US government tracking the energy implications of booming bitcoin mining in US.

  • lemming934@lemmy.sdf.org
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    9 months ago

    If you follow the sources the source of the data and it’s methodology uses the CBECI which the latest update lists a range of 75-384 TWh. (Note that the “2%” listed in the parent article is the global power consumption of the Bitcoin network compared to the US electrical network, aka a bad faith comparison)

    This is Incorrect. The source for the 2 percent is https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61364. Which is a government study giving a rage from .6 to 2.3. They arrived at this number by extrapolating the CBECI data to the US, and by investigating individual bitcoin mining facilities.

    Electricity is ~38% of US energy consumption

    38% is a lot. Also, electricity consumption is 100% of the load on our power grid, so its worth looking into whether the use of electricity is pro-social or anti-social. From my perspective, even the 0.6% figure is far too much electricity to devote to mining bitcoin. We are talking about power use at the order of magnitude of a small state whose sole purpose is to generate profits for a few people.