Bitcoin and energy: the no-bullshit version

[windpath]

TL;DR: Bitcoin uses ~173 TWh/yr (Cambridge CBECI, 2025), about 0.75% of global electricity. Real and material. The honest case is not that the number is small; it is that the energy buys something (security), the demand is uniquely flexible, and the loudest critiques split cleanly into the ones with answers and the ones without.

The comparison trick. "More than Argentina," "less than tumble dryers," "more than gold mining". Every one is a chosen denominator. Gold mining's own estimates run 132-265 TWh depending on scope, a range that straddles Bitcoin's number. Whether Bitcoin "uses more than gold" is decided entirely by how you count gold.

The energy is the security. Proof-of-work converts electricity into the cost of rewriting history. Cut the energy and you cut the attack cost by the same proportion. This is why "just make it use less" is not the free lunch it sounds like.

What miners actually buy. A miner is the ONLY industrial-scale load that is location-agnostic, interruptible in seconds, and indifferent to when the power flows. So it migrates to stranded hydro, flared methane, curtailed wind: the cheapest electrons on earth because nobody else can use them.

The receipt. August 2023, ERCOT heat wave: Riot Platforms earned $31.7M mostly powering DOWN (power resold + demand-response credits) versus $8.9M of bitcoin mined that month, curtailing 95%+ of load in seconds. SEC-filed, public.

What the critics get right. The Granbury TX noise lawsuit is real. Not all mining runs on stranded renewables, some grids burn coal and gas. Water and e-waste footprints deserve straight answers. The strong forms of the critique have answers; the weak forms get called FUD because they do not. Naming the real ones is the point.

Full chapter with sources: https://www.learnbitcoin.com/rabbit-hole/energy

[BlackHatCoiner]

"Bitcoin uses too much energy" is a massive psyop. Energy is just like any other good in the market. Dictating what others can do with their energy is not different from dictating what they can buy or use in the lives and businesses.

Even if Bitcoin "wasted" 50% of the world's energy, it'd still be done voluntarily by the people who own and have bought their energy fair and square.

[Lucius]

That myth has long been dispelled and was believed in only by those who don't really use their heads or those who have something against Bitcoin (personally or professionally). At the time when the attack on Bitcoin from this direction was the strongest, a lot was written about it and the conclusion was always that more than 50% of that energy comes from renewable sources, and that a good part of the energy used for BTC mining would be lost anyway.

At that time, the percentage of energy consumption was around 2% on an annual basis, and what remains in my memory is the fact that in the course of one year, as much as 50 000 TWh of energy is lost in the network and no one makes a fuss about it.

If we have millions of people who still believe that the earth is flat despite irrefutable evidence that it is not, then it should come as no surprise that there are probably hundreds of millions of people who still believe that they will be left in the dark because someone is mining Bitcoin.

[MusaMohamed]

TL;DR: Bitcoin uses ~173 TWh/yr (Cambridge CBECI, 2025), about 0.75% of global electricity. Real and material.

Cambridge research relies on mining pools that were ready to cooperate with them and gave them data. It's not like a research and result which represent the Bitcoin mining industry accurately 100%.

What the critics get right. The Granbury TX noise lawsuit is real. Not all mining runs on stranded renewables, some grids burn coal and gas. Water and e-waste footprints deserve straight answers. The strong forms of the critique have answers; the weak forms get called FUD because they do not. Naming the real ones is the point.

Will many other industries and companies will have lawsuits because they don't use renewable resources for fuels, energy?

FUD about energy used for Bitcoin mining is not new, and it has existed in many years and such FUDs can be debunk.
https://endthefud.org/energy
https://bitcoincleanup.com/
https://casebitcoin.com/critiques/bitcoin-wastes-energy

[MarryWithBTC]

I think we have long overcame this bitcoin energy consumption myth. I haven't heard about it in the recent times. What changed, why the topic again? Has it been resurrected again in the online space?

It was between 2021 to 2023 that the bitcoin energy concern was much, probably because of;
China banning bitcoin mining and miners relocating
and
Elon musk suspending bitcoin payment at Tesla

Besides, I don't think the world is that interested in bitcoin and its energy consumption. They have known the truth and attention has shifted to AI infrastructure which could even consume more than bitcoin.

[_act_]

I think we have long overcame this bitcoin energy consumption myth. I haven't heard about it in the recent times. What changed, why the topic again? Has it been resurrected again in the online space?

Yes, the reason the critics keep shut is because we are now in the days of AI. AI use electricity more than bitcoin mining, but the critics have know this already. The government do not care as long as the AI centers are paying for the electricity.

Bitcoin mining is even better because people that have AI centers in their town are now complaining of increasing electricity cost because of AI centers.

[MarryWithBTC]

I think we have long overcame this bitcoin energy consumption myth. I haven't heard about it in the recent times. What changed, why the topic again? Has it been resurrected again in the online space?

Yes, the reason the critics keep shut is because we are now in the days of AI. AI use electricity more than bitcoin mining, but the critics have know this already. The government do not care as long as the AI centers are paying for the electricity.

Bitcoin mining is even better because people that have AI centers in their town are now complaining of increasing electricity cost because of AI.

Not only that the government do not care, they also cannot do anything to stop the AI revolution because they themselves also benefit from AI. This is unlike bitcoin which was initially seen as a wall street gangerism stunt.

No matter what energy AI centers consume, it will not raise uproar. Bitcoin is one of those technologies that faced unfavorable entrance into the society.

[X-ray]

The one little secret those environmentalist who target bitcoin don't tell you is the fact that some of those energy used to mine bitcoin come from renewable energy, and some other come from excess or stranded energy that can't be distributed anywhere else and to save operating cost some energy company decide to mine bitcoin with their surplus energy.

The concern about energy relating to bitcoin is always nothing but a fud.