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Comment by dogman144 | Hacker News Reader

PoW uses less energy than global dishwasher usage. Do you feel similar sentiments against Home Depot and dishwasher users? Facebook data centers aren’t pretty either in this regard.

Edit - additionally, tornado runs on eth, which is soon to be env-friendly PoS.

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The whole point of the energy critique is that it's being wasted on something either useless or deleterious. You can argue with that take, but all you're doing with the "but what about dishwashers?!" response is asking them to pass a moral judgment on dishwashers, which isn't relevant to this discussion.

Also, Ethereum has been "soon to be env-friendly PoS" for years now. Let's revisit that if and when it actually happens.

Cryptocurrencies are our only counter yet against the abuses of the financial system by the governments. In some countries this abuse is only potential, on others - already very real.

In a country where a dictator can make you starve with a snap of the fingers, cryptocurrencies are vital to survival. So even 10x more energy 'wasted' on such an indespensable service would still be a bargain I'd take.

Protecting the wealthy from the government isn't exactly a cause many want to fight for. Using the government to reign in the wealthy is much more popular

In a country where a dictator can make you starve with the snap of the finger, what are you going to do, eat your virtual coins from your jail cell? Technology is notably not a solution to social problems

Protecting the wealthy? You have no clue about real problems of people resisting the dictatorship. Right now cryptocurrencies are the only reliable and untraceable way for Russian dissidents and underground to fund themselves. The key features are anonymousness and permission lessness, and Bitcoin/Monero can be turned into hard cash quite easily. Oh and it also allows you to receive funds from abroad with zero oversight, avoid paying taxes, etc.

If there will ever be an uprising, it'll be funded with nothing else but cryptocurrency.

So yes, cryptocurrencies are worth every watt of energy they use.

Well the merge has hit test chains so it’s coming for eth main chain.

Yes, you’re correct, the judgement is about what the energy is used for.

So I'm actually interested in these figures.

Bitcoin alone is estimated to use 150 terawatt-hours of electricity annually.

The US Department of Energy estimates that there are 80 million households with dishwashers in the US (although they believe 16m never use them, but we will ignore that). It appears that the average dishwasher uses 251kWh annually (at the avg of 215 cycles per year).

So this would put the US annual dishwasher power consumption to around 20 terawatt-hours. This would mean that the rest of the world would need approximately 518 million household dishwashers used 215 times a year each, to make up the rest of the power usage for just Bitcoin.

When you start factoring in the size difference in dishwashers between countries, the power usage differences between 120v and 220v in different parts of the world, the overall adoption rate of dishwashers etc... it makes it hard to believe that they could compete with crypto power usage.

518 million seems reasonable to low for the entire world and you are leaving out commercial places.

Remember, dishwashers are more efficient at using resources than washing them by hand.

Bitcoin just consumes extra energy, not makes an existing process more efficient.

Will have to find the dishwasher one but this is a good start/reputable source. Btc comes in under fridges.

https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index/comparisons

A world where proof-of-work meant "prove that you cleaned your/my/someone's kitchen" would be a much better world.

> eth, which is soon to be env-friendly PoS.

The switch has been delayed 6(!) times since 2017. It‘s perpetually happening “soon”. I believe it when it’s actually live.

It’s live on testnests now so coming for main chain.

Dishwashers(especially newer ones) save energy(and definitely money if you're a restaurant) compared to handwashing though. And washing dishes is useful. Mining bitcoin arguably isn't in the sense that if bitcoin(and all other cryptocurrency) disappeared today, the world would be completely fine.

Are you seriously claiming crypto is more useful than dishwashers?

It depends on what you consider "useful". I live in the west and I don't take our financial freedom as granted. There are many places in the world where decentralized consensus for financial transactions is valued.

I'm grateful to live in a society where this is not a "problem", but I don't take it for granted

How often do angry articles hit HN ranting about Visa/MC cutting of spending to XYZ source based on moral judgments or investor pressure. Yes, free access to digital payments as an anchor of civil society beats clean dishes I don’t have to do by hand.

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