Quote from: ernie- on July 01, 2014, 06:31:49 AM

Quote from: Collider on July 01, 2014, 06:26:23 AM

Mining uses a miniscule amount of energy compared to all the wasteful use of electricity in the United States alone.

How come the electricity consumption per capita is more than 2.5* that of Germany?

If everyone of the 318m US citizens would reduce power consumption by only 10% (easily achieved by switching lightbulbs...), it would save 25 700 MW of generation capacity alone.

You can do all the bitcoin mining of your hearts´content with that, and then some.

And how long do you think it will be before the bitcoin mining network is up to many gigawatts of power consumption, with nethash growing by 60% each month?

If only MegaBigPower keeps up with their 50PH/s per mth. expansion plans, that will require a new nuclear power station every 18months.

http://www.coindesk.com/megabigpower-launches-global-franchisee-network-add-50phs-per-month-bitcoin-network/

This picture is mind blowing. Wow, bitcoin mining has come a long way. It's almost ridiculous at this point. How much further are we going to see this go?