Bitcoin Forum

I ran into some eye-opening articles and studies on the aspect of bitcoin that I don't often see (or have ever seen, on that note) discussed here on this forum - the carbon footprint of bitcoin and exactly what it's contributing to the world's ever-increasing problem with climate change.

I clicked my way onto a straightforward and relatively accurate, real-time graph provided by Digiconomist[1] where a bunch of laid out numbers are presented. I'll list the key ones out for now, but I encourage you to visit it yourself and maybe even look into the calculations and accuracy of the tool[2].

Currently, our estimated annual electricity consumption is 54.6 TWh. That's massive when you compare it to Israel's 2015 total energy consumption, 52.86 TWh. Each transaction you make with bitcoin? That's 13.6 US households that could have been powered for a day, and a potential additional 191.17 kg of CO₂ carbon footprint. EACH. TRANSACTION. Bitcoin itself is amounting for 0.24% of the world's electricity, which is staggering that we're even approaching 1% to begin with. This consumption is potentially resulting in 25,935 kt of CO₂ annually (although a portion of the power is coming from renewable sources, which reduces this number).

Sure, renewable energies are an option and there is plenty of cheap hydropower especially in regions in China, but most of the mining is coal-powered[3] and the fact that we're increasing the stress on the increasing need for sustainable practices - or, rather, the magnitude of the stress itself - is staggering.

I doubt sharing this will make much of an impact, but I want to hear your thoughts. Was I the only one too busy waving around enthusiastic posters about the ~possibilities of bitcoin~ or is there any among the community who's similarly surprised? Are there any movements or practices already being conducted within our ecosystem that's being initiated to counteract this increasing load on the environment around us?

Note: I did self-moderate this thread in case replies get spammy, but feel free to voice whatever opinions you have on this, regardless of how extreme they be. Let's hear both sides up.

Note 2: This is not me arguing against bitcoin itself, of course. This is me trying to raise discussion on things that are already going on the ecosystem that is counteracting this as well as potential ideas, so let's try to keep discussions pointed there.

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[1] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption
[2] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption#assumptions
[3] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01625-x

Already, even on this forum, the strong impact of bitcoin mining on the environment in terms of electricity costs was refuted. In fact, Bitcoin does not consume so much energy for its production as compared to our other types of activity, in particular, for example, for the work of banks. In reality, this problem does not exist. Humanity can generate electricity as much as necessary. In recent years, the cost of producing renewable energy has decreased markedly. More and more private farms acquire a solar or wind power station and not only cover their costs, but also sell surplus energy to the network.
In addition, mining Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency is not harmful to the environment. At the same time, only heat is released, which is sometimes even used to heat residential buildings.

Of course, now the equipment for the production of renewable energy sources is getting cheaper every year and it becomes more profitable to install them in private farms. Therefore, I do not think that we have a serious problem with the consumption of electricity for mining Bitcoin.
I agree that this problem is more contrived than it deserves to be discussed.

Totally agree with this. Most people are looking for alternatives to lessen the cost they genrate for mining. Which turns out be using natural energy. Which is a win-win for miners and the environment. What causes the dispute whether is it worth mining cryptocurrency and ruining and wasting energy is using coal-pwered energy in mining. I see a lot of miners setting up their mining farm using either solar-panels or hydro electricity and other natural energy to save them costs which will lead to better profit.

Yes, Bitcoin use a massive amount of electricity but have you compared that with the carbon footprint of the current financial system? I am not just talking about the cost per transaction via their centralized database now.

I am talking about the total cost of their operation, which includes... < All the electricity used to power ATM's world wide and also all the electricity used to power things like air-conditioning in offices and computers and CCTV systems and security systems and also fuel being burned to transport cash and lastly the pollution and energy used to create money from the raw products to the final product in the form of cash and coins. >

We will eliminate most of that, if Crypto currencies can replace Fiat currencies.  ;)

I am sure of that there will be no impact. But it is still one of the greatest post which I've seen. So somehow energy consumption issue must be solved. Otherwise, it will harm us completely. We need nature all!

Cong. for this greatest thread.

Not only that, there are still many people in many countries who have never felt the presence of electricity in their daily lives but still many projects are trying to raise funds to fund their cryptocurrency mining projects.

