total emmisions per year?

[rileytg]

so we can compare to things like a car (4.7 metric tons/year) http://www.epa.gov/oms/climate/documents/420f14040.pdf

[tswicegood]

Doing some quick math, this is what I end up with: 142,005.96

• number of seconds in a year = 3.15569e7
• number of bitcoins produced in a year = 3.15569e7 / 24 = 1314870.83333
• 1314870.83333 * 103kg = 135431695.833 kg
• 135431695.833 kg as metric ton = 135,431.695833 metric tons

Standard IANAM (mathematician) disclaimer.

Interesting bonus number: bitcoins produce as much co2 as 28,815 cars based on the 4.7 metric tons.

Update: my original numbers used 108kg per bitcoin, not 103kg

[rileytg]

nice, thats more than i was expecting. if i get time ill try to work into main doc

[drabanus]

Some follow-up questions occur to me:

Is this a snapshot value at current time?

May it reduce with better ASICs becoming available with lesser watts per Gigahash?

How complete could the carbon footprint of a conventional currency be estimated?