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https://cointelegraph.com/news/nuclear-and-gas-fastest-growing-energy-sources-for-bitcoin-mining-data

According to the report, coal alone accounts for 37% of total bitcoin mining electricity consumption in 2022. Among sustainable energy source, hydroelectric power accounts for 15%. In the report, clean energy generation for mining bitcoin has increased if compared to 2021.



We can see on the images how fossil fuel energy production is decreasing, while clean energy production like natural gas and nuclear energy are increasing.

With fossil fuels getting overly expensive, this is a normal direction. Miners can use only the cheapest energy, else they will mine at a loss.
Especially with China ban on mining and the energy war Russia is doing against the world, this is pretty much what we have now.

Bitcoin Mining Council report (https://bitcoinminingcouncil.com/bitcoin-mining-electricity-mix-increased-to-59-5-sustainable-in-q2-2022/) has an information that the percent of sustainable electricity mix has increase of 6% from 2021 to 2022, Q2.

I think it is a good transition but it is a normal change because more geographical areas have been involved in bitcoin mining. We see in newly adopted locations for Bitcoin mining, they have good sustainable electricity resources.

Critics who formerly used to fault the danger to environment mining bitcoin with non sustainable energy will need a new reason as that one is becoming less valid with the transitioning. With more transitioning to sustainable energy sources we will have lesser air pollution as carbon emissions will be reduced thus having a safer environment.

I'm hopeful that the shift toward cleaner sources of energy will be swift. It's important to break away from what's ruining our environment, and if Bitcoin can shift, it'll be inspiring for other industries as well as help Bitcoin's reputation. I still don't think that Bitcoin should be blamed on the scale it gets blamed, as electricity sources are often not something people can easily choose (there's a big role played by the country you live in, and how its energy system operates). Moreover, the argument that Bitcoin mining is unnecessary and should thus be stopped doesn't quite hold when there's tons of gaming people do, which also isn't necessary and affects the environment, and yet nobody's strongly campaigning against GPU and CPU companies to make them stop making even more power-hungry products.

Mining is gonna get unbearable if something isn't done about the contrary changes.
If Coal for just an annual mining has sniped itself that high, then they'll have to be some rejuvenations towards the mempools itself.

I have learnt that it's not even that profitable these days; even when they're running with GPU. The worst part of the story is that it's now becoming unnecessarily disastrous. I just hope something is done about the whole thing cus the world might take the chance to complain and/ refuse it resentments due to the recent pollutions.

Sandra 👩‍🦱

It's transitioning to renewable sources. What's unbearable about that?

Two things:
- What does mempool have to do with coal spending?
- Coal is already getting more expensive, so you should expect less coal use over time.

We recently hit an all time high difficulty. It's obviously profitable for some miners.

How can this data be verified as an estimated percentage of Bitcoin mining comes from unknown sources and therefore it is difficult to say for certain the nature of the energy they get.
Bitcoin mining is an activity that is only related to obtaining cheap energy, and whenever renewable sources are cheap, they will move to them.

Time after time more countries are getting into Nuclear energy resources and this will make some changes in bitcoin mining too, for example in many countries are planning for it to start using Nuclear energy resources for that purpose but still no matter if we are talking about Nuclear energy sources to gas and fossil energy sources because both of them are not renewable as far as I know the best option is always to move on renewable resources such as sun and wind power generators which is more clear and renewable and more suitable for bitcoin mining which is getting more famous in the world.

is natural glas really clean energy? but a lot of people bitcoin is bad and keep consuming a lot energy in the other hand people mining with hydo and other renewable energy is getting popular and also this

https://bitcoinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/chart-3.png
Source (https://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-mining-less-energy-gaming-reveals-report/#:~:text=As%20you%20can%20see%20in,2.5x%20BTC%20mining%20needs.)

Currently, the war in Ukraine is affecting the power sector negatively and the cost of electricity is suffocating many households and organizations. Even the environmental champions are now silent because they are now the number one destroyers of the environment.

Hence, it is a piece of excellent news that the perceived greenhouse gas (GHG) that BTC mining emits is gradually reducing. The unexpected ban on cryptocurrency mining in some countries made miners desperate to seek other locations and sources of power without really considering the environmental implication. Although the impact of mining on the environment is always overblown by critics Bitcoin would keep proving them wrong.

