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March 28, 2024

Some in the industry have pushed back on claims that it was directly responsible for any environmental damage.

May 2022 letter A number of large companies have signed a letter to the EPA stating that their operations “release” any pollutants. “Bitcoin miners do not have any emissions,” it said. “The associated emissions are a function of electricity generation.”

Nic Carter, a partner at a cryptocurrency-focused venture capital firm and A prominent bitcoin advocate told The Times he was the lead author of the letter, saying he was playing “language games” when he wrote that bitcoin mining has no emissions. At the time, he said, he felt the industry had been unfairly singled out.

“Perhaps a more sincere view is that we are fully aware of the emissions associated with utility power generation,” he said.

Many academics who study the energy industry say bitcoin mining undoubtedly has a significant impact on the environment.

“They added hundreds of megawatts of new demand when we were already faced with the need to rapidly cut fossil fuels,” said Jesse Jenkins, a Princeton professor who studies emissions from the grid.

“If you care about climate change,” he added, “then this is a problem.”

Conceived in 2008, Bitcoin introduced the concept of cryptocurrency to much of the world. Rather than trusting a bank to track account value, the system publishes transactions on a public ledger called a blockchain. Proponents say removing middlemen will free people from financial institutions, government oversight and fees.

So-called mining is a fundamental part of the system: When a computer guesses correctly, it updates the ledger and collects six and a quarter new bitcoins. Then the guessing game started again.

Initially, amateurs could win with PCs, but as the value of each bitcoin soars — from less than $1,000 in 2017 to more than $60,000 in 2021 — mining is increasingly becoming an industrial activity . (Prices have since dropped, to around $28,000 at time of publication.)

The only way for miners to improve their odds is to increase computing power, which requires more electricity. But the algorithm makes the game more difficult as the number of guesses increases. This creates an energy arms race.

The size of the mine can be a gasp for those in the power industry. A 1-megawatt mine consumes more energy per day than a typical American household consumes in two years. According to federal data, about half of Cleveland’s homes can be powered by 100 megawatts of electricity running at a given moment.



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