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Bitcoin Could Consume As Much Electricity As Denmark By 2020 (boingboing.net)

Posted by BeauHD on from the pick-on-someone-your-own-size dept.

JustAnotherOldGuy writes: The numbers are very back-of-the-envelope and assume a worst case: widespread adoption of Bitcoin and not much improvement in Bitcoin mining activity, along with long replacement cycles for older, less efficient mining rigs. But even the best case [scenario] has Bitcoin consuming a shocking amount of electricity. [As mentioned in a report from Motherboard,] "The results show that in an optimistic scenario, the increase in electricity consumption of the Bitcoin network compared to now is not shocking, from around 350 MW to around 417 MW, but still on the order of one small power station. If things play out a little less favorably, however, the Bitcoin network may draw over 14 Gigawatts of electricity by 2020, equivalent to the total power generation capacity of a small country, like Denmark for example.

170 comments

  1. Energy star rated bitcoins. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Cost 0.

    1. Re:Energy star rated bitcoins. by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      I'm just waiting for Bitcoin branded bacon :D

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

  2. Have after. To what issue will this come? by turkeydance · · Score: 0

    Bitcoin. Heaven will direct it.

    1. Re: Have after. To what issue will this come? by BlckAdder · · Score: 1

      A lack of mod points doth make Anonymous Cowards of us all.

  3. Already disputed and debunked by qubezz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Bitcoin mining reward halves every four years, making it less profitable in the future. Nearly 75% of Bitcoins that will ever exist have already been mined. Saying that miners will collectively be spending 30x more on electricity to mine 1/4 the Bitcoins they earn now is ludicrous.

    1. Re:Already disputed and debunked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The value of the remaining bitcoins keeps increasing which offsets the decreasing value.

      ^^^^

      Already disputed and debunked :)

    2. Re:Already disputed and debunked by supremebob · · Score: 3, Informative

      Bitcoin really hasn't increased in value over the past few years. The price spiked at over $1,000 a coin in late 2013, and then plummeted. Right now, it's still around $400 a coin, even though it's a hell of a lot harder now to "mine" one than it was 3 years ago.

    3. Re:Already disputed and debunked by dbIII · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It being "mined" by malware these days so the cost gets shifted. It was obvious from near the start that such a thing was going to happen and a few people even posted here about that a few years ago. I could say "I told you so" but somebody else with far more understanding of bitcoin than I told me first.

    4. Re:Already disputed and debunked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Did anyone else read this article? He doesn't even factor in a comparison to Visa's settlement bunker in New Jersey, nor does it consider the implications once mining rewards have run out. How is this marked as "troll"? This is plain economics and was argued for a very very long time when Proof of Stake was first purposed.

      Once rewards are gone, there will be few operators left, and just like the precious metals industry, they will settle on an agreed rate, keeping the network safe and using only enough computational power as to guarantee no single actor could rival it.

      Taking this further, the blockchain, and it's ability to do much much much more than just bitcoin, negates all the electricity these disparate platforms would have used on their own to achieve the same level of security.

      This article is click bait and misleading. Like most environmental academic types, the author was too myopic to account for the totality of the situation. No amount of "data science" and pretty graphs can fix missing/incalculable data.

    5. Re:Already disputed and debunked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      They're voting for Trump. He'll make Bitcoin great again!

    6. Re:Already disputed and debunked by alvinrod · · Score: 1

      Doesn't that also mean that it doesn't suffer inflation as easily as other currencies though? The fact that there's no government that can fire up a printing press and devalue the existing money supply suggests that relative to other currencies it would better retain value over time.

      Also, although Moore's law is slowing down, the flip side of doubling transistor density is that you can get the same performance you previously got at about half of the power cost.

      Between those two effects, it makes me think that it will still be economically viable to do similar amounts of mining, although by that time we may have moved on to some Bitcoin successor.

    7. Re:Already disputed and debunked by radarskiy · · Score: 1

      Mining does not just generate new bitcoins. Saying that users of bitcoin will accept transactions being verified at 1/120th the rate rather than pay transaction fees is ludicrous.

    8. Re:Already disputed and debunked by hjf · · Score: 1, Insightful

      This is very much a problem. Most people see inflation as a negative thing. The negative thing here is the limited supply of wealth. A currency like Bitcoin which can't be devaluated is terrible: it's the end game of capitalism. It will become a game of "winner takes all"... much like most rich countries own most of the wealth in the world. With bitcoin, they literally would.

    9. Re:Already disputed and debunked by tsotha · · Score: 1

      This is very much a problem. Most people see inflation as a negative thing. The negative thing here is the limited supply of wealth.

      No. Currency is only very loosely connected to wealth. Changing the amount of outstanding currency has no effect on wealth at all; it just changes the amount of wealth represented by each unit of currency. Like any good currency, bitcoins are divisible. It's just a number, so if it costs 1 bitcoin to buy a loaf of bread today and .01 to buy a loaf twenty years from now, that says nothing about the utility of the currency.

      Inflation is taxation. It's a way to transfer money from savers to the government - nothing more.

    10. Re:Already disputed and debunked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You've got it backwards. Wealth isn't money. Wealth is stuff. Dollars are only valuable and people only want them because you can use them to acquire stuff. Food, gasoline, housing, transportation, clothing, jewelry, musical instruments, flat screen displays, computers, furniture, alcohol, electricity, etc.. is wealth. Money is merely a convenient means of exchanging these items. As long as people are out there producing goods and services then we can assume that the amount of stuff will always increase (aside from a natural disaster or devastating war) When the amount of stuff increases and the amount of money stays the same then the money becomes more valuable. This is good for society as a whole but bad for the banking and investment classes who rely on the appreciation of assets to make money. When the amount of money increases faster than the amount of stuff increases then the value of the money falls. This is bad for society as a whole who is saving for retirement but good for the banking and investment classes who rely on the appreciation of assets to make money.

    11. Re:Already disputed and debunked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is by design.

      It is not electronic currency per se; the idea is to be an asset store like the gold standard, as it becomes more rare it price goes up.

    12. Re:Already disputed and debunked by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      You can also get a higher transaction rate by increasing block size.

    13. Re:Already disputed and debunked by religionofpeas · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It being "mined" by malware these days so the cost gets shifted.

      No, nearly all bitcoins are mined by specialized chips.

    14. Re:Already disputed and debunked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is your point? why does this have 3 points?

      it went from $13 to $1000, back to $400, all within 16 months. Of course people are still mining. It will be a long time before market forces affect large and early operators.

    15. Re:Already disputed and debunked by dbIII · · Score: 0

      Are you suggesting that the utorrent bitcoin mining malware and similar things are something I made up or are you attempting to distract and change the topic away from malware?

    16. Re:Already disputed and debunked by MrL0G1C · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Whilst malware does indeed mint some coins, unless it's infecting dedicated bitcoin mining silicon then it's unlikely to be mining more than a small slice of the pie.

