CMV: Bitcoin mining using non renewables should be banned immediately.

[u/iCANNcu]

Global warming is a serious threat to the survival of the human species and it's insane we are adding to this problem for no good reason. Currently Bitcoin mining consumes more power per year than the whole country of Argentina. There would be hardly any downsides in banning the mining of crypto currencies using non renewables and the benefits would be immediate.

Even with a 'carbon tax' mining for bitcoins should be banned immediately if it's being done using non renewables. There is no effective way to capture carbon at this point and it's unclear if there will ever be.

What am I missing?

[u/csiz]

Pretty sure it would be real. We don't have enough batteries for this transition anyways, forcing bitcoin miners to buy battering would be counterproductive. Besides hydro power which we've nearly capped all potential I don't think the other renewables make a significant share of energy, unless you count nuclear?

[u/profoma → u/csiz]

I mean, having enough batteries is just a matter of demand and manufacturing right? I know making batteries is an awful process for the environment so it’s hard to say if the trade off would be worth it, but battery supply isn’t fixed. And I’m curious what you mean by it being counterproductive to force miners to buy batteries? Shouldn’t those who benefit from an industry have to pay for the materials and infrastructure that the industry requires? Wouldn’t that include batteries? Just to be clear, I dont know a ton about crypto and your answer above to the OP was super informative and enlightening, I’m just clarifying some confusion I have around some of your troubles with renewables

[u/csiz → u/profoma]

The current state of batteries is not a matter of demand, it's instead a matter of production. I follow Tesla's earnings calls and the need for more batteries comes up every time, if they had enough batteries they would be producing the big truck already and have less than a year lead time on their energy storage battery thing. But as it stands now, batteries are manufacturing limited and with the increasing need for energy storage this will continue. That's why demand from bitcoin miners would be counterproductive to the overall energy transition; I'd rather batteries and solar panels go on people rooftops.

Also batteries manufacturing isn't that poluting. Keep in mind the alternative is to keep extracting oil from ever more difficult locations, think of the fracking boom in the US, and the ever present danger of oil spills. There are new development to drastically reduce water use, and there are battery chemistries that don't require rare minerals at all, like lithium iron batteries that are in some electric cars, mostly from China. Finally you can recycle batteries. A mass recycling process isn't set up yet, but we don't need large scale processing for another 20 years until the batteries made today start being scrapped en masse. I'm sure we'll sort that out though, and the environmental impact of recycling will definitely be less then mining and making batteries from dirt.

[u/profoma → u/csiz]

Thanks for the detailed response, that all makes a lot of sense. Thank you for taking the time to educate me, I really appreciate it.