Bitcoin wastes a lot of energy. I agree. It is basically a mechanism to turn energy into something analogous to money.
However, people do not generally live where there is a lot of potential to generate green energy. Wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear all generally work best far away from heavily populated areas (this is not always the case). Additionally, wind + solar are highly variable.
Per unit of energy renewable energy will always be more cost effective than fossil fuels in the long run, but there is a high fixed cost at present.
The more sources that can consume energy in remote areas the more incentives there are to build renewable energy sources.
Thus cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are a net positive for building green energy sources in the long term.
Building in remote areas destroys the environment during the build and changes it while it’s in use.
Plenty of solar in the desert kills off the local fauna and diverts rainstorm water in such a way that it causes problems.
This is a good point. Do you think wind power has these same externalities? I agree a solar farm can create a large footprint
Yeah wind farms are massive construction projects that reengineer the area.