But what can we do, a large electric power consumption is needed to power the blockchain network. But I still believe in this technology and as time goes by, this technology will also continue to evolve with various changes such as consensus mechanisms, etc. These changes are expected to reduce electricity power consumption while increasing blockchain capabilities.

*Let every individual in this world be able to feel electricity and let's save our environment.

Yes bitcoin mining is reported to be using large amount of the world energy production, in fact one report had stated that the total amount of energy consumed by the bitcoin is more than all the energy usage by African countries put together, this I can't confirm. Nevertheless, many projects are coming up with renewable Eco-friendly energy programs, which is going to take care of this increasing energy consumption threat and its effect on the environment. Let's think about this: I read a damning report of gas flaring in Niger Delta part of Nigeria by various oil companies, damaging their ecosystem. But the mainstream won't speak about the negative impact of oil and gas sector since it serves the purpose of their paid master.

firstly bitcoins annual consumption is NOT 54.6

heres some math
using 2018's main asic of s9. which is 14thash for 1.3kwh
(there are more efficient asics now but lets use the LESS than efficient, just to prove the point)

at bitcoins PEAK it got to 62exahash. note: PEAK not constant
so 62exa / 14thash = 4,428,571 asics
4428571.428571429 *1.3khw = 5757142.857142857kwh
=5757.143mwh
=5.757gwh

so at the very peak bitcoin was using 5.757ghw each hour
now if that peak was a constant 62exa hash every hour of every day for a year
=50432.57142857143gwh a year
=50.432twh/year

thats 50twh AT PEAK.
but we all know that bitcoin right now is not using 62exahash right now
but w all know that bitcoins hashrate went down to 36exa in december
we all know that bitcoins hashrate was as low as 27exahash this time last year

which puts the YEARLY consumption between 22twh to 50twh
having exported a year of exahash data and using the math of the less than most efficient asics available now but most popular for 2018 to be fair.
and actually doing the math
we get
34332.86065gwh a year
=34.333 twh a year NOT 54.6twh

next. large amount of hashrate is powered via renewable energy. so feel free to cut the co₂ number down by more than half of what the topic post wrote.

by the way, pepsi lease out their logo'd refrigerators to fastfood restaurants and the electric utility to just keep pepsi cool. far exceeds keeping bitcoin secure.

so here is a question. for a beverage that just ends up being body temperature urine eventually. vs bitcoin which is an immutable international currency. which is wasting more electric

Cryptocurrencies replacing FIAT? I don't think so and I don't think that Satoshi designed it to achieve this. Instead, it was supposed to serve as an alternate payment option in a decentralized manner.

However, your point that there are bigger problems than Bitcoin harming nature is valid, but we still need to address how mining is harming nature which is why I feel that energy efficient miners need to replace the current miners(They need to be banned).

Interesting numbers, OP.

There was another study which was shared on the forum just a few days ago, published by the University of Cambridge, which you can find here: https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/research/centres/alternative-finance/downloads/2018-12-ccaf-2nd-global-cryptoasset-benchmarking.pdf. I would draw your attention to pages 81 onwards. Their raw numbers seem to agree with yours - they estimate between 52 and 111 TWh is used by mining the top 6 currencies, with bitcoin accounting for 75% of that (39 to 83 TWh), putting your figure of 54.6 TWh pretty close to the middle of that range.

Your links quote that as being 0.24% of the world's total electricity consumption, and the study I linked quotes it as less than 0.01% of the world's total energy production. Very interesting how a slight change in wording, which most readers would gloss over, gives such a drastic difference in percentages. Data can be always be manipulated or presented in such ways to give a bias towards what you want to prove.

The report I linked to suggests around 30% of mining energy is renewable, so that would have an effect on the final CO₂ numbers. It's perhaps also worth nothing that the metric of energy consumption/CO₂ production per transaction isn't the most useful, as the amount of energy spent on the bitcoin blockchain is independent of the number of transactions it is processing.

Well the carbon footprint is real due to the time consumption and the memory required for verification and computation of hash and overhead cost of the network is expensive(encryption+transmission+decryption) but the cost can be reduced by using solar or hydro-electric power rather than fossil fuels.

Either way, I'd like to see miners shifting to renewable energy sources. There will always be incentives in place to constrain misallocation of energy, so bitcoin mining does not concern me too much.

