Wonder how much the environmental cost of BTC transactions and mining offsets any positive "green points" from using an EV
A single BTC transaction requires ~376kg of CO2. [1]
Driving a Tesla emits ~91g CO2 per km. [2]
Average distance driven in the US per year, per car is 13,476mi (21687.5km). [3]
Driving your Tesla for a year emits ~1,973,562.5g of CO2, or 1,973.6kg.
So, if you buy one with Bitcoin, you're emitting ~19% more CO2 for that year than you would with cash or credit. You could further amortize the amount over the lifetime of the car.
[1] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/
[2] https://www.electrive.com/2020/08/31/study-currently-availab...
1 litre of petrol produces about 2.3 kg CO2. That means, a bitcoin transaction is the same as burning 163 litres of petrol. Absolutely insane.
I decided to do some more numbers. It means that driving a Tesla for 25.31 km produces as much CO2 as burning 1 L of fuel from a CO2 equivalence point of view. Put differently, Teslas get 3.95 L per 100 km from a CO2 equivalence point of view. Compare that with, say, a Mazda 6 which apparently uses 9.8 L per 100 km from a very quick search.
From a carbon emissions standpoint, Teslas are about 2.5x as efficient. Reasonable, to be sure, but not the order-of-magnitude difference I might have guessed if I had to take a stab in the dark.
Edit: In contrast, the gains of public transit vs. individual car commutes are > 7x per km driven, before renewables: http://www.mobilitaet-in-deutschland.de/pdf/infas_Vortrag_if... , page 18 (German source, sorry, "Bus" == bus, "Bahn" == train)
That seems super wrong. They must be assuming very few transactions per block.
In the future, fees will necessarily become the dominant compensation as the inflation rate decreases, so this will likely stop being true. This is pretty far off though, and it's not clear that the environmental issue will still exist either due to a change in mining or just wider use of renewables for mining.
Also, the 6 tons use the coefficient assume a 1% fee but with a $40,000 transaction, you don't have to pay a $400 fee. Probably $15, but let's be pessimistic and assume $40. So 20/10+6/10=2.6 tons of CO2, i.e. like 1/30 instead of 1/3.
(Being more optimistic, I think it can be reduced to 20/100+6/30=.4 tons of CO2, i.e 1/200 of the savings.)
Per transaction, 792.37 kWh and 376 kg (828lbs) of CO2. That's about 27 days of electricity usage for an average US home. Or 62,000 hours of youtube video watching. Or 834,000 VISA transactions.
It's fine. Not a big deal what so ever. Bitcoin is obviously the most efficient means of monetary transaction. No reason to question it.
Why does each transaction need to release CO2? Can they not run off renewables or nuclear?
If we could get all electricity generation to be zero emissions then climate change would be largely solved. And we'd be able to stop complain about btc. But until then...
It is an estimate and an average. It might actually be in the low end.
Avoiding Bitcoin because we use coal to produce energy cannot be more wrong. The problem is that we produce energy with coal, not that Bitcoin uses energy to be mined. With such reasoning, then let's forget about smartphone, laptop, car, planes, house heating etc. and just go back straight to prehistory. Each of these things pollute the planet, let's not deny it.
And if you think that BTC is not worth this energy waste to get rid off USD dominance (among others), then it's maybe you're an American enjoying USD dominance. That's of course a very biased view.
Transaction cost is probably about 100-200 kilowatt hours.
Another fun calculation.
How many instructions can a modern piece of computing hardware do on 750 kilowatt hours?
Just an indication of what an incredible beast bitcoin is.
Edit: fine, downvote me but read this: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/axeldelamarre/files/master...