Quote from: squatter on December 12, 2017, 11:58:29 PM

Have you compared it to gold mining? Mining and recycling gold consumes far more energy. It's important to keep this in perspective as environmentalists begin complaining about Bitcoin's energy consumption. Here's a recent comparison:

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But in his paper, Vranken counters that in the 100MW to 500MW range, bitcoin mining requires between 0.8KWh to 4.4KWh per year, but the energy required for mining and recycling gold which backs US currency is 138KWh a year, while printing paper notes and minting coins is 11KWh. He pins the banking system, including not only its data centres but also its branches and ATMs, at 650KWh.

In the same article, one researcher -- Marc Bevand -- claims that Bitcoin mining uses ~ 4TWh annually, which is considerably less energy than is used by Christmas lights in the US during the holiday season. Granted, as difficulty grows and proof-of-work becomes increasingly difficult in the context of decreasing block subsidy, the network's energy consumption can be expected to increase.

But my point is this: When we consider how much energy is consumed by Bitcoin, you have to consider the alternatives (like gold), which have significant energy costs themselves.

Good information(bolded^). That's what I was expecting to see in a valid breakdown.

According to polls, only 2% of americans have used bitcoin or a crypto currency. Bitcoin's userbase being extremely small across a global scale, it isn't likely to consume as much power as critics claim.

It could help to know some bitcoin mining installations in china are powered by hydroelectric power rather than coal. Earlier this year russia proposed construction of bitcoin miners powered by nuclear energy.

The media claims all bitcoin mining is powered by coal and other extremely polluting hydrocarbon based energy sources but this is not true.