Bitcoin on course to use nearly 1% of the world’s electricity
Joseph Sotinel/AFP
Why does bitcoin use 10 times more electricity than Google?
London – The bitcoin market now exceeds $1 trillion with its price rising tenfold in a year, but focus is shifting towards the massive power requirements needed to sustain the online currency.
Here are some questions and answers about bitcoin:
How much energy does it consume?
Total energy consumed by the bitcoin mining process could reach 128 TWh (terawatt-hours) this year, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI), which is compiled by Cambridge University researchers.
That is 0.6 percent of the world’s total electricity production, or more than the entire consumption of Norway.