Cryptocurrency's Climate Impact: What's Really Being Done About It?
Cryptominers hungry for hashrate are generating enough emissions to single-handedly increase global warming. Is 'clean crypto' clean enough?
While evangelists and critics argue whether cryptocurrency represents the future of money or is nothing more than a giant Ponzi scheme and haven for ransomware gangs, drug dealers and terrorists, a basic fact is often overlooked: Cryptomining devours enormous amounts of energy.
According to Digiconomist, a site that tracks Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, just over 0.5% of world energy goes to mining these digital coins. And well on its way to equaling the total energy consumed by data centers globally.
The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) in the UK reports that current cryptomining operations consume about 118.79 TWh a year -- higher than many countries around the world, including the likes of Argentina, The Netherlands, Finland, and New Zealand.
Yet the problem isn’t only that cryptocurrency consumes so much power -- it’s the type of power that it consumes. Around the world, previously shuttered coal and fossil fuel-powered facilities are suddenly reopening to accommodate these mining operations.