      --
      Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
    17. Re:Already disputed and debunked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Bitcoin pyramid scheme is based on: all transactions must be signed by mining more coins.
      It's now a game of hot potato: Anyone left with bitcoins after the last coin is mined is left with a worthless E-tulip.

    18. Re:Already disputed and debunked by greenfruitsalad · · Score: 1

      so much computing power but so painfully single-purpose. it makes me angry we can't repurpose the hardware for something useful when this craziness is over. it sure would be nice if the function these ASICs are built for could be used for something like protein folding simulation.

    19. Re:Already disputed and debunked by MrL0G1C · · Score: 1

      For the sake of the environment, they should allow the last 25% of the bitcoins to be mined quicker, I presume that is possible as it seems that these things are decided arbitrarily.

      --
      Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
    20. Re:Already disputed and debunked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They are very hardwired for finding bitcoin nonces, thats why they are so fast. A protein folding ASIC would likely not be that much better than a GPU since the algorithm is non-trival in hardware. The power consumption would be lower though.

    21. Re:Already disputed and debunked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > You've got it backwards.

      No he hasn't.

      > Wealth isn't money.

      He never said it was.

    22. Re: Already disputed and debunked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, it's too bad that an increase in the supply of money can't possibly be used to grant a loan for the purchase of equipment to make a widget more efficiently. Or to sponsor research for cheaper energy. Or anything productive. Why can't we think of the savers?!?

    23. Re:Already disputed and debunked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, because they are simply dwarved by the power of ASICs.

      However, they can mine coins with an alternative proof-of-work.

    24. Re:Already disputed and debunked by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Even the malware guys have stopped bothering to mine it now. A PC with a high end GPU set to run at 100% 24/7 (as if the owner wouldn't notice the fan noise and extreme slow-down in their games) your 100MH/sec will net you a revenue of about $0.05/year.

      The only practical way to mine Bitcoin these days is with a dedicated ASIC miner.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    25. Re:Already disputed and debunked by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Wow, 100 insightful, never seen that before. Everything looks binary.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    26. Re:Already disputed and debunked by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      The problem with a non-inflation currency is wealth increases by technology. Technology is simply the discovery of new techniques to produce the same goods in less labor time: we now expend about 1/2.5 as much total aggregate human labor making food as we did in 1950, and Americans spend 12% of their income on food instead of 30%. Essentially, there are fewer people making food per person, and fewer people making food per unit food produced.

      That means a currency can only remain non-deflationary if we keep producing new money at the same rate we improve productivity.

      So what about inflation? Why is it important?

      There are four tiers of technology.

      In the first tier, doing something costs so much in terms of human labor time that the world can't afford it. There was a point in time we shipped everything by ... ship ... because overland transportation cost a lot more. During the earlier part of that time, the cost of laying and maintaining steel rails and building steel rail cars (even if you had the technology to build such a thing as a steam locomotive--which they didn't) would have cost so much human labor no Government could afford it. The taxes would collapse human society; and the labor investment would preclude the production of food, clothing, and shelter--everyone would be working to build railroads, and nobody would be making food, and everyone would die. There's a long slide of time where this would just cause wide-spread poverty.

      In the second tier, governments can afford it. A large body of people can pay a reasonable tax to pay all the wages of the human laborers involved in building something large. This labor isn't strictly necessary for other things, although this activity does draw from the labor pool and thus precludes other actions which may need said labor. Frequently (but not always), this tier provides some independent economic benefit, but can't itself profit directly. For example: a rail system may require less human labor (and thus less cost) than other shipping methods, but no rail company can profit from it because it's too much risk or too expensive to implement in the first place. Implementation saves more labor than it uses, and the taxes take less out of the consumer pockets than they save by the reduced cost of cheap goods shipped from all around; but the market simply can't build and operate the damn thing.

      In the third tier, big businesses can afford it. A business can leverage a technology to reduce its dependence on human labor, thus reducing the cost of its goods. This one's pretty straight-forward: there was a time when only the Government could launch a satellite; now businesses are starting to put their own up there.

      In the fourth tier, it becomes a consumer good. We've reduced the labor needs (and laid off enough people) so much that you only have to pay a week's salary for one guy to buy Gameboy, so there's that.

      So what about inflation?

      There's a consumer good category where the consumer good is large and complex, and becomes desirable well before consumers can buy it. Cars and houses are prime examples: consumers cannot buy cars because they can only spend $300/month on a car. When the car costs $20,000, you have to spend years saving for that car.

      That's where debt comes in. Debt allows consumers to buy a good for money now, and pay that money back later.

      In a deflationary economy, savings can happen faster, and saving for a $300,000 house might take 10-15 years instead of 30. Debt can't happen, because debt is crippling: the loan payments just get bigger every month, like a 1/1 ARM that keeps increasing the interest rate by 1% every year. Sure, it still says $1,000/month on your bill; but that $1,000 buys a hell of a lot more than it did when you bought the house, and necessarily represents a larger fraction of the per-capita income. For you to stay ahead, someone else must fall rapidly behind as you become incredibly rich.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    27. Re:Already disputed and debunked by azcoyote · · Score: 1

      Plus, by the very laws of capitalism it's almost certain that people will continually up their mining operations in order to account for dwindling returns. They will want to make sure that as fewer bitcoins are handed out, they themselves do not feel that decrease. So even though this growth might be offset somewhat by the decline of smaller mining operations, it is likely that larger operations will grow exponentially. (Disclaimer: I base this prediction upon human nature, not upon a strong understanding of bitcoin mining.)

      --
      Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
    28. Re:Already disputed and debunked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Without inflation it would just result in lower rates for loans.. It would not be that important for buissniess to grow their income by the inflation-rate..

      With deflation : If i get a loan of $100 at -0.5% and deflation is 1% the effective rate is 0.5%. Ie Loan would cost me a total of $99.5. But that $99.5 is actually worth $100.5.
      Without inflation : If i get a loan of $100 at 0.5% and pay it during one year it would cost me $100.5.
      With inflation : If i get a loan of $100 at 1.5% and inflation is 1% the effective rate is only 0.5%. Ie Loan would cost me a total of $101.5. But that $101 is only worth the same amount as $100 due to inflation..
      * disclamer.. no exact calculations done.. more of a concept description.

      Ie, with deflation banks would have to have a negative rate on loans.. With a static value it would be lower rates and with inflation higher rates..

      On the other hand, deflation may be quite difficult to manage since that would result in a increased value of the loan requiring you to pay spend more for what something was actually worth..

      Deflation - saving money in the bank is good. Investing may be more of a risk.
      If it stays the same - Not really a big issue, but may cause people to not invest money.
      Inflation - Spending money, taking loans *may* be good.

      Taking loans may be good to increase the buying power of people at the moment, but at the same time saving up (investing money into something, not just storing it in a bank-account) to buy the same item is always cheaper for you.. When i bought my apartment i paid for 75% of it in cash, and that has made the monthly cost quite low allowing me to have money for investments (stocks, funds etc)... My current investments, that i could do due to lower costs, has a return per year than is more than half of my living-costs. All made possible by actually saving up for things before buying them.. Hopefully i will be able to retire, or just work with things i like, within the next 10-15 years living purely on returns from investments..

