• zartcosgrove@beehaw.org
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    1 年前

    i strongly urge skepticism when reading articles about the environmental impacts of bitcoin. I am not saying that bitcoin is a sensible use of resources - rather that the claims made about the environmental impacts are often overstated and based on models extrapolated to absurdity. For example, see https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0321-8 where Mora, Camilo et al suggested that “Bitcoin Emissions Alone Could Push Global Warming Above 2°C”. Then read Implausible projections overestimate near-term Bitcoin CO2 emissions by Masanet et al.

    Again - the environmental impacts of cloud computing in general and bitcoin in particular are something we should be concerned about. But there are a number of researchers who have made wild claims that should be treated with a critical eye.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 年前

      (Checking if outbound federation is back)

      Yeah, if they had said 10 gallons, I’d buy that, but a whole swimming pool of water would be worth far more than a transaction fee I’d expect.

    • jonne@infosec.pub
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      1 年前

      Yeah, generally miners will set up in places with cheap electricity. And excluding places like Azerbaijan, those sources are generally renewables.