Bitcoin Emission Intensity has a New All Time Low?

[Davidvictorson]

Hello there, so this person on Twitter, Daniel Batten ¹ assertion that bitcoin mining has a new all time low. He went further to provide a historical chart and a source ² for this assertion. According to him,

For the first time ever, the Bitcoin network has dropped below 300 g/KWh emissions

* It's taken just over 3 years to half its emission intensity

* No other industry is reducing its emission intensity at such a rate.

For comparison, as of January 2020, the mining emission intensity was at 601g/kWh. Personally, I am thrilled about this, considering the backlash bitcoin mining has been facing. But what I find odd in all of this is that no other person or news/crypto sources are talking about this. Also, I have gone through the research article  provided to support his claim, but I am finding it difficult to understand what is written. I'd appreciate if someone confirms the validity of his claim. -This is source article -  http://batcoinz.com/BEEST/

Thank you very much.

1 https://twitter.com/DSBatten/status/1663005438303166475?t=LyYAzlJe89BwPvRegG4P-Q&s=08
2 http://batcoinz.com/BEEST/

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[Yamane_Keto]

All articles that talk about emissions, carbon and pollution and their relationship to Bitcoin are FUD. to mine Bitcoin, you need mining equipment, a power source, and a mechanism to reduce noise and heat. If there is a decrease in the percentage of carbon emissions from bitcoin, this is due to the government’s efforts in a region to provide cheap renewable energies, whether those efforts are developing the renewable energies industry, reducing legislation or zero taxes.

Miners are looking for cheap energy regardless of its source, and therefore we cannot say that Bitcoin is responsible for emissions and pollution, it is not like direct industries such as oil.

As for electronic waste, heat reduction, and noise reduction, they are problems that Bitcoin shares with almost all electronic devices.

There is nothing unique about Bitcoin that causes it to emit more carbon waste than any other industry, and all articles that defend or prove this are based on an inaccurate foundation.

I think mining boards is better for such discussions, although they are repeated many times.

[d5000]

Thanks for sharing. I looked at the article, and in general what they write seems reasonable.

However, there's a tiny amount of doubt one could cite. Most of the increase in zero-emission share compared to the CCAF study, which greatly influences the "carbon intensity" figure, is due to off-grid mining operations. The figures are based on the hashrate share of some off-grid mining providers:

The Zero-emission off-grid portion included Cleanspark, DPO, Terawulf, Blockfusion, Aspen Creek, Bitfarms, Gryphon, Soluna, Hive, Cowa, Sato, Genesis, Iris, Hut8, Northern Data, DMG Blockchain, Cipher.

(Source: BEEST)

Are these figures trustworthy and how are they collected? Do they also take into account that perhaps some stats about ZE share in countries already take into account off-grid figures?

I would have to look deeper into the sources - as I wrote it's only a tiny amount of doubt. But in general, I approve the methodology.

The other point of criticism is that the figure "emission intensity" is of course not taking into account the hashrate itself. From January 2021 to today, this figure has been slightly more than doubled (from ~150 Eh/s to 300-350 Eh/s). This means that the total emissions of BTC are about the same than in early 2021, perhaps slightly more.

However, Bitcoin's price is also lower (currently a little bit, but hashrate generally recovers slower than the price due to inertia - mining operations have to know if their hashrate/reward equation is sustainable or not to finance operations), and the price influences hashrate. So if we see late 2021 prices again, hashrate could grow slowly but quite a lot.

The interesting take on all this is that to lower emissions we need to reach a point where extreme events like the China ban don't have such a large impact on emissions. For now the China ban explains most of the ZE share increase. However, in the graph the late 2022/early 2023 values look quite good.

In general I'm optimistic - ZE share is growing at a steady pace all over the world, so Bitcoin's emissions will eventually reach the desired tipping point and lower.

@Yamane_Keto: I absolutely don't agree with your first paragraph. The thread moving to Mining would however be an ok decision.

[bitmover]

All articles that talk about emissions, carbon and pollution and their relationship to Bitcoin are FUD. to mine Bitcoin, you need mining equipment, a power source, and a mechanism to reduce noise and heat. If there is a decrease in the percentage of carbon emissions from bitcoin, this is due to the government’s efforts in a region to provide cheap renewable energies, whether those efforts are developing the renewable energies industry, reducing legislation or zero taxes.

Miners are looking for cheap energy regardless of its source, and therefore we cannot say that Bitcoin is responsible for emissions and pollution, it is not like direct industries such as oil.

As for electronic waste, heat reduction, and noise reduction, they are problems that Bitcoin shares with almost all electronic devices.