      On the other hand, loans may be a very good thing for businesses since it can allow them to make a fast expansion allowing a faster response when demand for their products go up.

      The point i'm trying to make is that basing the growth of a economy on loans may actually not be very good for people in the long run, and using inflation to reduce the value of loans may not be a good idea either - except for the banks.

    29. Re:Already disputed and debunked by Zeroko · · Score: 1

      There are transaction fees...if Bitcoin is still around when the last satoshi is mined, miners will still get transaction fees, & miners will keep at it if it is profitable to do so, just like now.

    30. Re:Already disputed and debunked by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      The Bitcoin mining reward halves every four years, making it less profitable in the future. Nearly 75% of Bitcoins that will ever exist have already been mined. Saying that miners will collectively be spending 30x more on electricity to mine 1/4 the Bitcoins they earn now is ludicrous.

      That's where the second phase of bitcoin kicks in - mining is required in order to lock down the block chain from modification. So miners are rewarded a certain rate for validating the blockchain - they're not mining new bitcoins, but they're being paid to keep the blockchain in order. A transaction fee, if you will. Because if the miners stop working, bitcoin is dead and the miners are the ones producing blockchain hashes that lock the blockchain history.

    31. Re:Already disputed and debunked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agree..

      Large transfer - sure waiting for a day or two for the transaction may be fine if you want to save some money.... If you need it to complete faster then attach a transaction-fee..
      Small transfers - a 1-5% transaction-fee for the convenience of fast transfers is fine...

      Would like to see a hard requirement for transaction-fees of 0.1% or so instead of the optional.. And would be nice to see the transaction-fee to be based on the % of how much a transaction uses (in size) of a block... Blocksize of 1Mb and a single transaction uses 100k (yea, would have to be really advanced ;) would result in a 10% transaction-fee or something like that..

    32. Re: Already disputed and debunked by StikyPad · · Score: 1

      Bitcoin may not be divisible enough, though. It takes 2000 Satoshis to equal 1 cent today, but that can only halve 11 times before reaching parity. With deflationary trending of BTC and inflationary trending of the USD, that may happen relatively quickly -- certainly less than 100 years. At some point, 1 Satoshi is worth more than the least expensive items, and then it's utility as currency decreases.

      --
      https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
    33. Re:Already disputed and debunked by fsckinhippies · · Score: 1

      Trump is here to legalize weed and nothing more.

    34. Re:Already disputed and debunked by fsckinhippies · · Score: 1

      No it isn't. It makes life very real. If you cant devalue the currency, you haven't given anything to the people that just want "a little more" in their pay. It is real life... Your value in this world is nothing more than what you can provide to everyone else at any given time. Inflation is nothing more than covering your ass when you say that your product is worth less when you try to charge more. Inflation is a universal tax.Kinda like the lottery but without giving people hope.

    35. Re:Already disputed and debunked by fsckinhippies · · Score: 1

      But I will make $15 an hour without ever trying to better myself!

    36. Re: Already disputed and debunked by fsckinhippies · · Score: 1

      There is no money in it. Money is only made by the people that "guide" you to the correct investment. You want to impress me? Bernie/Trump, Trump/Bernie. They are the only people who give a shit about you. Bernie because he wants to give back (noble), Trump because Fuck You (important these days). They are one and the same if we can get over the progressive bullshit. There is a reason they are leading in the polls. I like them both, and I think that as a team the would unfuck the b-rage

    37. Re: Already disputed and debunked by tsotha · · Score: 1

      That's a question of protocol, though, which can be updated without affecting the underlying currency.

    38. Re:Already disputed and debunked by Reziac · · Score: 1

      How much electricity do you spend to mine one bitcoin?

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    39. Re:Already disputed and debunked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That sounds like a good idea tbh. Never really thought about how much computing power just from bitcoin rigs we have.

  4. Not much improvement in mining? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why would there ever be any improvement in mining activity energy use? Isn't it designed to scale with mining efficiency?

    1. Re:Not much improvement in mining? by manu0601 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Bitcoin iis designed so that mining gets harder as new bitcoins are found

    2. Re:Not much improvement in mining? by SpankiMonki · · Score: 1

      Really? I'm pretty sure mining difficulty is based on mining capacity - i.e. the more computational capacity on the network at any given time the harder it is to mine a block. This is done to keep mining blocks at a constant rate. Mining difficulty changes periodically with network capacity, not how many coins are actually mined.

    3. Re:Not much improvement in mining? by delt0r · · Score: 1

      It is both. The amount per block changes becoming less over time. The block rate is adjusted to be more or less constant even if there is a big increase in mining capacity.

      --
      If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
    4. Re:Not much improvement in mining? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is both. The amount per block changes becoming less over time. The block rate is adjusted to be more or less constant even if there is a big increase in mining capacity.

      this is true. the first part refers to the halvening, the second part refers to "difficulty"

  5. So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...or another altcoin that secures the blockchain in a more energy efficient way and/or devotes computing resources to socially responsible causes like citizen science (e.g., via the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing). Info on Gridcoin at: http://www.gridcoin.us/. Without question, the electricity needed to secure the Bitcoin blockchain scales dramatically out of proportion to the need.

    1. Re:So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There is nothing more socially responsible or needed than a decentralized money that exists beyond the control of special interests.

    2. Re:So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Are you serious? Is there something stopping "special interests" from manipulating bitcoin?
      WTF is wrong with people?

    3. Re:So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right, and obviously the solution is to Bitcoin, which is, essentially, controlled by whoever has the necessary computing muscle to hijack 51% of the network, which is then able to extort fees from every transaction.

      It's amazing that people believe that they won't artificially delay transactions to create an illusion of demand, and thus drive the transaction fees even higher (surge pricing, as some call it). Apparently everyone believes that we're all honest and not at all doing this for the money or anything. People - especially people that are involved with moving a lot of other people's money - are honest like that.

      The cognitive dissonance in the Bitcoin supporters is baffling, in particular because this is not just a theoretical problem - it was inevitable from the start, and is already happening.

      Bitcoin has failed it's primary objective. It is only decentralized in the most literal and naive sense of the word: the computing power is geographically dispersed, but control remains in the hands of a few (rich) entities who will fsck everyone else for profit. The developers are short-sighted and the miners are only actively participating while there is profit to be made. It is hanging by a thread, and in a few years, the whole thing will collapse because people will become fed up with the delays and the ever increasing fees. With no more easily minable bitcoins, and no people to extort, the miners will leave then, bringing the rest of the system down.

      Hopefully people will learn from this experiment and build a better system, because Bitcoin solved nothing with regards to having a truly distributed currency system.

    4. Re:So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by rtb61 · · Score: 0

      Yes otherwise how else would crime prosper. Not that digital currencies stop the big in of town from stealing billions, obviously digitising currency enables that, otherwise semi-trailer loads of loot would have to be trucked around to disappear like they did in Iraq. Let's be honest the three leading fiscal exchange activities of bitcoin are tax evasion, organised crime and espionage (the US government puts to use all the bitcoins they confiscate, especially the ones they pretend to sell).