Although it might be gradual, Bitcoin mining is transforming to become very friendly to the environment. If the government would consciously and genuinely cooperate and partner with miners instead of attacking them, this power switch would be attained in a few years.   

This change in the energy matrix is natural, both for society itself and for Bitcoin. But what amazes me is the use of nuclear energy, I believe it is not the main focus of a machine but mine bitcoin!

It is not valid critics because they don't make critics based on evidence. Even before the Great Hashrate Migration and considerable changes in energy sources for Bitcoin mining industry, they wrote bad words about the industry but they ignored the fact that it is more sustainable than others.

Bitcoin mining industry is only a very minor one amongst many other industries on Earth. Only Bitcoin mining industry can not stop and change the global warming but we should appreciate the improvement for Bitcoin. More decentralized, especially more sustainable and more reasons to not be banned.

They probably leave this reasoning behind cause it doesn't make sense anymore if they still use it as their alibis to downgrade bitcoin mining. Now that nuclear energy is being used and it's sufficient than the other energy source, more of it will come and will gonna use the same method for crypto mining in the coming days. nevertheless, this is a really good thing for the crypto market. since the war broke out, lots of things became expensive and luckily they found a way to cut their bills and to still earn with the current situation of the world.

I'm having a hard time believing this percentage and the article claims it comes from Cambridge, I've already debunked their report about hashrates from different countries where they don't use any kind of logic or calculation but instead gather the news in the media and report percentages that way!!!

This could be the same. Only under developed countries that don't have access to energy or have super expensive ones use coal to produce electricity. India, China, US and Japan are the biggest ones. China's hashrate is very small, India was never a big player in mining scene and US miners are mostly using cheap electricity that doesn't come from burning coal (I don't think Japan has high hashrates either).
The rest of the world use gas and other fossil fuels and renewable energies to produce electricity.

The people with the hidden agendas does not worry about the source of the energy used for mining... their agenda are focused on PoW and how much energy it consumes. If all the energy consumed by Crypto mining were coming from sustainable and clean power sources, they will still moan about the amount that is used.

We are dealing with shills for the governments and people that are making money from the Fiat financial system, who are drumming up these false facts about Crypto mining to justify their attacks on PoW.  ;)

During the same time period global renewable energy production too increased. The world is in need of an alternate to the oil. In some part of the world oil production companies itself have got into mining with the excess energy that is being left unused. The World is changing in terms of energy usage and the same is getting along with bitcoin mining. Miners always look for the best choice that makes them mining process cost effective.

One side negativity is being spread around that Bitcoin mining is against green energy. On the other side mining with renewable energy keeps increasing with time. Someday everything turns to be on renewable energy, even by that time someone will come to state bitcoin is causing pollution.

I'm not sure how much of the Bitcoin miners prioritize the environment over revenue, but I guess, while mining is for the smooth and secure running of the network, it is still business. People are not mining just for the sake of maintaining the network as if it's a selfless act. They're not mining all for the sake of mining. I think they want or need to earn. They're after profit. In line with this, miners will operate on cheaper energy and on what's abundantly available.

GPU mining has not been profitable for a decade, nobody mines bitcoin with GPUs.
And obviously, since there are no hiccups in the chain, bitcoin mining is still profitable, when it won't be for 10% those will drop out, and instead of splitting 900 daily coins to 100 people, you will be splitting to 90, making slightly more profitable for a while for some.


The truth nobody wants to hear is that coal and gas are cheaper than anything else, hydroelectricity is only for a few places, they run on long-term contracts, and most of them work as grid balance so it's pretty hard for miners to get directly this source. Solar work only during the day, the wind does only when lol, it's windy, no sane miner would rely on this for its business. It's hard to go over the price, and I'm really getting tired of pointing out how Riot and Mara are getting 2-4 cents kWh from coal power and switching to green or renewable energy that is simply going to bankrupt you long term.

Look at what's happening in California, going all green spending billions and with the most expensive kit, the highest increase in price compared to any other state, and, what a surprise the most blackouts.

In the long term, all of the strategies mentioned above will enable mining companies to meet growing energy demands, and ideally, even reduce their carbon footprints over time.

