Quote from: GlassWerx on January 03, 2016, 03:34:27 PM

Quote from: jtoomim on January 03, 2016, 03:56:04 AM

Quote from: QuintLeo on December 29, 2015, 08:48:34 AM

I suspect most major farms are running "green" through power from various hydroelectric projects around the world - specifically including at least some and possibly ALL of the major Chinese farms.

According to a Bitmain employee, China's bitcoin mining is about 70% hydro, 30% coal during the summer, and about 50% hydro, 50% coal during the winter. Most of the dams in China have seasonal flows and power generation capacity. This is dirtier than the average for bitcoin mining worldwide, which is probably above 80% renewable, with almost all of that hydro. My facility is about 95% hydro, for example.

The big problem with all of that is that people actually believe that hydro electric dams are "green"

Small run-of-the-river plants emit between 0.01 and 0.03 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour. Life-cycle emissions from large-scale hydroelectric plants built in semi-arid regions are also modest: approximately 0.06 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour. However, estimates for life-cycle global warming emissions from hydroelectric plants built in tropical areas or temperate peatlands are much higher. Source cited via hyperlink.

While i agree that Hydro is a good alternative to coal and gas as it produces less co2 emissions, it is not the end all answer for bitcoin.

I will say again, bitcoin is a commodity, as a commodity I would be more likely as someone who cares about what we are doing to our planet to buy bitcoin I could verify was generated via hydro electric power, the real solution has to lay somewhere else. Solar, wind, tidal, something else is the answer, and its adoption by bitcoin miners and users could easily make bitcoin the greenest currency technology in the world. That would take BTC mainstream 1000x faster than any amount of hype/fud/adoption could do. If you could verify-ably say that "this form of currency is supported by a network of green generation and reduces emissions by using it", Bitcoin would become the currency of choice by most of the world almost over night. Maybe not from a federal level, but we all know the power of a decentralized community supersedes any politics or government regulation. Look at the bit license for NY. Early estimates show less than 12% of users, buyers, sellers have complied with the new regulations.

0 Carbon bitcoins may not be the future now, BUT IT NEEDS TO BE.

If China's government decides that killing off people with coal plant pollution is not a good idea they could shut down 200 to 300 ph in gear. When I look at these photo's below I ask myself how long will they continue this pollution?

http://imgur.com/a/9rWrq this has 40 shots in it.

here are a few shots