<story><title>Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021</title><url>https://twitter.com/digieconomist/status/1477420461122375683</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sktrdie</author><text>With a climate crisis the last thing we needed was to make the most effective energy consumption system ever constructed. The whole thing literally works on competing on consuming more energy. No other system works so efficiently towards such goal.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s scary is that the whole thing was designed to be unstoppable.&lt;p&gt;My utopian hope for the future is that we start sending rigs in orbit close to the sun. Since we only need to send a few bytes back to earth this becomes the only competitive way of doing mining. Space travel thus becomes dirt cheap. Humans are finally able to explore the solar system.&lt;p&gt;But that&amp;#x27;s just a dream. Realistically, we are screwed.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>arcticbull</author><text>The worst part is that according to Cambridge some 40% of that is coal power [1]. Frequently the dirtiest coal power in the world, between Xinjiang (no longer, probably...) and Kazakhstan. Coal power causes excess mortality of anywhere between 25 and 278 deaths per TWh generated depending on how you&amp;#x27;re counting it and (most importantly) where it&amp;#x27;s generated. [2,3,4]&lt;p&gt;Bitcoin&amp;#x27;s addiction to dirty coal killed between 1500 and 15000 people last year.&lt;p&gt;To process 4 transactions per second.&lt;p&gt;In a few years Bitcoin mining will kill way more people than the number of political dissidents it could hope to save through the magic of decentralization.&lt;p&gt;[edit] Energy is not &lt;i&gt;free&lt;/i&gt; people. Not even renewables. Making electronics isn&amp;#x27;t free. E-waste isn&amp;#x27;t free. This isn&amp;#x27;t WoW.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ccaf.io&amp;#x2F;cbeci&amp;#x2F;index&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ccaf.io&amp;#x2F;cbeci&amp;#x2F;index&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.statista.com&amp;#x2F;statistics&amp;#x2F;494425&amp;#x2F;death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.statista.com&amp;#x2F;statistics&amp;#x2F;494425&amp;#x2F;death-rate-worldw...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nextbigfuture.com&amp;#x2F;2011&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nextbigfuture.com&amp;#x2F;2011&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;deaths-per-twh-by-ener...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[4] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ourworldindata.org&amp;#x2F;safest-sources-of-energy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ourworldindata.org&amp;#x2F;safest-sources-of-energy&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021</title><url>https://twitter.com/digieconomist/status/1477420461122375683</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sktrdie</author><text>With a climate crisis the last thing we needed was to make the most effective energy consumption system ever constructed. The whole thing literally works on competing on consuming more energy. No other system works so efficiently towards such goal.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s scary is that the whole thing was designed to be unstoppable.&lt;p&gt;My utopian hope for the future is that we start sending rigs in orbit close to the sun. Since we only need to send a few bytes back to earth this becomes the only competitive way of doing mining. Space travel thus becomes dirt cheap. Humans are finally able to explore the solar system.&lt;p&gt;But that&amp;#x27;s just a dream. Realistically, we are screwed.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>throw0101a</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;The whole thing literally works on competing on consuming more energy.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;An observation from 2018:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;imagine if keeping your car idling 24&amp;#x2F;7 produced solved Sudokus you could trade for heroin&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;* &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;Theophite&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1030225104234373121&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;Theophite&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1030225104234373121&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>