[TH] Each Bitcoin transaction uses 4,200 gallons of water, enough to fill a swimming pool, could potentially cause freshwater shortages

[Ownedtbh]

Use seawater to cool after which the water can be reused as pure unsalined water

 

[mechtech]

Guess what a nuclear power plant needs a LOT of, indeed...

At some point you're building a system of systems that has a net loss.
The overarching theme is, we need water for literally everything, and we need it in varying qualities. To get those qualities we need to filter water. Which comes with its own footprint.

I would say every point is a net loss..........if not then it would be a perpetual motion machine?

As for the water, the amount on the planet is pretty much fixed..........that said it can be completely exhausted in area if over consumed. Just look at Lake Mead.

I am pro nuclear, but it won't ever happen, so no point in talking about it.

Has nothing to do about caring for the poor or not, it has to do with the categorical imperatives by Kant, and we already see society collapsing precisely because it is a slippery slope in how you treat other people.

I'm unwatching thread, and not clicking on any quotes that direct me to this thread, I really just hope humanity figures it out before it's too late.

This might be our last hope, but hopefully it arrives in time:

In nuclear fusion milestone, Japan unveils the world's largest reactor

The planet's journey to clean energy use has taken another leap forward in Naka, Japan, where the world's biggest and most advanced experimental nuclear fusion reactor has...

www.techspot.com

With our current consumption, nuclear is a need. Perhaps with more efficient items like LED bulbs, conservation, etc. power consumption can be reduced.

Main problems with nuclear is cost and waste, and safety if something goes wrong.

 

[Totally]

hmmm

I thought water was a renewable resource.................at least that's what I remember in school with the water cycle................but that was long ago.

So? We're run the risk of using it up faster than it is getting replenished. What was so hard to grasp there. Renewable doesn't mean unlimited.

 

[mechtech]

So? We're run the risk of using it up faster than it is getting replenished. What was so hard to grasp there. Renewable doesn't mean unlimited.

Exactly. The math behind this is not difficult (disclaimer work in hydro utility). River flows have been recorded for as long as there has been a dam on it, so in some cases over 100 years. Using that historical flowrate and historical rainfalls, with current rainfalls, current population and use with meters, the data is there. The numbers will tell you when things are going to go south. Every time I read about another heavy water usage industry going up in an arid location, or a large population city.................it baffles me.

 

[Eskimonster]

It is as a whole. But only 3% of the Earth's water is freshwater. 69% of that fresh water is locked away in the form of ice in glaciers and polar ice caps, and 30% another is under the surface in the form of groundwater, which is effectively non-renewable, and not uniform around the globe. So it's unfortunately not so simple.

Edit : For example, only 2.8% of Kazakhstan is covered with water...

Groundwater replenishes with rain dont it ?

 

[Space Lynx]

@DavidC1 not at all, I think humans having reason makes us the stewards of this planet, consumption can be done with reason at the vanguard, I don't have to go to taco bell, and throw away 15 plastic objects after eating one meal, that is not rational... therefore, I am not being a good steward in that moment.

we can also use our reason to help nature where it needs, and we do this on a regular basis, which is a good thing. physics allows for our existence, therefore, we owe our reason to physics, do we not?

 

[remixedcat]

crypto is dumb anyways.. look what it did to gpus and gpu prices and it's caused more security risks, and other bad shit

 

[Nathaaab]

Groundwater replenishes with rain dont it ?

It's too slow. There's a study that claims only 6% of reserves replenished in the recent 50 years by measuring tritium levels from above-ground nuclear testing.
The global volume and distribution of modern groundwater | Nature Geoscience

 

[BoboOOZ]

hmmm

I thought water was a renewable resource.................at least that's what I remember in school with the water cycle................but that was long ago.

It is renewable, but only if the consumption rate is sustainable. In dry places, the sustainable rate is very low.

But with the global warming, even places which used to have no water problem now have one. The difference between a rich country like France and a poor country is that here people are already raising the alarms when the wall is still relatively far away. The poorer, less regulated countries have big chances of hitting the wall well before any mitigation strategy is set up.