I think the most interesting thing is that because renewable energy has been in development for so long, this trend is not surprising. The only problem here as far as I can tell is deciding how much energy the Bitcoin network actually uses. Despite these minor issues, I think it is positive to see that clean energy sources are growing faster than fossil fuels.

Of course, it is good to see this gradual shift towards clean energy for Bitcoin mining, but in my opinion, crows will not stop crowing even if the shift towards 100% clean energy, I mean, governments will not stop accusing Bitcoin that it consumes energy resources and causes economic damage to the environment, Especially with the increased demand by governments for clean energy due to the fuel crisis as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Actually surprised to see hydro only 15%, was pretty sure I'd read before several times it's actually the majority of energy source for miners (simply because of locations in Central Asia).

Suppose those could have been before the China exodus, but I thought they'd simply moved to other, cheaper places anyway where hydro made that possible... but I am reading now that I could have been mistaken that majority of Central Asia energy came from hydro.

As many also moved to the US, am waiting to see what comes out of this research (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-03-25/pdf/2022-06284.pdf).

It's not the majority but even though it is indeed high there is another drawback, although it's large in percentage it lacks in total capacity.
So you have Tajikistan producing its electricity from hydro, but that only amounts to 16TWh, UZ has 14TWh, TM has 4 TWh, KG 11, and KZ 8 TWh, this leaves little to spare for miners, and no real expansion has happened, not one that would match the growth in population anyway.
For comparison, just the state of Washinton has 89.5 TWh production annually, or if we count all electricity from all sources, Texas has more than central Asia combined, twice! Even if we assume all the network would be powered by the most efficient machines, all that energy won't be able to feed even half of it

That’s a shocker to me as well but considering what the general way is right now, that’s still not that bad. Hydro is a big renewable energy that people do not talk about, we are talking about something that is amazing but people are not realizing that hydro would be a great way to get out of the current situation and not every running water is getting that and we could build so much more dams and in fact there are some that is not efficient and could be improved and could be doing a lot better in the long run and get a lot more energy. This is why we should be focusing a lot more on hydro since it's already there and accepted by the whole world that it's good.

I disagree, really hydroelectric plants are good. But they need a lot of space, because there is all the calculation of the amount of water, height, speed.

Also, large areas can be devastated so that it is fenced off just to put water on.

In my view, solar energy is the most practical and causes fewer problems. It is enough to have sun and an equally large space, but nothing will be devastated, only temporarily modified since the panels can be removed.

Yeah mostly these countries are the one having coal as major source of electricity and it's prices are also rising substantially causing some electricity shortages as well because the production is not at full capacity due to it.But saying of Japan then they don't have any active coal mines and import the coal so can't say they depend on coal for electricity and have other sources for energy consumption and miners use that.

Miners are using more clean energy than before is what this thread is all about, it is not about misconception that we are trying to let people know, but you are posting just supporting the misconception. Did you read the OP at all?

Bitcoin miners are most using ASIC to mine bitcoin, the days of GPU has been around 2020.

Bitcoin mining is still profitable, that is why the mining hashrates has been increasing. Check the hashrate chart of when bitcoin has been created to this present day in the diagram below:

https://www.blockchain.com/charts/hash-rate
https://i.imgur.com/6gFD7cs.jpg

The increasing hashrates means miners are getting profit from mining, if no profit is there, some miners will not mine again which will reduce the hashrates.

I am also curios to see how they get that data..... because a lot of the smaller mining operations (individuals) come from areas that are serviced by Wind and Solar power plants. So are they only looking at the location of the large mining farms and what electricity they are using... or are they looking at the inputs from the smaller miners too?

It is strange that we (Bitcoin community) have to justify and explain our "Energy" use... but large corporations are flying under the radar. (Example : How many Fiat ATM's are using "clean" energy? ..... How many card readers in shops are using renewable resources? .....etc.. )

even if bitcoin mining is moved to renewable energy i think those bitcoin haters will still find another reason to keep attacking bitcoin this will definitely never stop until bitcoin is no longer active. but unfortunately bitcoin will never stop working so we don't need to argue with them too much on this issue

like you, i never bothered about bitcoin mining energy, can we see heavy industry, all the tech stuff these days, how many things use green energy? why bitcoin and always bitcoin, while bitcoin is also bringing value to millions of people around the world