[Cryptography] Energy Consumption: Standards Trolls (was: disaster)

Chad Perrin perrin at apotheon.com
Wed Jan 6 12:32:23 EST 2021


On Tue, Jan 05, 2021 at 01:48:11PM -0500, Alex Flanagan wrote:
> >
> > Bitcoin mining consumes energy, measured by the unit we call a Watt.
> > A watt is defined in the ISU as one joule per second.  The unit we
> > call joule is a unit of work.
> >
> 
> For the argument "bitcoin consumes too much energy", assuming
> emissions are the concern, my response has typically been:
> 
> Energy *production* causes emissions not *consumption*.
> 
> The emissions attributable to bitcoin mined in Iceland are zero. The
> energy *consumed* to mine them was *produced* by a zero-emissions
> source.

I don't care to stake out a position on this matter right now but, just
for fun, another possible objection to energy consumption might be
economic side effects such as increases in energy demand which, in turn,
creates an increase in energy prices, thus perhaps starving other
enterprises of access to energy at sustainable prices.

I suspect you're right, though -- that most people objecting on grounds
of power consumption are objecting to emissions.  Note that the
objection to the power consumption incentives in Bitcoin mining aren't
really alleviated by the Iceland example because, regardless of how
Iceland does it, energy consumption in China likely depends
overwhelmingly on high-emissions power generation in China.  That might
be worth keeping in mind when examining the pros and cons of Bitcoin's
"proof of work" mining.

-- 
Chad Perrin


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