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    5. Re:So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is nothing more socially responsible ...

      There are many things more socially responsible than playing with crypto-currencies, such as minimising one's carbon footprint for a start ...

    6. Re:So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are many things more socially responsible than playing with crypto-currencies, such as minimising one's carbon footprint for a start ..

      You can start by putting a bag over your head, eh? Recycling is hip, man!

    7. Re: So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right. It's just like the other content that reads, no one will accept 1/120 of the value. Seem /. Users aren't that smart, don't understand economics, and fail to see what happens when governments declare bitcoin illegal.

      Can't spend it? Can't use it. What good is it too accept a currency you can't spend in real life.

    8. Re:So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      There is nothing more socially responsible or needed than a decentralized money that exists beyond the control of special interests.

      Please pass whatever the hell you're smoking...

      Lets see:

      1. Feeding hungry children.
      2. Curing terrible diseases.
      3. Stopping war and violence

      Gee, that was hard thinking of something more socially responsible or needed than decentralized money.

    9. Re: So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by Burz · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Right. It's just like the other content that reads, no one will accept 1/120 of the value. Seem /. Users aren't that smart, don't understand economics, and fail to see what happens when governments declare bitcoin illegal.

      Can't spend it? Can't use it. What good is it too accept a currency you can't spend in real life.

      Um, you think bans are the conduit for making bitcoin corrupt? The real threat is and always was the formation of cartels. And as far as I can tell, bitcoin is 98% there.

      Seriously, all financial institutions have to do to control bitcoin is to swamp its matrix with processing power. And finance specializes in processing power. Idiots!

    10. Re: So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Seriously, all financial institutions have to do to control bitcoin is to swamp its matrix with processing power. And finance specializes in processing power. Idiots!

      Actually, this is very incorrect. Financial institutions don't have as much processing power as you might think.

      But what really puts Bitcoin at risk is that financial institutions basically have a blank check. If Bitcoin is threatened by having $10 billion dollars of miners come online that are corrupt, this is something that can and will be considered by larger bankers and governments that are their toys.

    11. Re: So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Seriously, all financial institutions have to do to control bitcoin is to swamp its matrix with processing power. And finance specializes in processing power. Idiots!

      Traditional processing power is useless for mining bitcoin, especially financial processing power which is more optimized for sustained I/O bandwidth rather than CPU power. For bitcoin mining you need special SHA-256 hashing chips. Of course, anyone with deep enough pockets can buy and/or develop these chips in sufficient quantities to disturb the market, if they wanted.

    12. Re:So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      The problem right now is that BTC prices tend to be ridiculous. Vendors set the price by converting to their local currency plus some percentage to offset risk, which IME tends to be 200-300% or more.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    13. Re:So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're suggesting any of those are bad things. One group having complete control over everything is absolutely terrible - especially so when that one group is of a type history has shown to reach self-destructing levels of destruction when left to it's own devices 100% of the time.

    14. Re:So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      How about not wasting energy to generate imaginary money? that seems pretty socially responsible. Trying not to ruin the world that we live in for all eternity. that i believe is more socially responsible.

      Bitcoin is not socially responsible its irresponsible and wasteful.

    15. Re:So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      There is nothing more socially responsible or needed than a decentralized money that exists beyond the control of special interests.

      Yep. It's a shame that Bitcoin didn't solve that problem.

    16. Re:So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is there something stopping "special interests" from manipulating bitcoin?

      I think that "something" is exactly what we are talking about, right now: the cost.

      With other currencies, other parties than the manipulator have to pay for it; it's an externality. With bitcoin, if you want to fuck around, then you better come up with the KWh.

    17. Re:So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      1. How about producing less children.
      2. Agree.
      3. Agree.

      But if we're going to have free people on this planet - why is decentralized money not important?

      Yes a constitutionally limited government is MORE important. But decentralized money is still important.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    18. Re:So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you are using a electric heater in your home you could, perhaps, get a refund from running it... Instead of just loading a resistor to generate heat you could run a bitcoin-miner generating some small income..

      There was some company a while ago that where talking about a heating-element you could put in your home.. They paid for the HW and half of the electricity.. Letting you get some cheap heat to warm your house with..

      So next time you are thinking about buying an electric-heater think of getting a cheap mining-rig for some crypto-currency instead and perhaps get some profit back.

    19. Re:So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is nothing more socially responsible or needed than a decentralized money that exists beyond the control of special interests.

      True, but it must be ecologically responsible as well.

      Bitcoin is a travesty. It deliberately wastes energy. We all have a moral responsibility to discontinue using bitcoin, and to refuse to use any virtual currency until one is designed that does not deliberately waste energy.

      I am doing my part. I invite others to join me. Together we can force an end to this ecological travesty.

    20. Re: So build out the blockchain on Gridcoin by Burz · · Score: 1

      Yeah, special hashing chips that only grow between the unwashed toes of bitcoin bros. LOL

  6. negligible power will be used by rubycodez · · Score: 2

    compared to the energy draw for computation for everything else, it's not worth worrying about bitcoin cycles. Even the draw for the systems that track traditional currency will completely dwarf it.

    1. Re:negligible power will be used by forand · · Score: 0

      Do you have numbers to back up your assertions? Are you comparing it to ALL aspects of "traditional currency?" According to wikipedia 350 MW is approximately 1% of ALL US power usage. That seems rather a lot to me to be going to something that has zero physical benefit.

    2. Re:negligible power will be used by dbIII · · Score: 1

      It sounds like extrapolating a curve instead of considering what the graph represents in the first place. Bitcoin would need to be incredibly popular for that to happen. Of course the price that bitcoins attract from enthusiasts varies based on hype such as articles like these so it is in the best interests of those in the scam^H^H^H scheme to keep up the puff pieces and media attention.

    3. Re:negligible power will be used by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      MW is energy, let's talk power.

      The world's information systems pull 1.5 petawatt-hours of power, and banking and financial systems is one percent of that. Compared to 1.2 terrawatt-hours bitcoin use.

    4. Re:negligible power will be used by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You got that backwards.

      W kW MW TW and so on is power.
      Wh kWh MWh TWh is energy.

    5. Re:negligible power will be used by delt0r · · Score: 2

      MW is power, MWh is energy.

      --
      If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
    6. Re:negligible power will be used by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yip, but the actual financial systems move money arround for everyone in the world. Bitcoin uses 1/10th of that energy for just a handfull of people.

    7. Re:negligible power will be used by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      correct, I converted the MW power assuming 24x7 operation of bitcoin to MW-h

  7. All that energy just to push around electrons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You could be using those cycles to crunch the cure for cancer.

    1. Re:All that energy just to push around electrons by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 0

      You could be using those cycles to crunch the cure for cancer.

      I've been saying that for years, how completely stupid the Biocoin system is if you care about the environment.

