Europe must ban Bitcoin mining to hit the 1.5C Paris climate goal, says Sweden

Re:Europe must ban Bitcoin mining to hit the 1.5C Paris clim... by kevingadd on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @10:53PM (#29326773)

If you're using up renewables that would be used by other energy consumers, you've probably just pushed a bunch of them onto non-renewables. Is that actually good? Maybe some % (20%?) of those customers will simply opt not to do whatever power-consuming thing they were going to do, but the rest...

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Re:Europe must ban Bitcoin mining to hit the 1.5C Paris clim... by t0suj4 on Wednesday November 24, 2021 @03:19AM (#29327923)

I've heard that some bitcoin miners get started when there is an oversupply of energy to burn the excess power. I think this is the direction bitcoin mining could take.

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Re:Europe must ban Bitcoin mining to hit the 1.5C Paris clim... by Yizahi on Thursday November 25, 2021 @08:07AM (#29341031)

Sure, you can start mining when there is an oversupply of energy. But why would you ever stop mining? Idle mining is a waste of money, so it will be running 24/7, and everyone else will need to conform and change their energy usage.

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Re:Europe must ban Bitcoin mining to hit the 1.5C Paris clim... by bradwood on Wednesday November 24, 2021 @03:22AM (#29327941)

Yeah. But most BTC miners are energy buyers of last resort. Sucking up the dregs at the cheapest possible price. They aren't "using up" renewables. In fact, often it's this consumption that makes the renewable enterprises viable.

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