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There has been a lot written about how energy use for Bitcoin is not as carbon-intensive as its detractors claim. This is accurate since it makes extensive use of renewable and carbon-free energy.
There has been a lot written about how Bitcoin's support of positive economic outcomes justifies its energy use. This is true because Bitcoin offers people all throughout the world an untouchable tool for holding value.
There has been a lot written about how Bitcoin uses a negligible amount of energy compared to overall energy consumption. This is also true, bitcoin uses less energy than electric clothes dryers.
On the other hand, not a lot has been published on how Bitcoin truly saves energy. In reality, utilizing energy is advantageous for people, and the more they do so, the better.
In the current milieu of environmental concerns, I am aware that this is a contentious position. I understand and agree that preserving a habitable planet is a vital objective. The same road, though, leads to both economic and environmental security: greater control over energy.
The ability to regulate energy is fundamental to how people invent and complete significant tasks. Geopolitics, war, and peace issues are also relevant. Even our capacity for environmental effect mitigation depends on the degree of control we have over energy.
The bottom line is that energy is the most important resource for human civilization, and we should constantly strive to improve as energy managers.
Regardless of whether you believe we should use more fossil fuels, massive solar and wind energy installations, nuclear power, or even think we should, you should be in favor of people utilizing more energy overall.
Why? The simple truth is that for us to get better at deploying, maintaining and improving your preferred method of energy production, we need to actually build more of that energy production!
Economic thinking
Human knowledge does not simply develop in academic voids. Industrial knowledge only develops as a result of actual construction and operation.
According to César Hidalgo, one of the most influential philosophers in the field of "economic complexity," such information can only be acquired by hands-on experience, not through formal education or reading. Not from theory, but from practice.
In other words, the thought of a nuclear power station being developed and operated solely by Ph.D.s who have never worked in a power plant is terrifying.
This rapidly makes one realize that developing useful information necessitates both the existence of those industries in the first place and the availability of possibilities for knowledge advancement through continuing operation.
In order to run industries, we need productive knowledge, and we can only manage industries if we have productive knowledge. It is a quiet dance of progressions.
Hidalgo discovered that nations inevitably shift from the items they currently create to other ones that depend on the same productive expertise.
Thus, we must first produce energy in order to improve our ability to do so. We have more opportunity to increase our useful knowledge the more energy we produce, and some could even argue that the more diverse energy we produce.
Regardless of what form you think humanity's future energy consumption should come in, it is critical to admit that we will only become efficient proprietors of that form of energy by building and operating more of it. This then means that more capital should be devoted to these endeavors. Bitcoin (BTC) mining makes this possible through organic market incentives.
Free markets
Some believe that government should be in charge of allocating funds for an energy transition. But if history has taught us anything, it is that free markets are a contemporary miracle and are superior to any centralized authority mankind has ever known at allocating capital. I'm not going to argue for or against the role that governments should play in this process, or how big of a part they should play.
Whatever your opinions on the role of government in our energy future, it is indisputable that the development of better, more affordable, and more efficient energy technology benefits greatly from actual market incentives.
Increased wealth and better understanding of energy production are the results of additional money that encourages increased energy production. This unavoidably includes our capacity to regulate the amount of carbon released during energy production.
Bitcoin is a clever tool for directing funding to the best energy producers. Anyone who can find less expensive electricity than their rivals can profit more from mining bitcoin.
When new bitcoin miners start operating, they actually make it more challenging for older, less productive miners to continue mining using outdated energy sources since they use less energy. The net effect is a positive feedback loop that chases ever-cheaper energy and renders inefficient energy sources unprofitable on the Bitcoin network.
Take a time to process this: Bitcoin mining will increase the cash flow going to the most productive energy plants and decrease it going to the least productive. This will hasten the development of effective energy production sources and perhaps hasten the elimination of ineffective ones as well.
Do you think that energy from renewable sources is now the most affordable and effective option for humanity? Then, hallelujah, bitcoin mining is the greatest advancement for renewable energy ever! Because it is inevitable that bitcoin miners would use nearly 100% renewable energy if renewables are in fact the least expensive and most efficient energy source (absent government subsidization of less efficient energies).
What if you think the powerful atom is the best possible source of energy? What if you stare up at the sun and reason that if nature generates all of its energy through nuclear reactions, it follows that these processes are the universe's most effective means of energy production. Another hallelujah! The best thing to ever happen to nuclear power will be bitcoin mining! Let's start splitting some atoms right away!
The position that bitcoin mining will ultimately benefit the most is the one that actually creates energy more effectively, regardless of which hypothesis proves to be true.
Building, using, operating, maintaining, and enhancing our knowledge, procedures, and resources for energy production are the only ways we can go forward with our energy future.
More jobs in the energy sector and more energy researchers and inventors will be supported by capital flows throughout the global economy as we utilize more energy.
Even with the recent financing of renewable energy sources, the amount of money invested in energy during the past century as a share of overall capital investments has plummeted. If we don't make investments in our energy future, how are we meant to create one?
Let's release the natural incentives so brilliantly given by the Bitcoin network rather than waiting for some government to realize this issue and centrally allocate capital.
Growth, not de-growth
Using more energy is not in opposition to environmental initiatives, and it is certainly not in opposition to the prosperity of civilization and the economy. Whatever future you choose, it will require better energy management, and Bitcoin contributes to its development.
Those who believe that mankind needs to produce and consume less, frequently referred to as "de-growthers," are the main opponents of this viewpoint. In other words, they think we should practice energy austerity, halt economic expansion, and maximize resource conservation.
Is de-growth genuinely feasible from a political, economic, and social perspective given that the foundation of our economy is consistent economic growth? Is it just to have everyone in the globe experience economic stagnation, especially those who still consume less electricity daily than my refrigerator?
Regardless of whether it is required or not, or whether it is good or wrong, de-growth is not a political goal that can be achieved. Governments, in my opinion, will not be able to persuade the world to embrace the policies required to consume less energy and less optimism that their offspring will live better lives than they did. It is not realpolitik; it is a utopian pipe dream.
Whatever your opinions on energy, climate change, or economic development may be, there is only one option for human civilization to advance: finding a solution to the age-old problem of creating sustainable, ample energy.
How can we produce energy more effectively, cheaply, and cleanly? How do we locate fresh sources of energy? How can we create a prosperous planet with a thriving global population?
Part of the solution to these issues is the energy consumption of bitcoin. Bitcoin advances human energy mastery, which is a goal worth striving for since it promotes both human prosperity and our capacity to have as little impact on the environment as possible.
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