Mit-ra is aiming high at solving the water crisis that is looming over the planet and has already become a reality in certain regions. But if we imagined that provides a miraculous solution for environmental issues, we’d be lying to ourselves. Unfortunately, everything in this world has a dark side, and is no exception.
According to , emissions from alone could push global warming over 2°C threshold accepted by most international climate-related agreements. already requires more electricity than even some European countries. And given that back in 2017 ’s share among all cashless transactions was only around 0.03%, one alone can undermine all the work that is done to slow down global warming by daily efforts of people, worldwide and technology.
So let’s have a look at the severity of the situation.
Cripples Efforts to Deal With Global Warming
According to American scientists, contributes greatly to global warming. The research was focused on the amount of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere from the production of electricity consumed by computers during , as well as on the amount of heat that equipment allocates to create bitcoins. If the predictions are correct, by 2033 will lead to an increase in the average temperature on the planet by over 2°C. Experts say that in order for the development of the virtual money market not to damage the Earth’s climate irreversibly, it is necessary to switch to a less energy-consuming algorithm for confirming transactions, which would allow stopping using powerful computers.
The complexity of computing the extraction of digital currency in networks is growing steadily, so miners are using more and more powerful equipment. However, the more powerful the machine, the more electricity it consumes, thus increasing the amount of carbon dioxide emissions released into the atmosphere. This may result in an increase in average planet temperature by 2°C by the year 2033 due to crypto-related activities alone.
Energy output race
requires a lot of electricity for its .
When the network development was only beginning, a miner could get a few dozen bitcoins per day using a simple PC. However, these days even the farms manage to produce only a few coins per day. The return for the same amount of calculations is decreasing, and in turn, miners are forced to develop larger farms that consume more energy and generate more heat.
American scientists estimated carbon dioxide emissions from the production of electricity consumed by equipment. They took into account the energy consumption by computers, as well as the number of farms and individual miners around the world. It turned out that in 2017, operations with bitcoins led to the release of 69 million tons of carbon dioxide into the Earth’s atmosphere.
“It is obvious that the further development of the market requires the introduction of the technologies that would consume less electricity to prevent warming on the planet by another 2°C,” said Camilo Mora, leader of the research team.
Possible solutions
Some experts claim that to stop the race of computing power the method of every miner confirming every deal at once must be abandoned. This could be done by switching to other, less energy-consuming algorithms for confirming operations.
The Proof-of-Work algorithm for confirming the operations, which is used now, requires not the more powerful machines, but the constant increase in their number and, as a result, in energy consumption. However, there are other options. Many projects have already begun to switch to new algorithms so that their computers spend less power and generate less heat.
Among such projects is the second most popular that us now adopting the Proof of Stake share confirmation algorithm. This algorithm gives the right to register a transaction only to the users who hold a certain number of coins in the .
Among obvious solutions for farms, energy issue was the use of renewable energy sources. In 2011 Australian businessman Nick Gogerty launched the SolarCoin. One coin could be received as a reward for one megawatt-hour of generated solar energy. Modern trends for eco-friendliness pushed the launches of similar projects in the following years.
Unfortunately, the additional motivation for switching to alternative energy sources was not very popular.
Another idea for solving this crisis was to use for “peaceful purposes”. The heat emitted by computers was to be used in heating systems or boilers for heating water. In 2018, the Czech entrepreneur and founder of the NakamotoX exchange, Kamil Breicha, discovered the way for using computing equipment in agriculture. The businessman raised tomatoes in greenhouses, which were heated by farms located in the basement.
is often regarded as the post-industrial field. But only time can tell if it can truly become what people perceive it to be or is it just another old-school industry that preys on resources without considering the consequences.
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Published at Tue, 30 Apr 2019 14:05:56 +0000
