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Comment by Geee | Hacker News Reader

Another major error they made, is that they assume that Bitcoin mining uses grid energy and assume that it follows the CO2 emissions of electricity generation in that country.

This is completely wrong. Most mining happens currently on underutilized hydropower stations, because grid energy or fossil fuels wouldn't be as profitable. Because of the mining difficulty adjustment and diminishing returns in improving ASIC hardware, the only way to profit is to find cheaper energy sources than all other miners.

In the long term, Bitcoin mining accelerates the development of abundant and cheap energy, which is not fossil fuels.

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> In the long term, Bitcoin mining accelerates the development of abundant and cheap energy, which is not fossil fuels.

Yes, but does it reduce the total reliance on fossil fuels? If we start with X coal plants and build a Y hydro plants to support btc mining, we're still running the original X coal plants.

I suspect by "develop" the parent comment did not refer to the construction of power plants but to the improvement of the technology. Like in "Research & Development".

Have you got any non-trivial examples/plans of that happening beyond btc mining speeding up the existing "we need to solve this so fewer people die" process?

Bitcoin mining can possibly finance the building of new solar / wind farms without government subsidies. In time, mining will become less profitable and it makes sense to sell the energy to grid. Obviously, fossil fuel energy should be taxed more heavily to get rid of it faster.

That sounds like trickle down economics idea. It's possible of course... But is it more likely than people taking out their btc gains and buying a yacht instead?

>In the long term, Bitcoin mining accelerates the development of abundant and cheap energy, which is not fossil fuels.

It incentivises stealing electricity because you can't beat free.

Not sure why this is downvoted. I have a friend whose primary reason for mining was that he shared his electricity bill with the restaurant downstairs so it was very profitable for him.

Same reason why goldbugs votedown Gresham's law. It's not comfortable for someone to call out your world view, especially with centuries worth of observation to back it up.

>This is completely wrong. Most mining happens currently on underutilized hydropower stations, because grid energy or fossil fuels wouldn't be as profitable.

Could you provide a source for this?

This is really interesting. I wonder if we could invent a coin that can only be mined through renewable energy. This could be the incentive people need to move off of carbon.

The good thing is that renewable is the cheapest source of energy, which means that Bitcoin is that coin. However, it depends on location, and currently hydropower is the most lucrative if you can find an already built, but underutilized plant. Bitcoin gives away $250,000 to miners every 10 minutes, which is a good incentive for new energy developments.

That is only really accurate if the electricity used would somehow disappear were it not for the mining. Electricity (minus the energy lost in transport etc etc) is zero-sum. If the miner uses hydro, that means someone further from the dam is using coal, methane etc as the hydro company isn't selling excess on the grid.

Energy is finite on the grid, so yes mining takes energy which could have been used for (arguably) better purposes

Not here in Iceland we have more electricity than we have use for, it goes to bitcoin mining or it goes to aluminum smelting. No connection to the outside world grid.

Could go to H2 production and export.

That's just bitcoin mining with extra steps.

If you thought your comment made sense, I have to tell you that it does not.

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