Since the thread title is super misleading and most of people don't seem to care about reading the whole report. Here's the full "Conclusions" part summarising it:
Conclusions
Our Perspective provides empirical evidence that at least 38% of all Bitcoin mining activity has migrated to the U.S. and Canada as of the end of 2022. Furthermore, based on data from publicly listed mining companies, we show that the carbon intensity of electricity consumed by publicly listed Bitcoin mining companies of 397 gCO2/kWh is on par with the U.S. grid average. The total carbon emissions caused by the 13 analyzed publicly listed miners in the U.S. alone add up to 7.2 MtCO2 per annum and surpass the annual carbon emissions of the State of Vermont.
The growing transparency on locations and energy sources of large publicly listed Bitcoin miners, which account for one-fourth of the total hashrate, highlights the value of disclosure obligations and may help dismantle unsupported industry claims, improve assumption-based academic models, and point regulators to areas where Bitcoin mining may bring climate co-benefits. Financial incentives of the Bitcoin network may, for instance, subsidize the sealing of orphaned and unplugged wells, and thereby, reduce methane emissions at scale.
The data disclosed by publicly listed miners – and potential future industry-wide disclosure – may help to improve existing mining maps.37 Our results for the U.S. suggest that, for instance, the previously estimated share of total Bitcoin mining activities in Texas of slightly more than 4% (December 2021) has increased to over 15% (December 2022). Furthermore, U.S. and Canadian share has likely increased significantly beyond the 44% previously assumed.
If the Bitcoin mining industry wants to substantiate climate benefit claims, it must understand how established carbon accounting rules function and report in line with common standards. In the past, Bitcoin advocacy groups failed to provide evidence to substantiate renewable energy claims, making it difficult to go beyond applying grid averages when assessing the climate costs of Bitcoin mining.
However, as the industry matures, we expect to see increased reporting quality entailing credible renewable energy claims which would allow for even more detailed analyses.
Given the expected growth of the Bitcoin mining industry in the U.S., more transparency is crucial to quantify climate benefits and costs. Crypto miners have applied to connect to Texas's power grid up to 33 GW, equal to almost a quarter of the current total ERCOT operational capacity. EU regulators have demonstrated proactivity and are ahead in demanding increased transparency through additional ESG disclosure rules in the forthcoming Markets in Crypto-assets (MiCA) framework. Furthermore,
carbon disclosure obligations under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) in the EU, or the upcoming SEC rules will also apply at least to publicly listed miners. We argue that transparency is the vital first step to educate Bitcoin users, and inform the public, regulators and policymakers about the climate-related benefits and costs associated with Bitcoin mining.
So no, the BTC mining is not very "green". And I could argue that it's not necessarily green even if the energy used comes from recycled gasses etc, but that's a different story.