There is nothing unique about Bitcoin that causes it to emit more carbon waste than any other industry, and all articles that defend or prove this are based on an inaccurate foundation.

I think mining boards is better for such discussions, although they are repeated many times.

This is exactly the point.

Bitcoin needs to use energy to secure the network.  As the world doesnt use renewable energy  sources, bitcoin mining is just a consequence of that. Miners are not looking for clean energy, just like any other industry. They are looking for cheap energy.

PoS is not as secure, as you are using something from inside the system to protect it.



And energy is something valuable in the world we live in. So we are protecting the network with something valuable, energy.

[BlackHatCoiner]

If there is a decrease in the percentage of carbon emissions from bitcoin, this is due to the government’s efforts in a region to provide cheap renewable energies

Or due to technological growth. Rather that. Government's efforts to provide renewables by force is questionably helping the situation.

PoS is not as secure, as you are using something from inside the system to protect it.

Actually, it's more than that. It is less secure, because it is not permissionless, can be manipulated much more easily (i.e., a hacker hacks an exchange and stakes the coins), and this.

[un_rank]

Miners are looking for cheap energy regardless of its source, and therefore we cannot say that Bitcoin is responsible for emissions and pollution, it is not like direct industries such as oil.

We certainly cannot say that bitcoin is responsible for carbon emissions, but the biased media can cause they want to create a perspective for the viewers that bitcoin is taking energy away from their homes and polluting the environment. They also would not report that a huge percentage of bitcoin's mining energy is coming from renewable sources which does not pose a hazard through emissions.

PoS is not as secure, as you are using something from inside the system to protect it.

Is not secure at all, protecting a system by centralizing it is not a very good idea.

- Jay -

[cryptosize]

Even ESG lunatics cannot stop BTC!

Government's efforts to provide renewables by force is questionably helping the situation.

Not really.

Many miners buy their own equipment (solar panels etc.) with zero government subsidies (unlike many other industries).

[d5000]

I made actually a mistake in the conclusions of my last post regarding the total mining emissions, as I made the incorrect assumption that hashrate growth is equal to energy consumption growth.

It seems that Bitcoin's total carbon emissions thus very likely are already declining if we take into account the decline in carbon emissions intensity shown in the study linked by OP.

CBECI (not the best source, but they seem to provide the best charts) sees a electricity consumption increase from January 2021 to May 2023 of only about 40% (from 120 100* to 140 TWh/Y), in a period when hashrate approximately doubled.

If we take into account now that the emission intensity went down to 50%, then the total emissions seem to have reduced by almost 30% since January 2021. Good material for #EndTheFUD/bitcoincleanup.com, or not?


What's even more interesting to me is actually the emission intensity decline after the "China ban", i.e. since mid-2021. In January 2022 intensity reached 400 g/kWh, with a consumption of 120 TWh/Y. In May 2023 we have 140, with an emission intensity of 300. This means the current decline in emissions is about 13,5% per year.

There's of course the price parameter still to take into account. January 2022 isn't the ideal comparison point as the price was higher than today (~40000$). Maybe one could create a formula taking into account emission evolution and price.

In general, we've all reasons to be optimistic

*Edit: sorry, here I copied the wrong number (from 2022). Corrected.

[Kryptowerk]

I made actually a mistake in the conclusions of my last post regarding the total mining emissions, as I made the incorrect assumption that hashrate growth is equal to energy consumption growth.

It seems that Bitcoin's total carbon emissions thus very likely are already declining if we take into account the decline in carbon emissions intensity shown in the study linked by OP.

CBECI (not the best source, but they seem to provide the best charts) sees a electricity consumption increase from January 2021 to May 2023 of only about 40% (from 120 to 140 TWh/Y), in a period when hashrate approximately doubled.

If we take into account now that the emission intensity went down to 50%, then the total emissions seem to have reduced by almost 30% since January 2021. Good material for #EndTheFUD/bitcoincleanup.com, or not?


What's even more interesting to me is actually the emission intensity decline after the "China ban", i.e. since mid-2021. In January 2022 intensity reached 400 g/kWh, with a consumption of 120 TWh/Y. In May 2023 we have 140, with an emission intensity of 300. This means the current decline in emissions is about 13,5% per year.

There's of course the price parameter still to take into account. January 2022 isn't the ideal comparison point as the price was higher than today (~40000$). Maybe one could create a formula taking into account emission evolution and price.

In general, we've all reasons to be optimistic

Very clear analysis of the topic.
Indeed should be included in
- https://endthefud.org/
- https://bitcoincleanup.com/

Would love to see any of this referenced in mainstream media. But probably just doesn't create the clicks necessary.

