little electricity: it's because it's not convenient just yet (but we're getting there thanks to tech advance).

The less energy we use the better for now, given that part of that energy will be "dirty".

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#67

Post by cfcosta »

Roark66 wrote: post #27

The only way PoW crypto is superceded is if someone finally implements PoS. There is a lot of hope in ethereum "moving to" proof of stake, but I think a move will never happen. Miners will not allow it. It'll be a fork. Then, if it has to be forked why not start from scratch with something better? I imagine/hope many people are working on better crypto protocols at the moment.

Both Cardano and BNB use proof of stake, with Cardano being much more decentralized (but smart contracts are coming next few months), and BSC/BNB being the most popular currently. You can also use BTC as a wrapped asset (backed by a smart contract) on both the BSC/Eth networks.

PoW is going away quickly, but Bitcoin is not going to move, the "difficulty" is by design at least in the current concept of it as a storage of value.

Edit: By the way, it is possible (or will be in the future) to run staking pools on Cardano on Raspberry Pis, and get the same benefits as bigger hardware. Currently it needs 4~8gb of ram afaik, but pis are getting faster every release, next one might be good.

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#69

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

paulcole wrote: post #24
quotha wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That cannot continue, pop will drop significantly if we don’t stop producing so much CO2.

> will drop significantly if we don’t stop producing so much CO2 Next Tuesday? Sometime this summer? Next year? A decade from now? 2070? Everybody knows there are problems with producing too much CO2. However, nearly everyone’s hoping (but not saying) that the bill doesn’t come fully due until they’re dead. And by “fully due” I mean “directly effects their day-to-day life in a truly drastic way.”

> Next Tuesday? Sometime this summer? Next year? A decade from now? 2070?

There's a reasonable case that this gained force _last_ summer, i.e. in 2020

source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56288038

But yeah, it takes a few decades for the bill to come fully due from a "decline in birth rate".

Re: Bitcoin as a Battery

#70

Post by blackshaw »

scotty79 wrote: post #43
osrec wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of the energy used by a processor is dissipated as heat? If it's a significant amount, perhaps it could be recovered in some way?

It can be utilized for heating human occupied spaces. Humans need a lot of heating.

There was an article on the front page of HN not that long ago about a guy using the waste heat from crypto mining to heat his home:

https://blog.haschek.at/2021/how-i-heat-my-home-by-mining.ht...

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