      But I keep getting shouted down, "oh no, it's fine, so what, I have a computer anyway, it isn't that big a deal".

      Yea, wanna bet?

    2. Re:All that energy just to push around electrons by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

      Is the cure for cancer a purely computational problem? Do we have the formula and just need to "solve for X" to cure it?

      I think you have a weird pop culture idea of how science works, we're not wildly scribbling on a chalk board followed by an announcement of EUREKA!

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    3. Re:All that energy just to push around electrons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or reelect Nixon and go back to the moon...

    4. Re: All that energy just to push around electrons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well the OPs comment was a bit simplistic but don't forget folding@home and a bunch of other distributed data problems that in theory have a better impact on mankind than crypto currency.

    5. Re:All that energy just to push around electrons by SpankiMonki · · Score: 1

      For a time, GPU Grid went from folding proteins with volunteer's GPUs to using volunteer's GPUs for mining bitcoin to fund their research. That's when I stopped contributing my hardware for their efforts. Haven't been over there in a while, so I don't know if they're still mining instead of folding or not.

    6. Re:All that energy just to push around electrons by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      Using computation to find "the cure for cancer" is putting it too simply.

      Nevertheless, one promising approach to treating cancer is to sequence the genome of a patient's healthy cells and tumour cells, and compare the genomes. Determining the difference can speed up the choice of what drugs to use to treat the cancer.

      Sequencing systems do not read an entire genome's DNA from one end to the other. They break it into multiple fragments that are tens or hundreds of bases long, read the fragments, and then reassemble the fragmented reads (with overlap-matching) to construct the genome. The last step requires a great deal of computation.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    7. Re: All that energy just to push around electrons by OrangeTide · · Score: 2

      Solving corruption in centralized banking is a topic worth of research. Issues that deeply affect society include not just health issues but can also include economics and monetary systems.

      You seem pretty ready to dismiss crypto currency as having a potential benefit, and while Bitcoin probably won't be worth keeping around, the information collected through this rather large scale experiment is likely to end up in future text books.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    8. Re: All that energy just to push around electrons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Corruption in centralized banking?

      Why would we need research to tell us the tinfoil-hat-types are paranoid and delusional?

    9. Re: All that energy just to push around electrons by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

      I see what you did there, you used ad hominem to diminish those you disagree with.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  8. New unit of measure... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    From now on, we measure power consumption by the Denmark!

    1. Re:New unit of measure... by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      But how many Library-of-Congresses in one Denmark?

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  9. CitiBank? by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 1

    How does this compare to how much electricity CitiBank or Bank of America uses?

    1. Re: CitiBank? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would like to know this but I actually think poses a bigger question.

      How much power do each of the top 100 corporations by gross revenues use annually?

      It's crazy to think, but true, that most countries GDP is less than those top companies.

      The point being, this may be a nonsense article (and probably is click bait of some kind) because countries, especially small ones, are not very large institutions in the world today.

      It's like comparing how bad two shits smell next to you; while, you're standing in front of an open sewer.

    2. Re:CitiBank? by TheGavster · · Score: 2

      There are 12.4M bitcoins, valued at something like $400 each. That means that the bitcoin network is tracking something like $5B in value. This is three orders of magnitude smaller than the value tracked by the computer systems of those major banks, even if all of their computing power were needed for the task. In reality, the vast proportion of that power is spent predicting the most effective enterprises in which to invest that value. Even accepting that high-frequency trading is of dubious economic benefit, there are still real economic decisions being supported by the computation.

      --
      "Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
    3. Re:CitiBank? by hjf · · Score: 2

      let's be realistic: most of the power used by big banks is air conditioning and lighting for their offices...

    4. Re:CitiBank? by Tokolosh · · Score: 1

      The mining industry in South Africa consumes about 3,000 MW. Most of this is for mining gold.

      --
      Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
    5. Re:CitiBank? by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      At least gold has a few practical uses. It's just too rare and expensive to use for most of them.

      The world really needs more platinum. Specifically, I need cheap platinum so I can build a science project involving making lots of hydrogen.

    6. Re: CitiBank? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      99% of the Gold ever mined is in vaults or jewellery

  10. Re: Shows how much they hate humanity... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    More like they love freedom. God bless America.

  11. and all that power.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For something that is entirely useless.

  12. Huge Waste by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 0

    This is the most pointless waste of electricity I've heard of yet. Electricity isn't free, and the fuel expenditures devoted to utterly pointless virtual currency is astonishing. Humanity has sunk to a new low of wasteful activity.

    Bitcoin needs to go away. It was never IMHO a good idea and this revelation makes it even more stupid and pointless.

    1. Re:Huge Waste by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Humanity has sunk to a new low of wasteful activity.

      That should be reserved for making ethanol from corn. A tax subsidy encourages the production of more corn ethanol, despite the fact that corn isn't a surplus crop. (South Americans make ethanol from surplus sugar canes.) Farmers like ethanol because it raises the price on corn, but rising corn prices also filter through the rest of the food chain from livestock feed to processed foods. Groceries are more expensive to benefit a few farmers and ethanol producers. This is one of the reasons why Senator Ted Cruz is against the tax subsidies.

    2. Re:Huge Waste by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Yes that really is a good example of taking a good idea of turning waste into fuel and turning it into utter insanity of burning food for the sake of wealth of a lobby group and some votes. See the tariff on sugar for another example where expensive corn syrup replaces expensive protected local sugar that can't compete with either the corn or the cheap sugar from the rest of the world.

    3. Re:Huge Waste by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not fundamentally different from gold mining.

    4. Re:Huge Waste by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL. Gold bug detected.

    5. Re:Huge Waste by Burz · · Score: 1

      No. Ethanol at least reduces smog (it is a replacement for MTBE). Bitcoin produces smog and greenhouse gases and little else.

    6. Re:Huge Waste by delt0r · · Score: 1

      Let me introduce you to the internet.. Oh wait your already here! Carry on.

      --
      If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
    7. Re:Huge Waste by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Bitcoin produces a useful service, just like ethanol.

    8. Re:Huge Waste by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it produces a wasteful tool that serves no unique function

    9. Re:Huge Waste by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yep... ethanol is useful for making meth, bitcoin for selling it.

  13. Probably planned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It was probably planned so that if it got popular enough then this issue would arise and they could say something like... well we will just terminate the blockchain here and equally distribute the rest to the governments/banks of the world to start it as a currency.

  14. Re:Shows how much they hate humanity... by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

    You used electricity to post this drivel.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  15. To solve... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    a nonexistent problem.

  16. But then again, by Striek · · Score: 1

    It might not. It might consume twice as much, or possibly half. What's the point here, exactly?

    --
    "Government is like fire; a handy servant, but a dangerous master." -- George Washington
  17. Beware extrapolation by sjbe · · Score: 2

    The numbers are very back-of-the-envelope and assume a worst case:

    Translation: We did a ridiculous and naive extrapolation and then were foolish enough to think it actually means something.

