I rarely have much to contribute here, so I hope I got the reply addressing correct and hope I'm not straying too far afield.
I'm a retired programmer. In 2010, I started looking into Bitcoin. I don't want to plug things up with my reasons or conclusions, but one of the things I looked at was power consumption. My back of the envelope calculations showed that power was going to be the limiting factor for "mining." I also concluded that this would remain true regardless of hardware developments or even the introduction of custom hardware. I don't imagine I was the first to conclude that anyone more serious than a "curiosity tinkerer" like me should be living where there is such thing as a real winter and limit mining to the heating season. Sure enough, there were soon people bragging about producing enough "waste heat" to meet their household heating needs. As always, lunch is not only never free, but costs more than you ever imagined. -- Ron On July 19, 2022 1:22:26 a.m. CST, Steves via EV <ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote: >Thanks for doing a sanity check on the numbers. I was surprised at how hard it >was to find good numbers on total kWh for charging and crypto mining. Not that >I spent a lot of time on it, but still. When I first searched I found some >numbers that needed a bit of juggling, and the results seemed incredibly wrong >so I dropped it. I thought about it again yesterday and modified my search and >found the quote I sent. It was similar to my other estimate, so I figured it >must be reasonably correct. > >My understanding is that for crypto like bitcoin, that it gets harder to mine >future ‘coins’ so it will just get worse. > >I’m somewhat agnostic on crypto - Freakonomics has a good series on it- but >the energy use is appalling. > >In any case, and to stay on topic, it’s a good comparison to bring up next >time someone argues that EV charging will bring down the grid. > >-Steve > >> On Jul 19, 2022, at 12:58 AM, EV List Lackey via EV <ev@lists.evdl.org> >> wrote: >> >> On 18 Jul 2022 at 22:56, Steves via EV wrote: >> >>> With only 2 million EVs on the road, EVs would consume approximately 7.9 >>> billion kWh annually or less than 1% of the US electric production of 3,980 >>> billion kWh. That seems relatively small in comparison to data centers >>> consuming roughly 73 billion kWh or crypto-mining including Bitcoin at 91 >>> billion kWh. >> >> That's interesting (and appalling) information. >> >> I've read some astronomical worldwide amount for cryptocurrencies, and just >> checked. It's 110 terawatt hours per year, *just for Bitcoin*. That's about >> as much as the entire country of Sweden uses. >> >> Not to offend anybody here who's into such things, but I for one welcome >> declines in value for crytocurrencies. It reduces the energy use and carbon >> release, which is of benefit to us all. It also might eventually make it >> possible to buy a reasonably-priced high performance computer graphics card >> again, not that I've ever needed such a critter. >> >> Sources differ, but I see 2021 US EV sales numbers ranging from 471,000 to >> 608,000. One source says that as of 2020, 1.4 million EVs had been sold >> here. So it looks like your 2 million figure is about right for the moment. >> >> I used 15,000 miles per year and 350 wh/mi to get a typical EV use of 5250 >> kwh each per year. Two million EVs of that type would use 10,500,000,000 >> kwh (10.5 billion) - more than the figure you quote, but within shouting >> distance. >> >> So we could add 700% more EVs to the US vehicle mix and STILL be using less >> electricity for them than cryptocurrency "mining" uses in this country >> alone. >> >> Something to think about. >> >> One thing to consider is that EV charging tends to pool in the overnight >> hours, so that concentrates the load in those hours. However, that also >> happens to be when aircon and business loads are lower. >> >> I'm a long way from an engineering or power generation expert, but I don't >> see a problem, unless the person firehosing the statistics is an oilhead >> dedicated to sowing FUD to keep their profits rolling in - or a politician >> pandering to reactionary anti-EV yahoos. >> >> David Roden, EVDL moderator & general lackey >> >> To reach me, don't reply to this message; I won't get it. Use my >> offlist address here : http://evdl.org/help/index.html#supt >> >> = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = >> Where they burn books, they will eventually burn people. >> >> -- Heinrich Heine >> >> = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Address messages to ev@lists.evdl.org >> No other addresses in TO and CC fields >> HELP: http://www.evdl.org/help/ >> > >_______________________________________________ >Address messages to ev@lists.evdl.org >No other addresses in TO and CC fields >HELP: http://www.evdl.org/help/ > _______________________________________________ Address messages to ev@lists.evdl.org No other addresses in TO and CC fields HELP: http://www.evdl.org/help/
