News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Bitcoin could cost us our clean-energy future by gremlinsinc on Tuesday December 05, 2017 @11:56PM (#15858650)
B.S. -- if we replace all electric grids with solar, it doesn't matter how many miners spin up, they'll all be on solar thus renewable.

If anything -- it'd even make more sense for BTC companies to use solar since costs are a LOT cheaper.

Re:Bitcoin could cost us our clean-energy future by rebuilder on Wednesday December 06, 2017 @12:21AM (#15858741)
More power usage = greater overall cost of energy production. That's true regardless of method of production. We are not now, and never will be (barring radical changes in our economic system) living in a world with abundant energy. Bitcoin miners compete for energy with other industries, driving total energy usage up. Ultimately, there's a cap to how much energy we can produce on Earth, and you'd be surprised how close we are to that limit, assuming production growth similar to the historical average.

Edit: To expand on the last claim a little, I was thinking of this: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/

The graph of Earth's surface temperature assuming 2.3% yearly growth in energy consumption is... illuminating. Basically, in a bit over 400 years, the surface temperature on Earth would reach the boiling point of water, not due to the complex effects of climate change, but simply because the amount of waste heat generated by energy production and usage will exceed the Earth's capacity to dissipate into space. Obviously disastrous temperatures would occur rather sooner. Unfortunately our societies hinge on constant economic growth, which, in turn, seems to hinge on growing energy usage.

Re:Bitcoin could cost us our clean-energy future by gremlinsinc on Wednesday December 06, 2017 @11:05AM (#15862119)
Couldn't we beam energy from outerspace/moon as lasers to cooled facilities that absorb/store the energy? How else would a dyson sphere work to get energy to the planet without obliterating it?
Re:Bitcoin could cost us our clean-energy future by rebuilder on Thursday December 07, 2017 @01:23AM (#15868080)
Presumably when you have a Dyson sphere, you're not planetbound any more.
Re:Bitcoin could cost us our clean-energy future by hossbeast on Wednesday December 06, 2017 @01:18AM (#15858984)
"We are not now, and never will be (barring radical changes in our economic system) living in a world with abundant energy."

Unless we build nuclear fusion reactors, which seems quite likely on the 400 year time scale you're talking about.

Re:Bitcoin could cost us our clean-energy future by rebuilder on Wednesday December 06, 2017 @01:27AM (#15859026)
Doesn't matter. They produce heat, which must be got rid of somehow. The point is, steady growth is disastrous on surprisingly short timescales.
Re:Bitcoin could cost us our clean-energy future by hossbeast on Wednesday December 06, 2017 @02:27AM (#15859228)
I think that post greatly undersells the potential energy production of nuclear fusion. It tries to discount that potential by noting that however you go about it, if you want to produce more energy than the sun, on the surface of the Earth, then the average temperature of the Earths surface must exceed that of the suns surface.

But this is not a problem- it's well known that nuclear fusion reactors on Earth would burn much hotter than the temperature at the sun's surface. The average temperature of the Earths surface can exceed the average of the suns surface no problem, as long as much of that is concentrated in small areas- namely, the spaces occupied by the reactors!

Re:Bitcoin could cost us our clean-energy future by rebuilder on Wednesday December 06, 2017 @05:57AM (#15860145)
That didn't seem to be the point at all. The point was, practically all energy produced turns to heat on Earth. Assuming growing energy production/consumption on the planet, the sheer wattage of waste heat will eventually be greater than the planet can radiate into space, whatever the method used to produce that energy.
Re:Bitcoin could cost us our clean-energy future by gremlinsinc on Wednesday December 06, 2017 @11:07AM (#15862147)
We could build fusion reactors (mini-suns) in space and beam back the energy in a usable state more condensed than solar to recepticles here, or even store it in batteries that we send back via space elevator.
Re:Bitcoin could cost us our clean-energy future by rebuilder on Thursday December 07, 2017 @01:23AM (#15868087)
The energy still becomes waste heat when used on Earth.
Re:Bitcoin could cost us our clean-energy future by barrkel on Wednesday December 06, 2017 @12:32AM (#15858785)
Don't forget about opportunity cost. All that productive energy that we turn into heat, could have been used for something else, no matter how much renewable energy production (or, rather, conversion) we have.

It could be used for carbon neutral or negative fuel production, for example, to keep things like planes in the sky and world travel cheap without harming the environment.