Bitcoin causing city-sized CO2 emissions
17 Jun 2019
The digital currency bitcoin is responsible for CO2 emissions comparable to that of Las Vegas.
Management sciences and informatics researchers at the Technical University of Munich found annual electricity consumption from bitcoin to be around 46 TWh – 46 trillion watts for one hour.
Corresponding carbon emissions range between 22 and 22.9 megatrons per year, comparable to those produced by Las Vegas or Hamburg.
TUM researcher Christian Stoll said: “Naturally there are bigger factors contributing to climate change. However, the carbon footprint is big enough to make it worth discussing the possibility of regulating cryptocurrency mining in regions where power generation is especially carbon-intensive.”
The team at TUM studied data of three manufacturers that dominate production of ASIC-based miners, a type of hardware specific to bitcoin, as well as live tracking data of mining pools.
The research – published in energy journal Joule – also attributed 68% of bitcoin network computing to Asia, 17% to Europe, and 15% to North America.
“To improve the ecological balance, one possibility might be to link more mining farms to additional renewable generating capacity,” Stoll said.
Computing capacity for bitcoin quadrupled in 2018, according to statistics.
