The Problem is not the Energy Utilization of BTC: The problem is Persistent Human Utilization of Garbage Energy Sources

Great technologies use a lot of energy (the internet uses 20x the energy of BTC) and this is only the beginning. If we as a species hope to crawl out of the mud of our primordial past, we need to learn to utilize vast amounts of clean energy.

It is debated that the internet (the first distributed/networked technology) uses between 8x to 30x the energy of BTC. We rarely hear this narrative, even though it’s orders of magnitude larger than BTC. Why? It is inconvenient for established organizations. All technology requires the transformation of energy and some tech require great amounts of it.

The energy demand of the Internet of Things (IOT) will dwarf all prior networks when it begins to scale in 5 to 10 years. Are we going to complain “ohh, but it uses too much energy...” at that time as well? Hopefully we start to focus on the root problem of energy sources by then.

The distributed networked technologies (future technologies), which are the most promising scalable technologies will all use ridiculous amounts of electricity by today’s standards. The answer is not to horde hydrocarbons, but to be better as a species and to begin to create and use future facing energy sources. An argument of high energy utilization without a discussion of how to create clean, abundant energy is a lazy Luddite mumbling about yesterday.

Article on Global Internet Electricity Use: https://physicsworld.com/a/powering-the-beast-why-we-shouldnt-worry-about-the-internets-rising-electricity-consumption/