In a Sept. 8, 2022, report titled “Climate and Energy Implications of Crypto-Assets in the United States,” the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) called for more research on the energy impact of crypto mining, the process that generates cryptocurrency. The report is a 46-page response to President Biden’s March 9, 2022, Executive Order No. 14067, urging the responsible development of digital assets, including cryptocurrency.

The OSTP report noted high energy use by 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:cryptocurrency production and its impact on the environment, including both the scale of the impact and how different mining methods use electricity differently. Recommendations include reducing greenhouse gas emissions, operations that increase the cost of electricity, operations that reduce the reliability of electric grids, and the negative impact of crypto mining on equity, communities, and the environment.

Energy Costs of Cryptocurrency

Mining is the term used to describe the process of solving a cryptographic puzzle with a computer, using an algorithm to append a new block to a cryptocurrency blockchain and receive a cryptocurrency reward. Trillions of attempts are generated per second to find a solution. This process is part of a 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:consensus mechanism called proof-of-work.

Generating trillions of solutions per second uses electricity. According to the OSTP report, e꧅stimates of the total global electricity usage for proof-of-work cryptoassets ranged between 120 terawatt-hours and 240 terawatt-hours per year—more than the total annuaꦡl electric consumption of many countries.

Since the report was released (using 2022 data from Cambridge University's Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, among other entities), energy use has grown due to a reduction in block rewards and an increase in mining difficulty—which was created by an increase in 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:hash rates as 🅷large mining operations expanded their operations to🥂 deal with the reward reduction.

In 2024, the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index placed these figures between 97 terawatt-hours (the low) and 323 terawatt-hours (the high) annually.

Impact of Crypto on the Environment

The massive amounts of electricity used to generate crypto-assets resulted in the generation of roughly 0.3% (140 million metric tons) of greenhouse gas emissions per year as of the 2022 OSTP report. At the time, the United States generated approximately 25 million to 50 million metric tons of that total. In 2024, the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance estimated that Bitcoin caused the emission of 88.23 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, or 0๊.18% of the global total.

The OSTP found that other factors affecting the environment include noise pollution, impact on water sources, and waste creation as a direct result of the use of fossil-fueled electricity. All this could impact the U.S.'s ability to achieve goals under the Paris Agreement and prevent it🌺 from reducing its contributions to some of the most severe impacts of cli🦩mate change.

More recent studies have confirmed environmental impacts regarding water—it is theorized and believed by some that one Bitcoin transaction consumes about 2,237 gallons of water. If this estimate is true, there were about 552,000 transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain on Nov. 7, 2024, and these transactions consumed about 1.23 billion gallons of water daily. Estimates from a United Nations University study in 2023 suggest that in 2020, the Bitcoin network consumed more than 660,000 Olympic-sized pools worth of water.

Further supporting the OSTP's report are estimates of electronic waste generated yearly as miners upgrade or replace equipment and facilities. For example, Digiconomist estimates an annual e-waste generation rate of 38,050 tons per year as of Nov. 8, 2024.

How Changes in Crypto Can Help Climate Goals

Ways exist through which 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体♛彩网:distributed ledger technology (DLT) can reduce the impact crypto mining has on the environment and help the U.S. meet climate goals. Substituting PoS for PoW is one direct way to reduce pressure on the grid, but to get there requires addressing the downsides of both technologies.

As stated, PoW requires massive amounts of electricity. PoS uses a fraction of🤪 the electricity but requires a massive initial investment to become a validator. This, in itself, creates a potential issue since the population of validators becomes skewed toward wealth. Using clean energy sources is also one of several possible solutions presented by the OSTP.

What's Happened Since the Report?

Per the executive order from the president and the recommendations from the OSTP, the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the Department of Energy (DOE) received approval from🦂 the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to begin collecting energy use information from cryptocurrency mining operations.

In January 2024, the EIA initiated an emergency survey to collect information from miners. By February 2024, the EIA had identified 137 mining facilities in the U.S. and gathered estimates for 52 facilities. However, on Feb. 22, 2024, the Texas Blockchain Council filed a lawsuit against the EIA, DOE, and OMB to halt the data collection. The council and Riot Platforms, Inc. claimed that the businesses and entities turning over energy use data "...will be immediately and irreparably harmed by being forced to divulge confidential, sensitive, and proprietary information to EIA..."

The TBC motion for a restraining order was granted, and the EIA and DOE agreed to destroy all collected information and then commence its collection via the slow Paperwork Reduction Act process of collecting information.

A natural conclusion to draw from the immediate of this lawsuit isℱ that c🧔ryptocurrency mining operations are guarding their energy use because it is likely alarmingly high—possibly even higher than estimates allow for.

The Bottom Line

The answers to the questions posed are available, but as is so often the case, efforts to officially gather the needed data have been blocked by profit-seekers using the legal system. Many crises loom in the future, from climate to financial, and there is no question that minable cryptocurrencies are unnecessarily contributing to accelerating crisis 𒐪timelines—all so that a few already wealthy individuals can profit.

Because of the urgency of actions needed to address human contributions to climate change, there needs to be immediate transparency regarding cryptocurrency mining operations. As has always been the case, the greed of the few 🔜is winning the battle against actions take⛄n to protect the masses and the environment.