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Does someone feel like giving me an ELI5 why Bitcoin mining eats up so much electricity these days? Is it just because the problems the machines need to solve have gotten more complex? Do other cryptos tax the resources as bad? Is there a viable crypto that would be considered “green” at this point?
Sorry for overboarding my questions if anyone even attempts to answer this lol
It is the cost of securing the network. It is intentional as if it was low power and easy to mine, 1 person or organization could take over the network and thus it would loose its decentralization. Nothing wrong with using power as long as it is green. No one is complaining about how much energy social media uses, or electric cars, or the fiat banking systems or all the lights left on etc etc. Power usage is not the issue here, it is power generation. You best believe that big money is spinning Bitcoin as negative as possible as it is a threat to their establishment. Don’t be a sucker for the BS.
It still a problem if it’s using green power as it’s preventing that green power from replacing fossil fuels in more useful and essential parts of the economy. Therefore essentially increasing demand for fossil fuels. Additionally by increasing the nations total energy use it’s making the task of decarbonising energy just that little bit harder.
The problem with green energy is that it produces on its own schedule, divorced of when people actually want electricity. Bitcoin miners are "buyers of last resort". They have to compete with every other miner on the planet, they don't buy electric at peak usage hours (which is when you fire up the non-renewables to meet demand). If anybody else was there to buy that electricity, Bitcoin miners don't. They can only afford the cheapest electricity and electricity which has nowhere else to go.
Bitcoin mining is part of the green revolution. By always having a buyer of last resort, it makes it easier to invest in renewable infrastructure knowing that somebody will always buy the power even if demand isn't ordinarily there to meet supply. It allows you to build your grid out to be almost entirely renewables. It's a form of energy storage. And it means when regular people buy power, it's cheaper, because they don't have to make up for that time period when electricity was being produced but there was nobody to buy it. Regular people don't have to subsidize the cost of a solar panel farm that is only useful for a few hours a day when demand is at the peak and otherwise produces energy there is no use for.