By Bitcoin Revista - 5 meses atrás - Tempo de leitura: 5 minutos
Como funciona o dobrador de carta de canal Bitcoin Melhora a abundância de água em países com escassez de água
A "bitcoin uses fossil fuels” argument has been increasingly breaking down in the face of new data from Bloomberg Intelligence showing the network is in fact the most sustainable-energy backed industry on the planet with 53% energy coming from sustainable sources.
In response to this news, a new attack vector has emerged: “Bitcoin uses too much water”. Apparently if Bitcoin uses fossil fuel as its energy source it is bad, but if it uses hydro it is also bad: it’s the same double-bind that 17th Century witch-hunters used to determine whether a woman was a witch: “Throw her in the water. If she can swim, she’s a witch - execute her. If she drowns and cannot swim, that proves she’s not a witch”.
É claro que é um argumento ridículo que pode ser levantado contra qualquer usuário de eletricidade que você queira difamar. Quanto ao método que De Vries, o autor do estudo, utiliza: medir o uso de água por transação, Cambridge já desmascarou o uso de energia por transação e, por extensão, qualquer recurso por transação, como “não sendo uma métrica significativa”.
This didn’t stop a host of journalists picking up the study. As I waded through the symphony of off-tune journalism, it got me curious, “What is the real story with Bitcoin and water?”
So I decided to do some research on the other side of the ledger: could Bitcoin help water security?
Onde existe a escassez real de água?
First, let’s understand which nations suffer the most from water scarcity? A quick Google search told me that “12 of 17 most water-stressed nations in the world live in the Middle East or North Africa."
satista
Intrigado, perguntei ainda como é que estes países combatiam esta escassez de água.
Acontece que a situação é bastante terrível:
60% of these nation live under "severe water stress"scientists expect this to worsen as the climate warmsIn the last 30 years, rainfall has dropped by 16.7%Many of these nations now use more water than they receive in rainfall.-Source Could the Middle East Run Out of Water, CNBC
Países mais ricos, como os Emirados Árabes Unidos, usam a dessalinização para resolver este problema. No entanto, a dessalinização é cara e consome muita energia. Também tem uma série de questões ambientais, entre as quais o facto de nos Emirados Árabes Unidos, 78% dessa energia provém de combustíveis fósseis (gás natural).
De acordo com o O noticiário nacional, desalination plants are vital if the world is to have enough water to drink.
Some estimates suggest that by 2030 there will be a 40 per cent gap between water supply and demand. There is an increasing reliance on dessalinização across the world, and already 53% of all desalination worldwide happens in the Middle East.
Estão em curso esforços para alimentar cada vez mais as centrais de dessalinização com energias renováveis, mas tais projectos levarão tempo. Novas tecnologias terão de ser desenvolvidas e nova capacidade solar terá de ser construída.
O Dr. Muhammad Wakil Shahzad, professor sénior da Universidade de Northumbria, no Reino Unido, que desenvolveu um sistema de dessalinização patenteado, confirmou esta afirmação: “Estamos a trabalhar para hibridizar [os sistemas de dessalinização] com energias renováveis – eólica, das ondas e solar. Temos vários protótipos em laboratório”, disse ele.
These solar farms can be used to offer an alternative to burning natural gas to power desalinisation plants" Critically, the UAE plans a massive solar buildout in its vast, sunny deserts. The country’s biggest projeto solar will become one of the world’s largest at 5 GW by 2030.
Jaran Mellerud, Luxor comments that These solar installations “will undoubtedly periodically generate vast amounts of excess electricity.”
Como funciona o dobrador de carta de canal Bitcoin Helps Water Scarcity #1: Accelerate Buildout Of Renewable Powered Desalination
Soaking up and being a buyer for excess solar-powered electricity is one of the two areas where Bitcoin mining can help provide solutions to water scarcity.
According to Mellerud “Being location-agnostic and interruptible electricity consumers, bitcoin miners can set up operations directly at these solar farms to offtake and monetize this otherwise wasted electricity.” (Source: Índice de Hashrate). Um recente study from Cornell University confirmado Bitcoin mining’s ability to make solar operators more profitable, which in turn leads to faster scale-up of solar operations.
By accelerating the build-out of new solar energy capacity, Bitcoin mining can help UAE to transition to renewably-powered desalination, meaning that UAE can meet its water security goals without endangering its emission-reduction goals.
Como funciona o dobrador de carta de canal Bitcoin Mining Helps Water Scarcity #2: Increases Efficiency Of Desalination
As reported by CNBC, desalination is highly energy intensive. Any efficiency gains in operating costs therefore means that water which can be desalinated for the same operating cost. This is why UAE water management, whether through desalination or aquíferos subterrâneos, is on a constant vigil to increase efficiency of operations.
This is where an exciting and pioneering Bitcoin mining project is already underway. Maratona de participações digitais recentemente parceria com Zero Two.
Normally heat is used directly for desalination. But Zero Two and Marathon realized that almost 100% of the energy used by Bitcoin mining rigs is transferred into heat energy. If that heat can be recycled, it can be reused. And that recycled heat is now being used for water desalination. The only difference is that in the meantime, the desalination facility is earning revenue from bitcoin mining, meaning that their water-per-dollar ratio improves: more water can be desalinated for the same net cost - an incredible achievement. Marathon CEO Fred Thiel explica that for the water desalination facility, bitcoin mining “allows them to continue to run the energy generation profitably so that they can use the heat off take to make desalinated water.”
Resumo:
Os lugares do mundo onde a água é mais escassa, tornando-se ainda mais escassa, é o Médio Oriente.
For these nations, desalination is the ideal solution - which is why 53% of all desalination now occurs in the Middle East. However desalination is carbon-intensive and energy-intensive. Bitcoin mining helps address both problems. Firstly, It helps the carbon-intensity by making Middle East solar deployments more profitable by being a buyer for energy that otherwise would have been wasted. Secondly, it makes desalination plants more profitable by allowing them to generate bitcoin and use the waste heat from ASICS for desalination, which means these plants can profitably desalinate more water.
In short: Far from being a source of concern to global water usage, Bitcoin is helping the places in the world where water is scarcest to secure their water security profitably without jeopardizing their emission targets - something no other technology can currently do.
Este é um post convidado de Daniel Batten. As opiniões expressas são inteiramente próprias e não refletem necessariamente as da BTC Inc ou Bitcoin Revista.
Fonte original: Bitcoin Magazine