    1. Re:Beware extrapolation by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Best case I'm leaving work in 20 minutes. Worst case the earth spontaneously combusts and we all die a horrible death right now. Reality will be somewhere in the middle.

  18. Offset by s.petry · · Score: 1

    Every other currency also uses tons of electricity. The Bank of London does not hand carry over paper pounds to exchange for paper dollars, this is all done electronically. Banks are constantly manipulating and forecasting, and I don't hear people complaining about the electricity use for speculation.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    1. Re:Offset by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

      Those banks track orders of magnitude higher volumes of currency and yet use orders of magnitude less power than bitcoin consumes. The truly sad part though is they could have actually used bitcoin to benefit mankind, their are all sorts of distributed computing projects that need processing power, they could have simply awarded the coins based on contribution to one of those projects.

    2. Re:Offset by hjf · · Score: 1

      I don't think you realize that banks, DO INDEED move truckloads of cash. If I give you a check for $5M dollars, it's not just bytes moving around in a database. Banks often swap actual, physical money.

      They're crooks. And they treat each other like crooks. No bank trusts another bank.

    3. Re:Offset by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 1

      Every other currency also uses tons of electricity.

      Yes, but we have to have these currencies. We don't have to have bitcoins, and they use up way more electricity than already established currencies that're electronically moved around.

      Just seems to me to be utterly wasteful and pointless, all around. It doesn't serve any purpose that existing currencies don't already take care of at a much lower cost of use. All the blockchain computations needed for transactions, the continued mining which is increasingly computationally expensive and less return for invested energy. All of it serves no benefit to mankind what so ever. It's even becoming just like "real world" currencies where a small percentage of people who have bitcoins have way more than everyone else combined.

      Quite frankly, the only time I hear of bitcoins being used, it's usually people ripping each other off with various schemes (ransomware anyone?), hacks of bitcoin trading sites, bank scam websites that run off with deposited bitcoins or illegal transactions. What the hell is the point of bitcoin if the best feature one can attributing to them is the enabling of lot of criminal activity?

      It's completely pointless. And wasteful. Did I say that already? Yeah, because it is.

    4. Re:Offset by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      It's not that simple. There are requirements for the computationally-intense function that few tasks meet:
      - Must be slow to compute.
      - Must be fast to verify.
      - Must be adjustable in slowness.
      - Must be verifiable without anything other than the block and protocol specification.
      - Completed solution must be very small in storage requirements.

  19. Re: Shows how much they hate humanity... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Guns don't kill ... gun owners do.

  20. "Could" by PopeRatzo · · Score: 0

    I could win Lotto and have a threesome with two Victoria's Secret supermodels by 2020.

    Who's to say?

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:"Could" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I could win Lotto and have a threesome with two Victoria's Secret supermodels by 2020.

      Who's to say?

      At least the BitCoin prediction sounds a bit plausible. Your wishful thinking seems less likely than Jeb Bush becoming president and you really don't want to hear about the odds for that happening.

    2. Re:"Could" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I could win Lotto and have a threesome with two Victoria's Secret supermodels by 2020.

      Who's to say?

      I'm a Victoria's Secret supermodel, you insensitive clod!

  21. seems like it will be a self regulating system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    electricity costs money. so as the electricity demands go up, it exacts a higher toll on the miner, the rewards become less and less as mining continues such that the effort to mine does not offset the cost in electricity. miner hangs it up.

    this in turn adds to the workload of other miners still in the system requiring more electricity of them requiring more money to keep the operation running... but as always, the rewards become less and less as mining continues. effort to mine does not offset cost in electricity. miner hangs it up.

    and so on and so on... won't this eventually lead to a condition in which it is no longer profitable for ANYONE to mine bitcoins? even after the line has been pushed back to only those miners who have optimized their equipment to peak efficiency using only renewable energy from the sun, it seems like you'd hit a set number of miners that the system can sustain and at that point, the number of miners stabilizes and bitcoins progressively take longer and longer to mine... or... bitcoin collapses.

    no?

  22. slashdot. stop. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i know dice bought you, but seriously. click bait that is this bad? do you want to go the way of Digg?

    1. Re:slashdot. stop. by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      i know dice bought you, but seriously. click bait that is this bad? do you want to go the way of Digg?

      Where have you been? BizX bought Slashdot (and SourceForge) from Dice on 2016-01-27.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  23. It just occurred to me... by joh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    that BC is perfectly suited to outsource mining into orbit: Energy is cheap there and bitcoins are easily beamed back... A perfect product to manufacture in space. Lol.

    1. Re:It just occurred to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      that BC is perfectly suited to outsource mining into orbit: Energy is cheap there and bitcoins are easily beamed back... A perfect product to manufacture in space. Lol.

      There is a recent television ad that says in 2116 satellites will collect solar energy and beam all of our electricity to earth... I suspect the logistics of that would be, well, impossible, but maybe that will solve our bitcoin mining requirements...

    2. Re:It just occurred to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is a problem with high power usage in space. When your computer gets hot, you blow a lot of air through it and the heatsink transfers the heat into the air. In space there is no air, meaning it wouldn't really matter if you add a heatsink. You have to transfer the heat to the surface area and then radiate the heat off as infrared waves. The technique works, but not good enough to handle the cooling requirements for bitcoin mining.

    3. Re:It just occurred to me... by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      that BC is perfectly suited to outsource mining into orbit: Energy is cheap there and bitcoins are easily beamed back... A perfect product to manufacture in space. Lol.

      Perhaps your lol means your post is tongue-in-cheek, but anyway...

      There may be lots of sunlight up there (when you're not eclipsed by the earth) but harvesting it requires large collection areas. Not the kind of thing that is easy to put into orbit. Not to mention that cosmic rays and spacecraft-charging (from e.g., solar wind and magnetic substorms) demand robust designs for electronics that are slower and heavier than what you can run on the surface of the earth.

      Based on current values for bitcoins, there is perhaps about $2.1 trillion USD yet to be mined. And there's plenty of competition from other miners. I don't feel like running the cost-benefit analysis of installing and maintaining bitcoin-mining servers in orbit, but at face value, it doesn't seem like a slam-dunk.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    4. Re:It just occurred to me... by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      there is perhaps about $2.1 trillion USD yet to be mined

      DOH! Make that $2.1 billion USD based on the fact that about 75% of available bitcoins have been mined already. Apparently I'm comma-challenged.

      These new numbers mean an earth-orbit bitcoin-mining server is definitely a non-starter.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    5. Re:It just occurred to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With that logic you can write off most venture capital as "a non starter". In this case the idea can be written off pretty quickly. What's cheaper? Assuming four times the efficiency in orbit due to lack of cloud cover and a day/night cycle, sending 1 solar panel to orbit and keeping it running there or finding a sunny place for 4 solar panels on the surface?

      Here's the TLDR: Bitcoin appeared in 2009. We go through the various stages of denial, until about 2014 when the industry basically admitted defeat (JP Morgan's CEO Jamie Dimon said Silicon Valley is "going to eat our lunch") and now everyone who is anyone (all the largest banks, Intel, IBM, etc.) is trying to get in on the blockchain action. Everything else is damage control FUD.

