Bitcoin: An Environmental Disaster

The computational power necessary for bitcoin maintenance and development already needs as much energy as numerous countries worldwide. The increasing demand for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Tether, Internet Computer, etc., has put pressure on its creation process. The process of Bitcoin and other currencies is known as “mining.” Cryptocurrency mining is a sequence of complicated and arbitrary mathematical calculations which need vast quantities of computing power.

A mining operation comprises hundreds and tens of thousands of devices, operating 24 hours a year, 365 days a year, ranging from a single home computer to massive server warehouses. That Bitcoin hurts the environment without offsetting advantages is, on the other hand, a claim that many enthusiasts of cryptocurrencies still believe extensively. The undisputed truth is that the current power required by the Bitcoin network, at 73 TWh annually, matches the amount of electricity consumed by nations like Austria and the Philippines. For more precise and accurate information,  visit the official site here.

Return to Coal

But it soon became a significant economy and a highly successful enterprise moving towards the industrial revolution in environmental terms (1760-1840). The amount of power that these ethereal digital currencies require is increasing dramatically. In 2021, researchers predict that a 129 terawatt-hour (TWh) power network is required, i.e., 1,700 per cent more energy than Google. As a result, crypto-monetary miners are moving investment and manufacturing farms to cheaper nations.

One logical destination is China. Two-thirds of China’s electricity consists of coal, with the wealthiest location in the northwest. The Chinese now account for around 70 percent of crypto-monetary mining activities. Bitcoin mining is estimated to produce around 130 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2024. To put things in perspective, New York anticipates reducing its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 141,7 million metric tons by 2030 and 35,4 million tons by 2050.

Furthermore, a bitcoin transaction has about 800,000 times more carbon footprint than a regular credit card transaction. If the globe badly needs to decrease carbon emissions and battle global warming swiftly, cryptocurrencies worsen the situation. Some of the world’s invest in renewables, while some of the digital worlds go to coal-based businesses. Crypto monetary miners also generate local, regional, and even national difficulties since they may cause electrical overloads, electricity shortages, and blackouts. These power disruptions occur primarily in locations in which server farms without regulations are constructed.

Shortages of Computer Chip

For the consumer, this is a result of worldwide chip shortages of fewer digital gadgets – electric cars, cellphones, portable laptops, gaming consoles, etc. The result is immediate – prices will only increase. And as the processing power is continuously changing, specific machines used in cryptography today are obsolete in a few years.

Finally, as long as they serve a specific goal, enable free commerce and are ecologically sustainable, digital money and electronic payments might well be the future. However, decentralized electronic money must shift from the energy-intensive sector to a creative, charcoal-free business. Cryptocurrencies are becoming nothing more than a speculative financial bubble. They do not allow you to buy food or a book in a physical and online shop and are also used for illegal operations such as money laundering, trading on the black market and tax avoidance.

Consumption of Energy

Bitcoin’s public ledger is decentralized, so no single authority is controlled. Instead, Bitcoin is continually updated by the so-called “miners” throughout the globe through a network of computers. These mining workers utilize targeted computers to solve challenging arithmetic puzzles to enable transactions – the only way to mint new bitcoins – to be handled in exchange for a small portion of Bitcoins. In recent years, with the price of Bitcoin rising to unprecedented levels (and the downwards, as was recently the case with Elon Musk’s Bitcoin Tweet), the attraction of mining Bitcoin has led to an enormous increase in overall energy consumption in the Bitcoin network.

As mining may generate a substantial stream of money, every Bitcoin transaction they contribute to has increased the number of people – also miners – ready to operate power demanding devices. As a consequence, the Bitcoin network currently uses more power than several countries. Bitcoin has such an influence on the environment (118.9 hours/year) as it compares to the energy consumption of nations like the Netherlands (117.1 hours/year) or Pakistan (125.9 hours/year) according to Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index.

Environmental Effect of Bitcoin Hardware

Unfortunately, these days there are not just more “mining” machines developed and used. These devices are also more energy-hungry than in the initial years of Bitcoin. The paper by Stoll et al. (2019) focuses on the problem, pointing out first-generation miners using central processing units (CPUs) in ordinary, computer-specific personal computers with a computing capacity of fewer than 0.01 GH/s and an efficiency of 9,000 GH/s. Today, these CPUs have been retired, and the dominant machines are 0,1-25 GH/s and 100-45 J/GH.

Electronic Waste

The Bitcoin network not only has difficulties with energy and hardware. It also creates large amounts of electronic trash (e-waste). This is because Bitcoin mining is done using specialised (single) gear, which becomes obsolete about every 1.5 years – the study by Vries (2019) reveals. The author has built a Bitcoin electronic waste monitor for insight into how much e-waste the Bitcoin network generates. The constantly growing energy efficiency of newer mining equipment iteration implies that older machines are unavoidably regularly outdated and are sooner or later pushed out of the market.

“The goal of ASIC mining machines except for the solitary mission to be generated, which means they will automatically become electronic garbage later,” the Digiconomist says and points out how much Bitcoin creates electronic waste: 11 kilotons each year. The technique used to evaluate Bitcoin’s e-waste creation solely accounts for the e-waste output resulting from the disposal of mining equipment. Other mining equipment such as cooling and transactions not directly recorded on the Bitcoin blockchain by responsible third parties have not been included.