I was also wondering if this statistic does include emissions created by the production of the hardware required for the mining operations.

[tranthidung]

Very clear analysis of the topic.
Indeed should be included in
- https://endthefud.org/
- https://bitcoincleanup.com/

You forgot one more resource from Bitcoin Mining Council which publishes quarterly reports.
Q4 2022 Bitcoin Mining Council Report

You can get more information and graphics with their videos on Youtube.
BMC Q4 2022 presentation

[Flexystar]

Wow that is surprising. How come it is reducing if the mining operations are getting more and more difficult and also at the same time various mining farm companies are getting established over the period of time. The proportion is extra ordinary after pandemic and more player jumping means more miners getting fired up. Not just that, the entire mining farm now a days use completely different cooling methods. Such as sink tank, heavy industrial coolers and AC's. This put more burden on the electricity grid. Let us not forget the law, energy can not be created and nor be destroyed and it can only transformed from one form to the another. So to keep the miners cooler, AC and fans release the heat in environment and rest is the story.

Connecting all the dots together how is it possible that emission intensity is actually dropping. Either bitcoin miner number is fake OR Air conditioners are getting energy efficient.

[d5000]

Wow that is surprising. How come it is reducing if the mining operations are getting more and more difficult and also at the same time various mining farm companies are getting established over the period of time.

The "emission intensity" figure is not to be confused with "total CO₂ emissions". It's the CO₂ emissions per kWh used. What happened in the last years is that mining grew in TWh (with a temporary decrease after China's "mining ban") but the proportion of renewables and nuclear energy increased.

As the above source shows, a large part of this development is related to the US has replaced China the main mining location, and the US has a higher proportion of both renewable and nuclear energy (with low CO₂ emissions) than the regions in China where most mining farms were located before. The "emission intensity" figure will continue to decrease if the renewables+nuclear proportion grows. Nuclear is actually stagnant or even decreasing a little bit, but the growth of renewables is high enough to compensate that. Also the "Kazakhstan exodus" is cited, Kazakhstan had also a very high proportion of coal energy, but mining has largely exited the country in the last year.

[Faisal2202]

Not really.

Many miners buy their own equipment (solar panels etc.) with zero government subsidies (unlike many other industries).

Because they have to, as black hat said government is forcing them, how? That I will tell you. By making such situations for them that they have to adopt the green energy. Like by making electricity more expensive or by creating funds against miner so that the reward could be decreased for them.

In these situations, miners always want a peaceful way, like I have seen a video that many prefer to have their own energy source, like one have his own wind power energy system but they are not useful for everyone as wind is not same everywhere. So most preferred Solar panel energy system and the adoption of solar panels is increased so much that I think it would be enough to back up the claims made by OP's post.

Well, I also have seen a person made energy by cooking oil, well it watched the video on tiktok quite back so I found it difficult to get the video's link now.

[thecodebear]

I made actually a mistake in the conclusions of my last post regarding the total mining emissions, as I made the incorrect assumption that hashrate growth is equal to energy consumption growth.

It seems that Bitcoin's total carbon emissions thus very likely are already declining if we take into account the decline in carbon emissions intensity shown in the study linked by OP.

CBECI (not the best source, but they seem to provide the best charts) sees a electricity consumption increase from January 2021 to May 2023 of only about 40% (from 120 100* to 140 TWh/Y), in a period when hashrate approximately doubled.

If we take into account now that the emission intensity went down to 50%, then the total emissions seem to have reduced by almost 30% since January 2021. Good material for #EndTheFUD/bitcoincleanup.com, or not?


What's even more interesting to me is actually the emission intensity decline after the "China ban", i.e. since mid-2021. In January 2022 intensity reached 400 g/kWh, with a consumption of 120 TWh/Y. In May 2023 we have 140, with an emission intensity of 300. This means the current decline in emissions is about 13,5% per year.

There's of course the price parameter still to take into account. January 2022 isn't the ideal comparison point as the price was higher than today (~40000$). Maybe one could create a formula taking into account emission evolution and price.

In general, we've all reasons to be optimistic

*Edit: sorry, here I copied the wrong number (from 2022). Corrected.

Yeah I think what you are pointing out is that naturally ASIC miners get more efficient over time. Hash power and electrical use are not parallel lines.

When new ASIC machines come on the market they are generally not going to be using significantly more power than older miners, they are just going to be more efficient and therefore have more hashing power with roughly the same electrical consumption, in general. The mining industry is adding more miners over time, but those miners are getting more efficient over time as well, so hash rate increases a lot faster than electrical consumption. Throw into the mix the fact that plenty of people in the bitcoin mining industry will naturally feel both their own moral as well as external political pressure to use clean energy rather than fossil fuels. The percentage of mining done with clean energy will naturally move toward 100% over time.