      For the little guy the angst surrounding Bitcoin is just plain stupid: just like protecting the buggy whip industry against the innovation of the automobile would have been a huge economic and social mistake, it's a huge economic and social mistake to protect all the current entrenched intermediaries that are obsoleted by fintech startups.

      This particular FUD about Denmark is moronic to begin with: it's designed to make you think the system wastes a "Denmark of energy" extra, while completely disregarding the externalities, such as obsoleting the heating/AC, lighting, upkeep, transportation to/from etc. etc. of all the regular companies and organizations it obsoletes.

      OMG, think of all the Denmarks of fuel that is expended by tractors! Yeah, but how much do they produce and how many labourers/horses would you need to keep the current population fed instead? But OMG, all those peasants lost their job! Yeah, but all those peasants then had the time, opportunity and need to learn to read and became all kinds of other things that now could afford an iPhone to be on Facebook with all day and till the earth in Farmville for virtual produce instead. You should stop worrying about losing your slave job at the bank, it will be replaced by another slave job you haven't even imagined yet.

  24. Stupid is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What a stupid idea. Fake money. Hope you all lose your asses

  25. Denmark electricity by rossdee · · Score: 1

    I thought Denmarks power all came from renewable sources anyway.
    Wind, solar, hydro...
    and of course tidal. If you stuck a dam across to Norway or Sweden you could use the Baltic sea as a huge source of tidal powwer.

    1. Re:Denmark electricity by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      Good for Denmark (seriously!) but that's not the point. TFA is trying to point out the large energy-footprint of bitcoin.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    2. Re:Denmark electricity by BlackPignouf · · Score: 1

      Denmark has a really good PR department.
      They can only afford to have so many wind turbines because they also have a lot of dirty coal power plants, and when they produce too much electricity, they sell it at a loss to Sweden and Norway (who have many hydro power plants). Denmark has a pretty bad CO2/kWh electricity footprint.

    3. Re:Denmark electricity by xonen · · Score: 1

      Denmark has a really good PR department.
      They can only afford to have so many wind turbines because they also have a lot of dirty coal power plants, and when they produce too much electricity, they sell it at a loss to Sweden and Norway (who have many hydro power plants). Denmark has a pretty bad CO2/kWh electricity footprint.

      This is a very inaccurate sketch of reality, and almost any statement in this sentence is untrue.

      * Wind power turbines can be started and stopped with simple procedure, in contrary to a large gas, nuclear or coal plant. Wind energy is actually actively used to steer energy supply based on the demands.
      The idea that you `need` coal plants to adjust for varying winds is more than a misconception. In reality, it's the other way around - large plants are monoliths that are not usually actively adjusted in output power based on the demand. Wind energy parks are capable of adapting output to demand in real-time.

      * Hydro plants are are very nice solution, both for varying demands. When not used, they actively can store energy. There's nothing wrong with hydro plants. There's also nothing wrong with (high voltage / DC / bidirectional) undersea electricity cables that, once installed, help a continent create and distribute more electricity efficiently.

      * Denmark produces about 50% of it's energy needs with wind power. That makes an excellent CO2 footprint per kWh.

      Please stop your blatant lies and fud. Renewable energy exists, is flexible enough, greatly reduces carbon footprint, and is economically feasible.

      The only reason to object renewables is if you have many stock interests in some oil-based company.

      -- On-topic: I do agree that bitcoin in it's current form is mostly a waste of energy.

      --
      A glitch a day keeps the bugs away.
    4. Re:Denmark electricity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The idea that you `need` coal plants to adjust for varying winds is more than a misconception. In reality, it's the other way around - large plants are monoliths that are not usually actively adjusted in output power based on the demand.

      That is simply not true. Wind energy needs large powerplants. Power generation is done with a master/slave setup of generators.
      Master: delivers 50/60 Hz power
      Slave: listens to the power grid to detect when the peaks are present and provides output to add to those.

      Wind and solar power only exist in slave versions as the masters have to deliver a certain amount of the overall power to enforce the frequency. Since the master setup is really expensive, the majority of powerplants are also slaves. There are ways to reduce this problem, like using "noisy" slave power to power a generator, which in turn delivers master power. They aren't cheap, but it does allow the wind turbines to deliver a higher percentage of the overall power. It would still not be 100% though.

      It's true that coal fired powerplants adjust to different loads a bit slowly, but that goes for gas/oil/garbage/whatever burning plants as the delay is in the steam engine part, not the burner. Nuclear is even slower. In theory wind would be quick as individual turbines could be controlled with an on/off switch, but nobody sits around and have direct control of every single one like that. Also whoever owns the wind turbine will not earn anything if it shuts down, which makes a conflict of interests. Hydro power on the other hand seems to work well to adapt to changing loads. It's easy to control and unlike the wind, the water will stockpile for later usage, which removes the financial motive to max out production at all time.

      * Denmark produces about 50% of it's energy needs with wind power.

      Last year was particularly windy and the wind power delivered a record high of 42.1%. Much higher than other countries, but not quite 50%. With the already planned offshore windfarms, 50% is within reach though.

      Looking at power production/usage on a single country is a bit silly though. The lines to Norway, Sweden and Germany are so powerful that it allows Denmark to shut down and getting enough power by imports alone, at least in theory. The imports/exports often exceeds the power production from powerplants, though a downright shutdown doesn't happen for various technical, financial and administrative reasons. In fact Denmark has a tendency to export power rather than import, particularly to Sweden. Denmark relies on the wind, Norway and to some extend Sweden relies on hydro power, meaning the direction of the energy between countries relies heavily on the weather.

      A new cable is being build towards the Netherlands and the UK plans a cable to Denmark. The UK idea is actually interesting because weather tends to move from west to east. This mean a windy line/zone will hit the UK and when the wind dies down, it will hit Denmark. If there is a cable between those two places, the wind power production will be able to even out more and suddenly wind power production will become closer to production average.

      Danish powerplants are home developed and tend to be much more efficient than in surrounding countries and they have excellent filters. This mean from a global environmental point of view, it would make sense to run a Danish coal/gas powerplant and export all the power to Germany, which can then shut down one powerplant. Danish burners are also unusual in the sense that they can take multiple types of fuel. The same boiler can be heated with coal, oil, gas, wood, something (I think it's usually 5 types of fuel). Coal is very important even though it's not used much. Say the plant is using Russian gas and the Russians wants to increase the price by 100%, the answer would be to switch to coal. Because there is that answer and coal is easy to obtain, sudden increases in fuel prices becomes much less likely. Germany on the other hand

    5. Re:Denmark electricity by BlackPignouf · · Score: 1

      Thanks a lot for all the interesting points.
      My analysis was based on 2009 figures, and Denmark has shut down coal power plants since then and installed even more wind turbines.
      Good point for common heat & power comparison to the UK.
      Final thought : "half that of Singapore" is like saying that you're only "half as fat as Michael Moore". You're still fat ;)

  26. Denmark use 3-5 GW, not 14 GW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Denmark has a power usage around 3 GW at night and around 5 - 5.5 GW during work hours.