 

[Eskimonster]

It's too slow. There's a study that claims only 6% of reserves replenished in the recent 50 years by measuring tritium levels from above-ground nuclear testing.
The global volume and distribution of modern groundwater | Nature Geoscience

well my one of my jobs are to separate rainwater from black water in the sewers, so the sewage cleaning facilities arent wasting resources cleaning clean water and to secure the replenishment of groundwater.
In DK we have made a law that all our sewers must be separated in 2024 to assist said problems.

 

[80-watt Hamster]

74% of energy used on crypto is already renewable.

The point is that same energy could power something else. Taking numbers from earlier posts, let's use 300,000 BTC transactions/day, and assume they're all the expensive on-chain kind. If we go with the 700 kWh/transaction value, we're up to 210,000,000 kWh/d, or 210 GWh/d. That's ten Three Gorges Dams. Now, that also doesn't seem realistic, so let's just arbitrarily cut that down by a factor of ten. It's still a freaking lot, and the ~15 GWh (210 x 0.1 x 0.74) in could hypothetically be offsetting three large fossil fuel generation plants instead of propping up an experimental financial system that doesn't seem to be benefiting a particularly great number of people.

By that reasoning if you KILL all humans, then all will be ok. Hmm, sounds a lot like what the elites are thinking nowadays?

I don't know who you consider the elites, but there are state-sponsored "Make more babies!" campaigns all over the world right now.

 

[R-T-B]

Hmm, sounds a lot like what the elites are thinking nowadays?

Only if you subscribe to conspiracy hogwash that does not make a lick of sense.

The "elites" actually need the "plebs." They have since the dawn of man.

 

[AnotherReader]

The point is that same energy could power something else. Taking numbers from earlier posts, let's use 300,000 BTC transactions/day, and assume they're all the expensive on-chain kind. If we go with the 700 kWh/transaction value, we're up to 210,000,000 kWh/d, or 210 GWh/d. That's ten Three Gorges Dams. Now, that also doesn't seem realistic, so let's just arbitrarily cut that down by a factor of ten. It's still a freaking lot, and the ~15 GWh (210 x 0.1 x 0.74) in could hypothetically be offsetting three large fossil fuel generation plants instead of propping up an experimental financial system that doesn't seem to be benefiting a particularly great number of people.



I don't know who you consider the elites, but there are state-sponsored "Make more babies!" campaigns all over the world right now.

I think you forgot to divide the 210 GWh by 24 to derive the power output needed to generate 210 GWh in a day: 8.75 GW. That's less than the average output of the Three Gorges dam and well below its peak output.

 

[Shihab]

Groundwater replenishes with rain dont it ?

Some do. Some shallow, alluvial ones recharge from streams and lakes. A minority is artificially recharged by pumping into the aquifer.

It's too slow. There's a study that claims only 6% of reserves replenished in the recent 50 years by measuring tritium levels from above-ground nuclear testing.
The global volume and distribution of modern groundwater | Nature Geoscience

Ground water recharge is indeed (generally) a slow process, but the paper exaggerates it by lumping all aquifer types and locations into one (they may have made the distinction inside the paper. Don't have access atm), which is hardly indicative of how things are in practice. Deep, fossil water aquifers in arid places a la Nubian Sandstone may see little to no recharge. But shallower, unconfined ones in wet regions or near major water bodies could be recharged in a short time, relatively speaking.

 

[80-watt Hamster]

I think you forgot to divide the 210 GWh by 24 to derive the power output needed to generate 210 GWh in a day: 8.75 GW. That's less than the average output of the Three Gorges dam and well below its peak output.

Good catch. That makes the numbers much more sensible, and gives us the rough equivalent of one fossil plant rather than three. It's still a very inflated estimate given the on-chain assumption, but it's also less than a half million transactions a day. That needs to go up by, what, two or more orders of magnitude to appreciably replace traditional transactions?

 

[lemonadesoda]

Oh no! This is terrible.

Did you know that a large hive of 50,000 bees requires about 2 gallons of water per day! So that nonsense-story with the calculation of 4,200 gallons of water is the same amout of water for about 2000+ hives, or 100,000,000 bees.

