How about the eco-system?
Now lets assume that everyone mining right now is rocking the best of the best hardware (they aren't) grabbing 0.5w/ghs. FYI electricity cost in washington is cheap. REALLY CHEAP. Due to all the hydroelectric power. That been said its about .04$ on an industrial tier. Which means they can run really inefficient hardware by our standards and still be profitable so this is a lot worse than iv'e calculated. I should note EVERYONE is flocking to washington right now with their miners. That means with bitcoins total hash-rate of 177,943,954 GH/s that its energy consumption would be around 88,971,977 Watts or 88.9 Megawatts of power.
Again these numbers are likely far below actual. I would tack on an additional 30% even for people running older hardware.
88.9 MEGAWATTS OF POWER PEOPLE
We can only assume that with the reward drop coming up that either hashrate will double or the price of bitcoin will have to rise. Maybe a bit of both as im speculating but regardless.
Does this seem responsible? We are basically polluting on a massive scale to make pennies on the dollar.
You have to assume at some point governments will come together to put this to an end?
If miners are flocking to places like Washington with dirt cheap hydro electric power, wouldn't that be a good thing? After all hydroelectric is one of the most environmentally friendly forms of power generation.
Your taking an entire community and comparing it to one company. A government can hold a company liable for pollution it creates. They have absolutely NO way of holding a community liable for the pollution it creates.
LOL. You think you can source several MW worth of power without paying taxes? Good luck with that.
I would for the second time state and agree that it creates less pollution than current systems. Again this argument is not about gold vs btc. Nor current banking vs btc. Its about solely the pollution created by mining. Lets stay OT.
You've admitted bitcoin is more environmentally friendly than current banking systems, and "well it's not environmentally friendly enough" isn't really an argument so I think this thread can be concluded.