schmidtbag:

The only solar fields I'm aware of that kill anything are these: https://www.power-eng.com/content/dam/pe/print-articles/2015/09/Photo1-ivanpah-mingasson-5604-8.jpg Which are not that common. Photovoltaic plants kill birds too but to a much lesser degree. Besides, I would rather a few dead birds than actively contribute toward climate change.

Thing is you cannot build these everywhere and you cannot properly recycle the old solar panels either. Nuclear waste is a smaller problem then what we are doing constructing solar panels and then having them die. At current times most green energy most likely regarding everything is nuclear and possibly dams but dams ruin ecosystems easily also and we cannot just shut all the rivers down. And of course the space needed for solar panels and wind turbines is kind of bad. And the way they make energy isn't convenient either as both can drop quite a bit or even off.

Ryu5uzaku:

Thing is you cannot build these everywhere and you cannot properly recycle the old solar panels either. Nuclear waste is a smaller problem then what we are doing constructing solar panels and then having them die. At current times most green energy most likely regarding everything is nuclear and possibly dams but dams ruin ecosystems easily also and we cannot just shut all the rivers down. And of course the space needed for solar panels and wind turbines is kind of bad. And the way they make energy isn't convenient either as both can drop quite a bit or even off.

I've seen documentary on solar panel recycle. It is worse than nuclear waste. And considering lifespan of solar cells... If someone here wants to have pretty big business, go check on how to recycle solar.

Ryu5uzaku:

China gotta go nuclear and fast.

Well, if the former president wouldn't have made certain restrictions Bill Gates palsn would have gone trough and they would at least be in the progress of building one in China. And those new plants can run un the waste from the old ones!

Ryu5uzaku:

Thing is you cannot build these everywhere and you cannot properly recycle the old solar panels either. Nuclear waste is a smaller problem then what we are doing constructing solar panels and then having them die. At current times most green energy most likely regarding everything is nuclear and possibly dams but dams ruin ecosystems easily also and we cannot just shut all the rivers down. And of course the space needed for solar panels and wind turbines is kind of bad. And the way they make energy isn't convenient either as both can drop quite a bit or even off.

Solar panels can be recycled. But, in either case, solar technology is evolving quickly. Their energy output is increasing, their lifespans are increasing, and they're becoming less hazardous to produce. Solar 10 years ago was not a viable long-term solution, since the total produced energy wouldn't really make up for the pollution it took to create them, but that's not so much the case anymore, and it's only getting better. Personally, I still wouldn't invest in solar electricity - it's not quite good enough. But I wouldn't be surprised if 10 years from now, it becomes a sensible option for homes. Nuclear waste can be a smaller problem when dealt with correctly, but the problem is, it's not always dealt with correctly. And yes, dams are likely the most actively destructive source of power, not just for ecosystems, but also for people who live downstream. In some parts of the world, yeah, solar and wind take up too much space. So, much of Europe is better off going nuclear or geothermal (where possible). But, it's not much of a surprise that places like Texas are one of the leaders in renewable energy, when they have so much empty land, much of which is pretty harsh anyway. EDIT: I'm greatly anticipating the release of solar thermal fuel. Less so as a source of electricity, but more as a source of heat. Colder climates would have such an immensely reduced cost of living with solar thermal fuel, and, would contribute much less to pollution via oil, gas, and wood burning.

just ban this fucking cryptoshit that is used to evade taxes and end of show.

it seems obvious anyone parroting this bs about crypto = bad for environment doesnt care much about details or truth anyway, if you're confused/concerned and want some answers, here's some 1- common sense; crypto rewards efficiency, no one is burning coal to mine(usually), that would be unprofitable, most miners literally build their "farms" next to renewable sources like hydro, and mostly buy their unused capacity which is even cheaper, which would be wasted energy otherwise, and so mining ends up helping further hydro expansion, but it can happen(like now) that crypto prices soar and that'll temporarily get everyone and their dog into mining as long as there's half a dime in profits, be it on nuclear or steam power, but thats not what happens most of the time when btc is "crashed" and out of the news 2- "but it uses more energy than argentina!" yes, so do all xboxes worldwide, or all ceiling fans worldwide, so what? 3- "its ultimately a waste of energy!" I agree, but who am I or anyone to tell what is and isnt a waste of anything? nobody has the moral authority to tell you that what you do is a waste, going by that logic we will end up shouting at the sun for throwing all that fusion power to the void but if you simply look at china's total energy graphs, see that its like 70% burning crap, and that 80% of mining happens on china, the easy conclusion is what you see in such "studies", cheap/lazy/hysteric stuff is a hell of a juicy combo for the vicious cycle of ignorance that most of the population lives on

