Quote from: mewantsbitcoins on May 16, 2011, 12:53:04 PM

Do you know how much carbon dioxide is produces by printing paper currency and how many trees have to be cut?

why do you compare to paper currency?! aren't we talking digital currency here? of course the carbon footprint of paper currency is terrible, but why on earth would we repeat the same mistakes with digital currency?

Quote from: kgo on May 16, 2011, 01:11:03 PM

I think Sukrim meant 6 kWH/day, so it's not 6 * 24 = 144, it's 6 * 1.

that's not what he wrote, can someone confirm this?

Quote from: bittersweet on May 16, 2011, 01:26:46 PM

It's not a waste. It's a price for having decentralized cryptocurrency. Also, I don't get why a huge carbon dioxide footprint would be bad. Plants require carbon dioxide to conduct photosynthesis. More CO2 - more plants growth. Are you against nature?

i do think it's a waste, there MUST be more (energy-)efficient ways of doing this. dude please, do some reading on CO2 imbalance on this planet...

Quote from: stakhanov on May 16, 2011, 01:33:49 PM

You're failing to take into account the electricity used by the people who did not generate a block. Maybe a better calculation would be 10minutes * power consumption of the whole bitcoin network / 50BTC = energy consumption for the creation of one bitcoin.

But this talk of energy needed for the creation of bitcoins is pretty irrelevant, considering that this process also handles all the transactions. So it would probably be more intelligent to compare the power usage of bitcoins to the total power usage of the current financial network, including the energy required to move coins and bills around, to power bank servers, to produce coins and bills, and so on.

hmmm can you give me an idea of the "power consumption of the whole bitcoin network"??

and again, yes the current financial system creates a terrible carbon footprint, but why repeat the same mistakes??!! it's the wrong comparison imho

Quote from: BitLex on May 17, 2011, 12:10:27 AM

every BTC generated by my mining-rigs is 100% carbon dioxide neutral, no matter how many kWh they consume.
don't fire up your rigs (or anything else) with dirty energy, if you want a greener world. Wink

great stuff!! but i fear you are one of only a few in the bitcoin network?

guys, i admire your passion and enthusiasm on bitcoin. we all know that fiat currencies are not sustainable (for several reasons) but in my simple mind any new digital currency that is such a HUGE resource hog won't be sustainable either in the long run. feel free to persuade me that i'm wrong