The Bitcoin high price pleases investors, but also leads to an increased energy consumption. In fact, bitcoin miners now consume more power than many nations of the world.
The Bitcoin hype and its impact on the environment
Yesterday, Thursday, November 2, 2017, Bitcoin first reached $ 7,000. This pleases investors, as well as the miners who draw the cryptocurrency by solving complex mathematical formulas on their computers. Because: The higher the value, the more profitable the mining. However, this requires a lot of computing capacity, which in turn is paid for by a high power consumption.
According to estimates by Alex de Vries, power consumption for bitcoin mining worldwide now amounts to 24.52 terawatt hours per year. This roughly corresponds to the annual energy needs of Nigeria, a country with more than 185 million inhabitants. Not to go that far: bitcoin-mining power would be enough to cover almost 22 percent of the Netherlands' total annual energy needs.
Power consumption per Bitcoin transaction is 222-kilowatt hours
Converted to a Bitcoin transaction, of which about 300,000 are performed daily, the power consumption is according to the estimates of Alex de Vries at 222-kilowatt hours. This could provide you with a freeze-freeze combination for one year, or have more than enough energy to supply an average German one-person household for a whole month. Overall, according to de Vries, the total power consumption generated by Bitcoin is 0.12 percent of the global energy demand.
But the calculation of the resulting environmental impact is more difficult than the calculations of the probable power consumption since it is usually unclear from which sources the miners draw their electricity. However, based on data from a Mongolian Bitcoin mining operation, de Vries is convinced that a transaction roughly equals the CO2 emissions of a 200-kilometer Hummer SUV.