Just a thought as well, if this would be the aftermath of large-scale industrial mining, shouldn't nations which house a lot of miners mandate mining farm operators to plant a tree, or at least help plant one per machine that they are using? Not a very bright idea but people should be doing this if they really want to help. Sure we can always switch to the cleaner and greener type of algorithm (PoS and other stuff) and use renewable energy sources to power up the machines, but that would take long or perhaps be more costly to the end of operators, so why not use conventional energy methods, but in turn they need to plant a tree to at least lessen the impacts of their operations?

Idk, not the brightest idea out there but surely one that's worth considering and noting anyway.

I think renewable energies will replace the electricity so it could reduce the mining pollution itself. We have to try to create a source that will be able to use for bitcoin mining which I am sure that already begins since a few years ago. So we need to search another way to continue the mining process, and renewable energies are the only way for us.
Maybe in the future (in the next 2-5 years later, the consumption of electrical power will reduce because at that time, we have another power to replace the electrical and the bitcoin mining continue. I think there are already people who can use a solar panel to mining bitcoin and that person doesn't use any electrical power except for his daily life.

Everything is producing different kinds of waste: factories, nature (during any cataclysms), or even cows when they fart (and by the way cows have 2nd largest population among mammals and their fart is really harmful). If people give up mining BTC it doesn't mean that everyone will invest their money into some green stuff and start planting some trees.
If people stop mining cryptocurrencies they can start using even more harmful technologies.

People can use nuclear energy. It produces less waste.

I mean, the centralized nature of banks means that they need much less computing power per transaction - WAY less than what we're using right now.




The means as to which the electricity is produced certainly has and will continue to have a mark on the environment if this mentality is all we've got. Any objections to mere discussion just shows that you're unwilling to make positive changes.


Thanks for the numbers, franky. I agree that "calculating" the electric consumption of bitcoin as a whole is arguably something that is incredibly difficult to do within a simplistic method, and can't be accurately pinpointed.

However, in regards to your Pepsi comment - I believe the best approach would instead be to contrive methods to cut down on the carbon footprint of BOTH, rather than trying to weigh each and eliminate one, which was the purpose of this discussion - I wanted to see if there were any movements against this quite large carbon footprint we're contributing as an ecosystem.


That's an interesting observation; thanks for pointing that out. Wording can be tricky! :)


I'm sure that the details on enforcing such a rule would be finicky and potentially give rise to some sort of centralization or complaints of such. I wish that application would work, though, because I am all in favor for anything that helps.


That's the same mindset that we've been holding all the way until now - since X is producing way more than we are, why stop? It certainly wouldn't hurt us to take a step back and reevaluate practices that could be changed - whatever they could be - in order to do our fair share of cutting down environmental issues.

People are increasing electricity consumption until: a. They can produce as much as they need. b. there is nothing too serious that would cause a significant climate change. Any local issues are not really affecting the global situation.
Now there is nothing that can make people stop and start producing less things.

I strongly support environment protection and every activity that could help to save our planet and life on it. Still I don't think that there are any precise and relevant data about electricity consumpsion used for Bitcoin mining. Like I said there are no accurate data but I think that the amount of consumption is very small in the overall amount and that really makes no difference. But I would like to hear if someone has different data that could prove me wrong. Still everyone who has the possibility to use renewable sources of electricity for Bitcoin mining should definetely use it.

so i gave some lunch to think about, now its time for the evening meal

unlike things like pepsi whos distributed refrigerators are connected to business/residential electric supplies where the electric bill is of the the electric consumption allocation...

what most people do not know is that power stations know roughly how much consumption they will have and they adjust prices accordungly... but
.. they actually PRODUCE excess to ensure utility is always met.
for instance china consume 500TWH but PRODUCE 600TWH
this ensure the chance/ability of black/brownouts dont/shouldnt occur by any surprise spike in utility/consumption.

i explain this because many large farms dont contract with energy suppliers for the 500thw consumption/utility amount.  but they actually do deals outside the norm to buy up some of the excess

.. those not familiar with electrical supplies.
imagine a carrot farm that sells premium straight carrots to retailers. but throws away its 'wonky veg' which is perfectly healthy just not used by consumers...
then imagine a industry buying up the 'wonky veg' that would have just gone to landfill
it has no impact on the consumers supply, it has no extra cost on the farmer, infact the farmer profits and less waste is created

well thats what the big players do. they buy up the excess energy that would have gone to waste.

