{"id":19293,"date":"2017-10-20T15:02:16","date_gmt":"2017-10-20T19:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=19293"},"modified":"2018-12-27T12:36:21","modified_gmt":"2018-12-27T17:36:21","slug":"the-ridiculous-amount-of-energy-it-takes-to-run-bitcoin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/20\/the-ridiculous-amount-of-energy-it-takes-to-run-bitcoin\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ridiculous Amount of Energy It Takes to Run Bitcoin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/energy\/policy\/the-ridiculous-amount-of-energy-it-takes-to-run-bitcoin\">Peter Fairley<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=15386528\">Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/energy\/policy\/the-ridiculous-amount-of-energy-it-takes-to-run-bitcoin\"><p>The ever-expanding racks of processors used by miners already consume as much electricity as a small city. It&rsquo;s a problem that experts say is bad and getting worse.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>The Bitcoin leech sucking on the world&rsquo;s power grids has been held in check, so far, by rapid gains in the energy efficiency of mining hardware. But energy and blockchain analysts are worried about the possibility of a perfect storm: Those efficiency gains are slowing while bitcoin value is rising fast&mdash;and its potential transaction growth is immense.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Developers of blockchains for such disparate applications as health care management and solar-power trading see Bitcoin&rsquo;s energy-intensive design as a nonstarter and are now crafting more sustainable blockchains.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"the-ridiculous-amount-of-energy-it-takes-to-run-bitcoin-update-2018-12-27\">Update (2018-12-27): <a href=\"https:\/\/theoutline.com\/post\/6047\/bitcoin-mining-accounts-for-almost-one-percent-of-the-worlds-energy-consumption?zd=1&amp;zi=ep2bh5fm\">Drew Millard<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/linklog\/cryptocurrency-mining-energy-consumption\/\">Nick Heer<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/theoutline.com\/post\/6047\/bitcoin-mining-accounts-for-almost-one-percent-of-the-worlds-energy-consumption?zd=1&amp;zi=ep2bh5fm\"><p>In his testimony, Narayanan estimates that Bitcoin mining now uses about five gigawatts of electricity per day (in May, <a href=\"https:\/\/theoutline.com\/post\/4561\/bitcoin-is-consuming-as-much-energy-as-the-country-of-ireland?zd=2&amp;zi=6vjmh5wm\">estimates of Bitcoin power consumption were about half of that<\/a>). He adds that when you&rsquo;ve got a computer racing with all its might to earn a free Bitcoin, it&rsquo;s going to be running hot as hell, which means you&rsquo;re probably using even more electricity to keep the computer cool so it doesn&rsquo;t die and\/or burn down your entire mining center, which probably makes the overall cost associated with mining even higher.<\/p><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Peter Fairley (via Hacker News): The ever-expanding racks of processors used by miners already consume as much electricity as a small city. It&rsquo;s a problem that experts say is bad and getting worse. [&#8230;] The Bitcoin leech sucking on the world&rsquo;s power grids has been held in check, so far, by rapid gains in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2018-12-27T17:34:56Z","apple_news_api_id":"294e664b-e30a-42a1-899e-626cddee5681","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2018-12-27T17:36:24Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AKU5mS-MKQqGJnmJs3e5WgQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[914,160,1358,280],"class_list":["post-19293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-bitcoin","tag-currency","tag-environment","tag-power"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19293"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23764,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19293\/revisions\/23764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}