EspHack:

it seems obvious anyone parroting this bs about crypto = bad for environment doesnt care much about details or truth anyway, if you're confused/concerned and want some answers, here's some 1- common sense; crypto rewards efficiency, no one is burning coal to mine(usually), that would be unprofitable, most miners literally build their "farms" next to renewable sources like hydro, and mostly buy their unused capacity which is even cheaper, which would be wasted energy otherwise, and so mining ends up helping further hydro expansion, but it can happen(like now) that crypto prices soar and that'll temporarily get everyone and their dog into mining as long as there's half a dime in profits, be it on nuclear or steam power, but thats not what happens most of the time when btc is "crashed" and out of the news 2- "but it uses more energy than argentina!" yes, so do all xboxes worldwide, or all ceiling fans worldwide, so what? 3- "its ultimately a waste of energy!" I agree, but who am I or anyone to tell what is and isnt a waste of anything? nobody has the moral authority to tell you that what you do is a waste, going by that logic we will end up shouting at the sun for throwing all that fusion power to the void but if you simply look at china's total energy graphs, see that its like 70% burning crap, and that 80% of mining happens on china, the easy conclusion is what you see in such "studies", cheap/lazy/hysteric stuff is a hell of a juicy combo for the vicious cycle of ignorance that most of the population lives on

Only ignorance is ignoring fact that crypto needs just one weak system to confirm all transactions. To fulfill purpose of security, it needs 3 and their computational power means little as weak ones can always easily confirm or refuse result from strong one. Literal ignorance is not admitting that 99.9999% of all mining is complete waste of energy which does nothing for anybody as those results are discarded. Literal ignorance is when someone does not recognize that spinning fan has actual purpose and moves air in every single instance. Literal ignorance is when someone compares throwing away FLOPing power of mining hardware to FLOPing power used for entertainment. Because every single gaming console which does FLOPing is delivering entertainment directly to people. While most of FLOPing usage for mining is discarded. If people like to burn energy and create actual results, people should FLOP F@H that's not waste. So: "Go and imagine all that discarded FLOPing turned into research."

Kaarme:

I guess all Finns could move south to an environment more suitable for human life. Would your country be welcoming?

U are all welcome to come to Argentina. Seriously, it's in our constitution.

Kaarme:

What is weird? I have consistently complained about countries doing nothing about the crypto currency for a long time. China is in a unique position of being a totalitarian country and thus if the CCP made crypto illegal, absolutely zero people in China could challenge the decision. They could do it in a day. The people and business could only obey or risk facing the law enforcement. Or move abroad. In the West, I imagine, there would be a lot of slow debate, political battles, legal expert consultation, constitution evaluation, you name it, before the laws could be passed, many months if not a year later. And even then people would be busy finding loopholes allowing them to continue. The officials could do absolutely nothing if the loophole was real.

The weird thing of course, is that you see China as a totalitarian country, which is something bad, while at the same time complaining that its not totalitarian in areas you deem it should be.

Kaarme:

The whole emission thing is so messy that I could spend a week trying to understand it and still wouldn't, but it's easy enough to notice the treaty has various categories for countries, one being developed/industrial ones, and the other being developing ones. The developed countries are supposed to aid the developing ones financially to cut emissions. I'll give you a single chance to guess where China belongs. It's not like there's any industry in China, right? All of our houses are full of made in China products, yet China isn't industrialised. It's the second largest economy in the world, although one day soonish it could be the largest, but it's still a developing country. Lol. Back in the day the news were writing about obsolete/fake coal plants in China with massive emissions. China shut them down and was able to use the freed emission credits for real things or sell them. I admit I have no idea if that was real or fake news.

Again repeating yourself and forcing me to repeat myself: China does not use its developed nation status to avoid emission obligations. Because there is no such thing as countries development status under current International emissions (Paris) Agreement. Emission targets are set by each country for itself. You are confusing CO2 emissions with the US/Tump's WTO accusations of China. Off-topic, but you started it so here it goes: IMHO its silly to think that the emerging Chinese diplomatic power, which is always under international scrutiny and looked at with suspicion, is somehow crafty enough to outmaneuver the long established, world-ruling western circles of power and diplomacy. You are falling victim to the most basic us vs them trap.

Kaarme:

A third of Finland is above the arctic circle. The rest obviously just below. The winter if long and cold, and will kill you without a solid, heated house. If you removed that factor, Finland's graph would be below China's. I've seen it estimated 30% of Finland's emissions are due to warming up the houses. I guess all Finns could move south to an environment more suitable for human life. Would your country be welcoming?

I am sure you have reasons for spewing CO2, so does China and everyone else. But its not that you are just outputting more CO2 per capita than China - you have been doing that consistently for many years. You had more time, more resources, better infrastructure and economic basis to cut down CO2 emissions, but you didn't. (Yet, hopefully. thx @Ryu5uzaku ) Yet you complain about relatively smaller Chinese output.

