Bitcoin emissions alone could push global warming above 2°C: study from 2018

Re:Bitcoin emissions alone could push global warming above 2... by formalsystem on Sunday January 17, 2021 @04:54PM (#25815437)

The alternative of stack-ranking what constitutes a good or bad use of energy doesn't seem particularly feasible to me. If energy is cheap, abundant and clean you don't need to create such good/bad energy list.

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Re:Bitcoin emissions alone could push global warming above 2... by arghwhat on Sunday January 17, 2021 @05:10PM (#25815617)

If it was all abundant wind-power, sure.

Denmark, famous for its wind farms and for having too much renewable energy at times, only has 6.1GW of wind capacity, which is is a few gigawatt short for the Bitcoin network.

So no, there isn't an abundance of energy when you decide to throw it all away as fast as you can.

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Re:Bitcoin emissions alone could push global warming above 2... by viraptor on Sunday January 17, 2021 @05:00PM (#25815524)

That's not the situation we're in though. It may be fairly abundant, but neither cheap nor clean on average. And we're still decades away from closing the most polluting sources.

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Re:Bitcoin emissions alone could push global warming above 2... by Closi on Sunday January 17, 2021 @05:19PM (#25815724)

But energy isn’t cheap, abundant or clean?

Also because of how the Bitcoin algorithm and economics work, if energy is cheap then the market will scale up mining thus the Bitcoin algorithm will scale up difficulty. Cheap energy results in more energy waste from Bitcoin.

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