Quote from: stan.distortion on November 09, 2013, 04:03:32 PM

Quote from: ralree on November 09, 2013, 03:52:07 PM

Quote from: DoomDumas on November 09, 2013, 09:43:20 AM

Quote from: ralree on November 08, 2013, 02:05:31 PM

The use of electrical power to secure the network, and an increase in doing so fueled by the greed of miners (I'm one of them). The calculations completed have no intrinsic value - they're just a means to the end of securing the network. As time goes on, if bitcoin continues to succeed, power consumption will continue increasing.

IMO, Bitcoin use far less, order of magnitude less power than banks paiement system / network / servers

I bet diiff can go to several billions and Bitcoin will still uses a lot less power than the actual fiat/credit system/network

Well, it will be at several billion some time next year, and it will continue growing after that with no sign of stopping if the price keeps up. We'll just have to see what happens - many things are possible. It is a consideration and a downside (that the electricity is just wasted), but not a major one.

And the end result is development entirely focused on improving energy efficiency of the hardware and cost effective operation will only possible with renewable energy. The Bitcoin network might end up using more power than the financial infrastructure one far flung day in the future but it will only burn a small fraction of the coal.

Given that ASIC development will lead to the point where electricity consumption is essentially the only cost of mining and if Bitcoin gets to the point where it's a (or the) major global currency, then mining will have to use a significant
fraction (up to half) of the world's energy output. Using any less will open it up to a 51% attack.