[music]A hundred million bees! A hundred million bees! Hi ho hi ho, a hundred million bees! [/music]

You need about 100,000 bees to make 1kg of pure honey,

[music]A thousand kilos of honey! A thousand kilos of honey! Hi ho hu ho, about a ton of honey! [/music]

ok, next person can take that number and do something equally stupid with it...

 

[80-watt Hamster]

Oh no! This is terrible.

Did you know that a large hive of 50,000 bees requires about 2 gallons of water per day! So that nonsense-story with the calculation of 4,200 gallons of water is the same amout of water for about 2000+ hives, or 100,000,000 bees.

[music]A hundred million bees! A hundred million bees! Hi ho hi ho, a hundred million bees! [/music]

You need about 100,000 bees to make 1kg of pure honey,

[music]A thousand kilos of honey! A thousand kilos of honey! Hi ho hu ho, about a ton of honey! [/music]

ok, next person can take that number and do something equally stupid with it...

I'd rather have honey than crypto.

 

[Shihab]

Oh no! This is terrible.

Did you know that a large hive of 50,000 bees requires about 2 gallons of water per day! So that nonsense-story with the calculation of 4,200 gallons of water is the same amout of water for about 2000+ hives, or 100,000,000 bees.

[music]A hundred million bees! A hundred million bees! Hi ho hi ho, a hundred million bees! [/music]

You need about 100,000 bees to make 1kg of pure honey,

[music]A thousand kilos of honey! A thousand kilos of honey! Hi ho hu ho, about a ton of honey! [/music]

ok, next person can take that number and do something equally stupid with it...

Yeah, the thing is, digital transactions are supposed to be efficient.
And bees are actually a living things not machines to produce honey. But even from a strictly utilitarian viewpoint, bees do much, much, much more than just make sugary goo.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Sounds like someone getting better shit than me coming up with my kind of math's, love it, totally understand the point but as believable as the butterfly effect In this world where far more than wings are flapping everywhere, every minute.

No one's listing the costs of fiat I note.

Like that's cheap or efficient.

 

[Shihab]

No one's listing the costs of fiat I note.

Like that's cheap or efficient.

Fiat transactions do not require solving intentionally complex mathematical problems. Quite the opposite, actually. Design of all data networks (not just monetary ones) prioritizes efficiency. Crypto and the entire blockchain mess is the antithesis of this maxim.

But if you're looking for hard numbers (and you should):

Bitcoin energy consumption 2025 | Statista

The average energy consumption for one single Bitcoin transaction in 2025 could equal several hundreds of thousands of VISA card transactions.

www.statista.com

 

[80-watt Hamster]

Sounds like someone getting better shit than me coming up with my kind of math's, love it, totally understand the point but as believable as the butterfly effect In this world where far more than wings are flapping everywhere, every minute.

No one's listing the costs of fiat I note.

Like that's cheap or efficient.

Dunno that it's correct, but fiat (or at least an aspect of it) has been brought up:

To pull the numbers out of the image, 1 BTC transaction requires the (claimed) resources of 850,000+ VISA transactions. Even if we multiply the VISA footprint by a factor of 100 to account for the rest of the system, BTC transactions at the quoted numbers require over 8,000 times the resources. If we again reduce that by reducing the per-transaction energy from ~700 kWH to 1kWh, BTC is still one tenth as efficient.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

The numbers on some websites may not be current as of today and may not reflect the level of complexity and amount of calculations for one bitcoin reached today.

 

[thesmokingman]

Man the waste for btc is freaking nutty. Perfect timing to accelerate the end of the world lol?

 

[Endymio]

Guess what a nuclear power plant needs a LOT of, indeed...

Nuclear plants utilize water; they don't consume it. Large quantities of freshwater are pulled in, used to cool the secondary loop, then released back into the same river, lake, or stream from whence it came.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Nuclear plants utilize water; they don't consume it. Large quantities of freshwater are pulled in, used to cool the secondary loop, then released back into the same river, lake, or stream from whence it came.

These like servers have a vaporisation rate too so do consume water.
Not all they pull in no but not none.