Of course it is somewhat bounded by the electrical industry energy mix itself, since more renewable resources used by the world will make it easier for bitcoin miners to use renewables. But the good thing is bitcoin mining has for a long time been well ahead of the world in general in their energy mix, using much more renewable energy than the world in general.

It's not surprising if in fact the carbon emissions of the mining industry is in fact going down even as hash power increases fairly quickly. Also some miners are using wasted fossil fuels (like there is at least one company in the US using flare gas to run miners) and while this produces carbon, that carbon was being produced anyway, its just the energy was being wasted, and I'm sure this is not accounted for, that an operation such as that is actually producing zero carbon even though they are using fossil fuels.

[d5000]

Yeah I think what you are pointing out is that naturally ASIC miners get more efficient over time. Hash power and electrical use are not parallel lines.

Exactly.

Of course it is somewhat bounded by the electrical industry energy mix itself, since more renewable resources used by the world will make it easier for bitcoin miners to use renewables.

Correct. This is a major point of disagreement between the studies. According to the BEEST method linked in the OP the amount of mining in the Texas region (which has a high degree of low-emission electricity) was underestimated. The biggest point of divergence however was the inclusion of off-grid mining, which is based on data from the mining companies themselves, and gave a difference as big as 10 percentage points in low-emission/emission-free electricity usage percentage.

Also some miners are using wasted fossil fuels (like there is at least one company in the US using flare gas to run miners) and while this produces carbon, that carbon was being produced anyway, its just the energy was being wasted, and I'm sure this is not accounted for, that an operation such as that is actually producing zero carbon even though they are using fossil fuels.

This is actually accounted for in the BEEST estimation (which gave a minimum of 52.4% renewables), but not in the CCAF study (which gave 37%). The impact is however relatively low, it gave only an increase of 1 percentage point.

Regarding your last point (world moving towards clean energy) the BEEST study, if I interpret it correctly, calculated a global increase of 2% (not the same than 2 percentage points!) in the share of clean electricity (including nuclear). We're now at 38%-39% according to their data.

The increase from 2010 (when "clean" share was at 32%) doesn't seem that big, but this is actually because there was already a big hydro/nuclear/biomass share in the late 20th century (and above all nuclear is decreasing in importance/share), while only in the last years wind and solar are growing at an accelerated pace. This growth can even be seen in countries with very low electricity prices like Argentina (see Cammesa). Due to the extremely low electricity costs from wind + solar at good locations and scale effects I expect that these two clean sources will accelerate the "clean electricity" share growth in the next decade, and I could imagine a share of 50-60% around 2030 (and mining using at least 70-80%, if not 90%+).

There's one BEEST finding I've not 100% understood:

– The Bitcoin network uses +4.49% more zero-emission power each year

This figure is not explained: is it clean energy usage in absolute numbers (so we would have to compare it to fossil usage growth)? In this case it doesn't seem that impressive, as Bitcoin's general energy use grows almost every year. Is it clean energy share, in percentages or percentage points?

[Flexystar]

Wow that is surprising. How come it is reducing if the mining operations are getting more and more difficult and also at the same time various mining farm companies are getting established over the period of time.

The "emission intensity" figure is not to be confused with "total CO₂ emissions". It's the CO₂ emissions per kWh used. What happened in the last years is that mining grew in TWh (with a temporary decrease after China's "mining ban") but the proportion of renewables and nuclear energy increased.

As the above source shows, a large part of this development is related to the US has replaced China the main mining location, and the US has a higher proportion of both renewable and nuclear energy (with low CO₂ emissions) than the regions in China where most mining farms were located before. The "emission intensity" figure will continue to decrease if the renewables+nuclear proportion grows. Nuclear is actually stagnant or even decreasing a little bit, but the growth of renewables is high enough to compensate that. Also the "Kazakhstan exodus" is cited, Kazakhstan had also a very high proportion of coal energy, but mining has largely exited the country in the last year.

Oh thanks for the clarification. That makes sense in the terminology now. Since after reading the OP anyone with little technical background in the field would get confused about the ratio of total CO₂ emissions and the speed at which mining farms are getting established all over the globe. So we consider this as best example to explain to the world why we should create more green field projects where everything runs on the solar power, wind energy or nuclear power for that matter. It is really surprising to see how things are picking up in the field of green energy and there immediate effect on the Bitcoin Mining and it's allegations. We can assume that this proportion will keep growing over the period of time and there will be UNO reverse card for the pollution Vs mining of bitcoin around the world.