    I'm not sure where the 14 GW comes from, but it seems way off. Granted it says power production capacity, but it still seems quite wrong. The powerplants are not that powerful and the grid would not be anywhere near handing that huge amount of power. Granted there is a growing number of windfarms, but still even during a storm they deliver "only" like 3-3.5 GW. It happens occasionally that Denmark produce more power from windfarms alone than the power usage at the same time, but it's still far from 14 GW.

    I'm not linking to the source for the current power production (I suspect the live updating server wouldn't cope with traffic from a link here), but the power usage is currently 3125 MW, quite far from 14 GW.

    Speaking of Denmark and running on wind energy. It's not possible to shut down the powerplants even if the windfarms can deliver enough energy. The reason is that a strong generator at a powerplant has to deliver 50 Hz and then secondary power supplies like small powerplants and windfarms adapt to that. A windfarm without a clear external 50 Hz voltage will not be able to produce power as it can't figure out what 50 Hz is on its own. This is one reason why Denmark once in a while produce wind energy and export it for more or less free without shutting down powerplants. Another reason is capacity issues in the high voltage grid. The windfarms tend to be on the west coast and far from the cities needing the power and they are actually better connected to Norway and Germany than to the eastern part of Denmark. Windfarms is more than just "getting enough" once they take up a certain amount of the power production. The problems can be fixed, but not for free.

    1. Re:Denmark use 3-5 GW, not 14 GW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you could, in theory, use some dedicated wind-turbines to make hydrogen and store it in a tank. you could then burn the hydrogen-reserve
      in a 50HZ base-clock generating power-plant .. instead of maybe natural gas?
      hydrogen gas powered "wind turbines" (they are wind turbines in a tube, eh?) arr supposedly the easiest to regulate and thus very suited to
      be a 50 HZ carrier generator?
      One could also just as easy use PV to make the hydrogen for the base clock generator ...

  27. On the bright side (sort of)... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...maybe all this Bitcoin mining will ultimately lead to civilization developing and deploying a Dyson sphere.

    1. Re:On the bright side (sort of)... by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      ...maybe all this Bitcoin mining will ultimately lead to civilization developing and deploying a Dyson sphere.

      I think there's a Douglas Adams novel here...

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  28. I've been to paradise by JeremyWH · · Score: 1

    But never been to bitcoin (or Alaska for that matter)

  29. Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What's the NSA going to do with all those bitcoins?

  30. Easy solution by tandavanadesan · · Score: 1

    Denmark should drastically reduce electricity consumption

  31. increasing block size by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This isn't really an option, the block size will have to be increased simply to stay liquid. What happens if the block size doesn't change soon? If the transaction backlog gets too big, people will lose confidence in the currency. As miners lose confidence and stop mining, a larger percentage of mining power will be controlled by big cartels. The cartels want to keep the block size small until this happens, meanwhile they will maintain the backlog and only service the high value transactions. Only when some set of cartels has a majority control of mining will they increase the block size, but at that point they will also be able to change other parameters, like the reward for solving a block, or how the difficulty is calculated. It will be a much less liquid market, but that is okay if you are actually in control of the market.

    1. Re:increasing block size by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      it's also in the big miner's interest to keep the currency attractive. There's no point in mining, if you can't sell your bitcoin to pay for the electricity.

  32. Ted's right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's much more efficient to directly tax-subsidize the wealthy. Sending it through framers, ethanol producers, and energy companies, THEN to the wealthy is much more wasteful.

  33. Not gonna happen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There won't be any bitcoins in 2020. They will have been banned. If you have any, get rid of them before owning can become a felony.

  34. April Fools' day by bluegutang · · Score: 1

    Just saw a comment modded "(Score:11, Funny)"

    I see it's April Fool's day, and the moderation goes to 11.

    (though I suspect it's supposed to be 3 in binary)

    1. Re:April Fools' day by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Yeah - have a look at the UID and story ids they are a string of 0001111001010101

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    2. Re:April Fools' day by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      I just converted some of the binary - I think it's unicode but I am so tired my eyes are falling to take it any further.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  35. What about banks? by sad_ · · Score: 2

    How much electricity do all the banks in the world need to operate?

    --
    On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
    1. Re:What about banks? by brxndxn · · Score: 1

      I know Chase bank has multiple skyscrapers.. I wonder what their footprint is compared to Bitcoin.

      --
      --- We need more Ron Paul!
    2. Re:What about banks? by JcMorin · · Score: 1

      Add all the employees who got to works, they burn fuel too... Bitcoin security is not involving as much people. Most mining farm have a 1-2 guys watching a lots of computer.

    3. Re:What about banks? by houghi · · Score: 1

      And what about the banks in Denmark?

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    4. Re:What about banks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You think banks only manage the dollar ?

  36. Imagine the future by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whole countries are taken off the grid due to not enough bitcoin.
    All nuclear plants running full blast are hooked up to bitcoin factories.
    Bitcoin is similar to gold, except that it is 100 times worse.

    Way to go fucking burners.

  37. We wonder by m76 · · Score: 1

    Why humanity is doomed.
    Wasting this much energy and resources on literally nothing.

  38. What's new? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Almost as "wasteful" as having similar percentages of GDP spent on building pyramids, or sacrificing food to the gods, to maintain the social order. Maybe maintaining trust between large numbers of people just does require expenditure in order to work?

  39. A drop in the bucket compared to junk Javascript by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Lots of CPU coolers spin up attempting to mine a little butt coinage, but it's probably a drop in the bucket compared to javascript, especially as implemented by Mozilla. You have dozens of tabs open for hours or days, but these scripts run nonstop, whether you're looking at them or not. And they do spin up the CPU fan unless you limit the CPU frequency settings (which most probably don't since many people just barely know how to use a computer).

    Mozilla seems to use some sort of cooperative multitasking. It would seem sensible that after tabs that have been open (especially tabs not in foreground) should get less CPU time after say 10 seconds, and then get further continually diminishing CPU as time progresses from minutes to hours.

    Chrome seems a lot better about this; although it also uses all available CPU cores. Chrome multithreads to all cores as opposed to firefox, which is single threaded, except for plugins and xorg calls. Still the net CPU time for Chrome seems dramatically lower.

  40. Adaptive Economics by SMACX+guy · · Score: 1

    Humans : correct in making the leap from wealth as currency to wealth as energy. But logic failure : wealth ultimately is extension of desire, fluctuating with emotions and state of mind. Desires : when all are supported in purely adaptable system, true wealth is achieved."

    - Usurper Judaa Marr, "Human : Nature"

  41. It still pales to Internet Explorer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Think of the developer hours and trillions of watts wasted by developers trying to get their sites working right with IE.

  42. That's it, the solution to the Fermi Paradox! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They're too damn busy mining for virtual coins, and putting their resources to it.

    Well fuck, you know what that means, we've hit the filter.