Fox2232:

Only ignorance is ignoring fact that crypto needs just one weak system to confirm all transactions. To fulfill purpose of security, it needs 3 and their computational power means little as weak ones can always easily confirm or refuse result from strong one. Literal ignorance is not admitting that 99.9999% of all mining is complete waste of energy which does nothing for anybody as those results are discarded. Literal ignorance is when someone does not recognize that spinning fan has actual purpose and moves air in every single instance. Literal ignorance is when someone compares throwing away FLOPing power of mining hardware to FLOPing power used for entertainment. Because every single gaming console which does FLOPing is delivering entertainment directly to people. While most of FLOPing usage for mining is discarded. If people like to burn energy and create actual results, people should FLOP F@H that's not waste. So: "Go and imagine all that discarded FLOPing turned into research."

So, do u have the numbers on the power used by all the other activities that "waste" energy under your own definition? For example: - The millions of stock trading bots that issue hundreds of transactions per second, most of which end up being rejected/time-out. (or are reverted 2 secs later when the stock price change by a cent) - The millions of hours consoles run with a turned off screen cuz u know, saving and reloading is a pain in the ass. (since u are already talking about consoles xD) - The millions of unnecessarily big cars... etc etc etc I could continue all weekend..... I'm not defending crypto mining, just trying to not fall into the hypocrisy hole. And to be fair, in the next 5 years most of the crypto currencies will be on a "proof of stake" model which consumes negligible power.

Noisiv:

The weird thing of course, is that you see China as a totalitarian country, which is something bad, while at the same time complaining that its not totalitarian in areas you deem it should be. Again repeating yourself and forcing me to repeat myself: China does not use its developed nation status to avoid emission obligations. Because there is no such thing as countries development status under current International emissions (Paris) Agreement. Emission targets are set by each country for itself. You are confusing CO2 emissions with the US/Tump's WTO accusations of China. Off-topic, but you started it so here it goes: IMHO its silly to think that the emerging Chinese diplomatic power, which is always under international scrutiny and looked at with suspicion, is somehow crafty enough to outmaneuver the long established, world-ruling western circles of power and diplomacy. You are falling victim to the most basic us vs them trap. I am sure you have reasons for spewing CO2, so does China and everyone else. But its not that you are just outputting more CO2 per capita than China - you have been doing that consistently for many years. You had more time, more resources, better infrastructure and economic basis to cut down CO2 emissions, but you didn't. (Yet, hopefully. thx @Ryu5uzaku ) Yet you complain about relatively smaller Chinese output.

Relatively smaller. Nobody has to do anything to save the climate if we are only talking about relative stuff. Like I said before, the whole Finnish output is no more than that of a random city in China, one among many. Only the absolute amount of CO2 (and the worse gases and particles) matter for the atmosphere. And didn't do anything? Look at your own graph, for Buddha's sake. The Finnish one has been dropping majorly for years. You might also see in the graph the simple truth that Finland hasn't had anything like more time, resources, better infrastructure, or economics. Finland was a destitute agrarian country all the way up to the WW2 times. After that, desperate industrialisation and modernisation was launched to pay war reparations to the invader, the USSR. That's basically where the Finnish success story, as it was, began. You can even see it in your graph. There was zero luxury in all of that to do what you suggested, before the recent decades, when it actually happened. The Chinese are crafty and successful businessmen. It's an ancient culture. I wouldn't underestimate them if I were you. I'm not confusing anything with anything Trump related. I don't know why you'd draw Trump here, but I'll leave you in peace with him. If Chinese miners are the biggest single problem behind the current crypto mining craze, of course I'd complain about China not doing anything about it, even though its form of government would allow them to do it swiftly.

Kaarme:

Relatively smaller. Nobody has to do anything to save the climate if we are only talking about relative stuff. Like I said before, the whole Finnish output is no more than that of a random city in China, one among many. Only the absolute amount of CO2 (and the worse gases and particles) matter for the atmosphere.

Yes, agreed. Only absolute matters. You are absolutely spewing more than the average Chinese. What are you saying? That per capita is a bad metrics? That ppl living in smaller states should be able to spew more? Of course that if you gather more people, they will spew more - I can't even begin to understand your argument.

Kaarme:

And didn't do anything? Look at your own graph, for Buddha's sake. The Finnish one has been dropping majorly for years. You might also see in the graph the simple truth that Finland hasn't had anything like more time, resources, better infrastructure, or economics. Finland was a destitute agrarian country all the way up to the WW2 times. After that, desperate industrialisation and modernisation was launched to pay war reparations to the invader, the USSR. That's basically where the Finnish success story, as it was, began. You can even see it in your graph. There was zero luxury in all of that to do what you suggested, before the recent decades, when it actually happened.

