You're right that's there's nothing inherently bad about energy consumption.

I would gladly use 7.7 gigawatts and more if it meant developing a cure for cancer, or exploring Mars, or anything useful really.

The crux of the issue is that Bitcoin is mostly used as a speculative asset, i.e. something with little actual usefulness except for traders basically.

Using 0.5% of the world's total energy consumption for this is an issue, imho.

If there's nothing inherently bad about energy consumption, why do you think it is an "issue" for 0.5% of the world's consumption to be used for mining bitcoin? What if 100% of bitcoin mining is powered by renewables?

"If there's nothing inherently bad about energy consumption" is assuming a lot. In theory we could produce all the energy we need with wind, tides, solar, hydro, fusion, zero-point energy, or whatever. Then there would be no issue. But we don't live in that world. We live in a world where most energy in some places is produced with enormous externalities. In other places, the externalities are fewer, but wasting this energy generating bitcoins doesn't eliminate the other uses of the energy, so the aluminum smelters or whatever that might have used the clean energy buy their energy from a different source that pollutes. And if most of the bitcoin mining is happening in China, most of it is being powered with the dirtiest energy source: coal.

You assume that a substantial portion of bitcoins are being mined in populated areas where the energy would otherwise be used for what you deem "better" purposes. How do you reach this conclusion?

The article does not make any effort to investigate the location of bitcoin mining facilities or sources of energy being used. For all we know, 99% of bitcoins may be mined using sustainable energy, off the grid. Without this information, any estimation of raw energy consumption is meaningless.

> What if 100% of bitcoin mining is powered by renewables?

Opportunity cost. What better thing could that energy have been used for? I can think of one.... not being used at all!

> I can think of one.... not being used at all!

You seem to be missing my entire point. There is nothing bad about consuming clean, renewable energy.

Bitcoin contributes zero GDP to the world. It is the equivalent of printing paper then selling it to the next idiot who thinks he can sell it to someone else for a higher price.

Whether the mining consumes renewables or non-renewables doesn't change the fact that the energy expenditure is pointless... even burning oil provides warmth... mining bitcoins?.. Nothing.

There is an argument that could be made that if that power was from a renewable source, it could instead have been used to replace non-renewable power output - all of bitcoin's power usage combined is several coal burning power plants, I'm sure.

Second there's the fact that most of that power is changed into heat. I don't think the heat emitted from anything using electricity is significant enough to have an impact on climate (outside of the cities at least), but still.

Only about 10% of energy consumption in the US comes from renewable sources... https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=92&t=4

Not sure why this is relevant unless you think 100% of bitcoin mining takes place in the US.

Most of it comes from hydroelectric plants with very cheap prices.

Forcing other use on the same grid to come from fossil fuel plants that would not need to operate at the same capacity without the Bitcoin operation.

I don't really think so - I think China built dams in places with too much capacity and it's cheap because it's not in high demand.

> Most of it comes from hydroelectric plants with very cheap prices.

Hyrdo isn't green energy. Dams block fish migrations and fuck up the surrounding ecosystem.