Well, probably they won't, but just in case, I just read this research article:

The BitCoin computer farms are working overtime to keep it secure. This requires grunt work of adding to the block chain use - and uses up a lot of real-world energy.

The grunt work of adding to the block chain has computers that run guessing games involving an astronomically large number of guesses each second.

To be more precise, the network is currently estimated as being able to handle 176,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that's 176 quintillion) computations every single second.

All those numbers are energy intensive, so the power consumption of the Bitcoin network is huge.

According to the University of Cambridge's Center for Alternative Finance, the estimated annualized consumption of electricity by the Bitcoin network is 149.6 terawatt hours and growing.

That's more energy than countries like Sweden, Pakistan and Malaysia, and about 61 per cent of Australia's total energy consumption.

Technology gone mad? Maybe.... But food for thought about the downside of some technology developments.

Talking of bitcoin this story will bring tears to your eyes,

One man and his lost Bitcoin fortune.

Not to mention that this craze has also drove the video card market to insanely high prices. Between COVID and Bitcoiners, high end video cards are nearly impossible to find.

That's $17.5 billion spent on electricity annually, at least for the cost per kwh here in BC ($0.1178 per kwh) - we seem to have cheaper electricity than many places in the world, so I can only imagine the actual cost.

I also hope we never accept Bitcoin either, or any other virtual currency.

There are many of us who prefer a more tactile relationship with money...lol




Billy

Just thought that some of you may be to young to remember Scrooge McDuck. so google it....lol

Assuming that was directed at me, being probably the youngest in the thread here, I grew up on DuckTales! Great show!

Perhaps we shouldn't complain if we are using Air Conditioning. It's a little like the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.

Today, cooling of buildings accounts for about 20% of the total electricity use worldwide (IEA, 2018). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264999319308168

That is a major cause of global warming. And this energy usages doesn't account for the heat the AC units blast out of their units warming the Earth even more.

So, by cooling our homes, we heat the environment, which causes us to cool our homes more, which heats the environment more, which causes us to cool our homes even more --- obviously a feedback loop.

I grew up in South Florida without AC and still live without it. I turn the unit on once a year for a few hours to keep it from freezing up, and that's it. A repairman told me running it lubricates the parts and that I need to run it once a year.

I do what we did before home AC to cool my home.

• Painted the roof bright white. This not only keeps the house cooler but a multi-university study concluded that if we all painted our roofs white, and had no other change in our energy usage, we would buy 100 years before the point of no return (greenhouse effect) in the atmosphere
• Planted shade trees around my house. Not over my house but all around it to get a convection current going to send a breeze through my house
• Installed drop down awnings to shade the windows when the sun is directly overhead

When it's in the upper 90s (Fahrenheit) outdoors, my home is in the comfortable low 80s without air conditioning.

99% of all the humans that ever lived on Earth, did so without AC. We don't need it. It's a major factor in climate change. We need to wean ourselves from the habit.

IMO if we use our AC, we cannot criticize anyone else who wastes energy.

Insights, incites and a minor rant by Notes

I have read that we in the USA waste over 1 trillion dollars in energy costs via always on equipment; that is anything with a remote control and/or motion detector. Things like TVs, air conditioners, fans, electric heaters, etc, with remote controls are always on as are motion detector things like urinals, toilets, electric hand dryers, some lights, etc. Each one uses only a little electricity put when all is added it adds up to a lot, not to mention all of the batteries that are used in the remotes controllers. So we really need these conveniences?

The quickest way to start a riot in south Florida is to turn off the electricity.
I am well prepared to deal with a hurricane and no electricity for at least a month. Two generators to power everything I need including AC. Ham radio and satellite phone.

It was not always like that.

As a kid I lived in a house with no electricity, no running water, ( actually we did not even have a well). There was a spring about a half mile down the hill from the house. Fascinating place for me as a kid. There were tiny little fish swimming in the spring. Twenty three miles to the nearest paved road and five miles to the nearest road of any kind.

The most modern thing we had was a wood cook stove. We cooked in the fireplace before we got the stove.

Later in life I lived on my 42 foot sailboat. I had everything I needed and wanted. I had AC, Radios, refrigeration, Radar, navigation equipment, and a reverse osmosis water maker. Yes, the deck was painted white but that won't buy you much in the tropics.

You could wind the clock back a couple of hundred years or so but most of you would die.

There is only one real problem, there are too many people on this planet.

Billy

Some line from a Big Joe Turner song comes to mind Simon. "I can tell by looking you ain't no child no more.

I did not actually have you in mind and anyway I know you will go lookup anything you don't know...lol It is pretty hard to sneak anything by you....lol

Billy

The world lived without cars too. What's your point? If you go back far enough the world also lived without any sort of verbal communication.

I do have a question though. You use your computer to create styles to sell and make money for you. What is the difference between THAT electric consumption and the air conditioner?

I don't know how in 2021 people can still be Luddites. I actually know one of those nuts who has a year of canned goods stored as he waits for the end of the world. I once asked him what happens on the 366th day. He had no answer.

Think about that. This is a guy who is prepped for the end of civilization, so he can continue on being the only living human on the planet.

And then complained about being in quarantine for a year.

WE may only have a couple months food stock. But my wife has a stock of cosmetics that will see her through the next ice age...lol

Billy

And here I am at the other end of the spectrum and I go to the store almost every day.

No cosmetics though....

Duck Tails original theme song has a hell of a good back beat!!

https://youtu.be/H9cmPE88a_0

And Scrooge McDuck don't take no stinking bit coins!!

Billy

But without electricity, I can't run Band In A Box!

What am I gonna do!

Oh, the humanity!!!!

And some great horns too!




Introducing the new Band-in-a-Box Backwoods Edition - comes complete with a solar panel, a shack in the middle of nowhere, and satellite internet so you can still take part in the forums.

The original is good but I like this cover even more......

The thing is my laptop computer sips electricity, Air Conditioners gobble electricity. 20% of the Earth's energy consumption attributed to Air Conditioning is a lot.

If we weren't having a climate crisis, it wouldn't be a problem, but we are. Of course, that's not our problem because the next generation will pay the price.

And I never said turn off your AC, what I said in so many words is, "Don't complain about someone else's abuse of energy if you are doing the same thing."

I choose not to use AC, I'm acclimatized to that and comfortable without it. I planted dozens of trees and painted my roof bright white. If I could afford it on musician's wages, I'd go solar/wind and get off the grid.

It's a "do unto others thing". I didn't like the way my parents' generation left the planet, so I do my part not to do that for the next generations. Of course my little effort doesn't help much, but to get it done we must think globally but act locally.

It's not about saving the planet, it's about saving the future of the human race.

If you are going to use your AC, drive a big truck that hauls nothing more than a week's groceries, or do anything else that uses a lot of energy, you can complain about someone else's abuse of energy, but I don't think you should.

Notes