...
now if you want a treat for dessert to sink your teeth into as some food for thought.
imagine if ASICS never happened whereby we were still in the GPU era of people connecting rigs 100% to domestic energy consumption/bill/supplies

also knowing the GPU hashrate, an kwh used per ghash.. imagine how many petawatthours would be used a year at todays hashrate..

so i hope with lunch, dinner and dessert, i have given you enough food for thought to be full and happy

I wish we could know how they arrived at 0.24% of world electricity consumption. Honestly it doesn't make sense at all but it could be true.
 How on earth is 0.24% of world electricity consumption possible?  How did they arrive at this number ?  Any well researched material available on this?


Have you guys considered how much energy is used for melting iron and other metals? How about energy for powering bill air-conditioners, energy for millions of factories, etc?

Why in this case should we consider only the situation that bitcoin is extracted using coal, gas or oil, that is, carbon sources of such energy? Even in China, the main source of mining is hydroelectric power. If you use renewable energy sources - the energy of the sun and wind, then mining will not seem so energy-intensive, and even more so that it harms the environment.

If you read it, they explain it pretty extensively in the report, specifically this section: https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption#assumptions

They calculate total mining revenue, estimate (the least accurate part) how much of revenue is spent on energy, and then convert energy spending in to KWh. This lets them arrive at their figure of 54.6TWh per year being used for bitcoin. Their figures for global electricity consumption come from an International Energy Agency report which is behind a paywall, but the most recent free report from 2016 available here (http://energyatlas.iea.org/#!/tellmap/-1118783123 (http://energyatlas.iea.org/#!/tellmap/-1118783123)) states global electricity production in 2016 was 25,082 TWh. Given that total consumption is always less than total production due to loss of energy via inefficiencies, storage, transformers, heat, etc. the figure will be somewhat (around 10-20%) less than 25,082 TWh. Divide 54.6 by ~22,000 to get ~0.24%.

it doesn't make sense to discuss these numbers in absolute terms. for example, we've seen mining operations flood the pacific northwest and other hydropower-rich areas. not only is this a low-carbon resource, but it brings up the issue of generation vs production. most energy cannot be efficiently stored. power plants generate power beyond demand to prevent energy shortages, then we have to consider renewables. there's quite a lot of excess energy that's already generated and must be used. power plants sell it to operations (including bitcoin miners) cheap to keep it from being wasted. these calculations make no effort to account for the idea that bitcoin miners rationally seek out regions where energy is abundant because they can use the excess supply at a discount.

the digiconomist report seems heavily biased towards an assumption that chinese mining operations are primarily using coal-fired energy, even though they lack any data to support that theory and other reports that the majority of operations are based on hydropower-rich sichuan contradict those assumptions.


think about gold mining and production or the banking industry. these also use incredible amounts of energy. bitcoin has one advantage over them---miners can pick up and flock to regions where energy generation is cheaper and more sustainable.

as long as humans continue to use money, this problem isn't going away.

I'd imagine that there are other places that the excess power could be directed to, though, if our current electrical requirements subside and allow for the allotment to other developments.


That's exactly the kinds of things I love to see - but currently, it just seems like we're taking these increases in efficiencies and taking them as initiative to buy way more miners and continually push up total consumption- but I suppose that bitcoin as a system means that there's not much we can do to directly make changes for how much electricity it requires.


Thanks man, I thought I had a nice and full dinner but this one topped that.


The idea of bitcoin mining using renewables is addressed both in the original post and sporadically throughout the thread. Just because we account for renewable sources doesn't mean our consumption magically disappears - something that can be said for the world we live in, really. Is that enough to hide behind?


Mmm, still feels like we're aggravating the problem and having a mindset that this disadvantage is okay as long as we remain decentralized and all that good stuff.

Banks service several billion people. Bitcoin serves maybe 5-10 million on a regular basis. That's one angle that doesn't stack up in the slightest.

Excess or waste power is pretty much the only leg it has to stand on to fend off accusations of profligacy. Other than that it's a fact and a distasteful one and I don't see how it can be defended no matter what desperate leaps of logic are attempted. Best we can hope for is that the user numbers catch up to match expenditure of power.