I should look at the graph - you look at the graph. China reached your 1940 output 50 years later. Their CO2 output is nonexistent pre 1950. You think you had it bad? You don't need to know anything about Chinese history. Just look at the graph and you'll figure it out. I don't even go into how you're conveniently disregarding past emissions, and how much you were spewing before Chinese started to do so. But hey - bad Chinese!

Kaarme:

The Chinese are crafty and successful businessmen. It's an ancient culture. I wouldn't underestimate them if I were you. I'm not confusing anything with anything Trump related. I don't know why you'd draw Trump here, but I'll leave you in peace with him.

Because you are confusing Trump's WTO accusation with supposed Chinese emission targets avoidance. [spoiler] https://abload.de/img/file-20191004-52804-alikk7.jpg [/spoiler] You are repeatedly alleging that Chinese are cheating emissions by using their developing country status. A completely bogus accusation because: Paris agreement makes no distinction between developed and developing countries. They can't use their developing nation status because Paris Agreement does not even work like that. Everyone simply set its own targets. If China was cheating by using its developing country status then how does your accusation make one iota of sense? In such imaginary Universe shouldn't they be able to spew more CO2 than say Finland or USA? Yet according to you they are cheating by spewing LESS than developed countries! LIKE WTF... IM OUT

gx-x:

well, this might be of interest: https://futurism.com/china-floating-nuclear-power-plant sooo...yea.

It's very small mobile powerplan, as an exemple Russia have the most powerfull floating powerplan and it's not abble to make enough power for a medium size city. What they need to be at the same time more ecologic (because yes nuclear are more "clean" than fossil combustible or coal powerplan) and more viable is to do real "on ground" nuclear powerplan...

schmidtbag:

The only solar fields I'm aware of that kill anything are these: https://www.power-eng.com/content/dam/pe/print-articles/2015/09/Photo1-ivanpah-mingasson-5604-8.jpg Which are not that common. Photovoltaic plants kill birds too but to a much lesser degree. Besides, I would rather a few dead birds than actively contribute toward climate change.

Dubaï have a manificent one with a nice research campus about electricity... For those that are bored of supersport car, party and luxury shopping, it's a wonderfull thing to visit.

@Noisiv You mean, Trump that called "nice clean American coal" is good, is calling someone a cheater?! LIKE WTF... IM OUT

lol yes. Also China is "diabolic" only in front of the media... Due to the fact that, exept USA, China own the most quantity of $ in the world. sadly for us or hopefully for them we gave them technology to build, now they push and developed this technology. It's not the Black listing of those company that will make them a stepback... They have the money (real and crypto), the technology and the factory. A good exemple of how they proceed... Hisence.

all kneel to your new overlords atlest till the Earth say enough.

Earth is not racist, neither are extinction level events. China doesn't sit on supervolcano, US does. Talking about "earth having enough"... 😉

TieSKey:

So, do u have the numbers on the power used by all the other activities that "waste" energy under your own definition? For example: - The millions of stock trading bots that issue hundreds of transactions per second, most of which end up being rejected/time-out. (or are reverted 2 secs later when the stock price change by a cent) - The millions of hours consoles run with a turned off screen cuz u know, saving and reloading is a pain in the ass. (since u are already talking about consoles xD) - The millions of unnecessarily big cars... etc etc etc I could continue all weekend..... I'm not defending crypto mining, just trying to not fall into the hypocrisy hole. And to be fair, in the next 5 years most of the crypto currencies will be on a "proof of stake" model which consumes negligible power.

Your logic is flawed. In your mind, one kind of waste is justified by another kind of waste. Analogy to that is: "murder justifies murder". It is simply wrong way of thinking. And it is much worse hole than just plainly defending crypto driven by greed.

Agonist:

Go figure. China being the selfish pricks they are causing world problems.

It's a two way streak. Everyone else will be unwilling to pay the price for more expensive products produced within their own home territories and that's assuming that we could get round the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) problem in the first place. China is simply taking advantage of the greed of the rest of the planet. It's a round robin of failure. We want the cheap stuff while happily complaining about how it is produced and the potential cost but are unwilling to do anything to change things and China is happy to do whatever it can to capitalise on this and has no incentive to change things because simply no one is willing to force, demand, or actively work constructively with them to change things.

Someone should run the numbers on the carbon footprint of legacy banks world wide, include IMF and federal reserves. Pretty Shure HSBC, JPMorgan, Chase, Barlays, Commonwealth, ANZ etc use more electric than bitcoin miners. Article sounds like fud.