Hearn: The resolution of the Bitcoin experiment

If only sulphur dioxide were the only thing to worry about.

As for "green energy" countries, globalisation, the transfer of manufacturing and polluting industries, and the role of China, it pays to not have a static view of these and other matters. While politicians in certain countries seem to have a static view of renewable energy technologies, and arguably a decades old view at that, as they push lifespan-extension fossil fuel extraction programmes as their least-effort response to energy supply concerns (and leaving it to "the market" to figure the rest out), countries like China are actually investing substantially in renewables, and not merely the high-profile, controversial hydro-electric projects that make the television news. I totally expect a lot of European nations to get caught out by underinvesting in the technologies, all the time pointing the finger at a China that no longer exists.

But as for the point about electricity consumption and Bitcoin, I think we have to consider wider issues such as how much electricity gets used in needlessly centralised computing and in the extravagant bandwidth usage it demands. And just as we have seen with the evolution of the Web, it isn't unreasonable to question what all the different devices are actually doing, and whether they need to burn down their batteries all the time doing overengineered client-side stuff, just to keep everything "hyperactively connected".