Thursday, May 13, 2021 by: Mike Adams
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https://www.afinalwarning.com/518925.html (Natural News) Elon Musk just ignited a firestorm of controversy when he announced Tesla would not longer accept Bitcoin due to the environmental concerns related to Bitcoin mining and its gargantuan energy consumption.
The pro-Bitcoin community erupted in a fierce backlash, claiming that most of Bitcoin’s energy usage comes from renewables, and that the more energy Bitcoin uses, the better it is for the world. As you might have suspected, however,
both claims are patently false.
Bitcoin uses enormous amount of energy, and most of it does not come from renewables, as you’ll see here. Such claims are little more than propaganda from Bitcoin propagandists who need to keep burning more coal to power their enormously wasteful Bitcoin mining ecosystem… but they want to pretend it’s all somehow “green.”
Can you love bitcoin and the environment at the same time? The digital currency depends on so-called miners whose high-powered computers run day and night, soaking up electricity to perform the calculations used to verify transactions. Since almost two-thirds of mining takes place in China, where coal is the biggest source of electricity, that means more emissions. Supporters argue that bitcoin’s carbon output is a drop in the global bucket, and that a switch to pollution-free power sources is already underway and likely to accelerate.
1. How much power is involved?
That’s hard to say. In 2018, BloombergNEF pegged the amount consumed by activities related to bitcoin at 20.5 terawatt-hours of electricity a year. At about the same time, Morgan Stanley was estimating as much as 140TWh. The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance keeps a running estimate of annualised use: It jumped from 6.6TWh at the start of 2017 to 67TWh in October 2020 to 121.9TWh in early February as prices s
Are bitcoinâs ESG credentials impacting its popularity? By Jamie Gordon, 5 May 2021
How bitcoin stacks up from an ESG perspective is becoming an increasing concern for investors after a coal mine shutdown in Xinjiang shone a light on the cryptocurrencyâs operations.
News of the coalmineâs two-day shutdown sent the price of bitcoin tumbling 23% as the digital assetâs global computing power was cut by a third.
Analysis by CoinShares noted flows into digital assets in the week ending 23 April slowed to their lowest level since October 2020 as bitcoin mining issues in Xinjiang saw assets under management (AUM) drop $10bn, down to $54bn.Â
Bitcoin Mining Now Uses More Electricity Than Argentina
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Mining is really not environment friendly, with so many powerful graphics cards rammed into one cramped warehouse and constantly running on full throttle there’s bound to be carbon emissions and very high energy consumption. Recent reports from an energy tracker, being run by the Cambridge University, suggest that bitcoin mining now consumes more electricity than the whole of Argentina. Argentina has around 45 million people.
So Bitcoin mining is taking up more energy than a country that houses around 45 million people. Mining is basically the process of verifying bitcoin transactions and creating them for the user. Due to the high demand and the limited number of bitcoins that can be mined, miners tend to use all the powerful graphics cards they can find. Which results in a setup that consumes hundreds of thousands of Watts.
Apr 29, 2021
Beijing is reportedly examining the energy of âcryptocurrency minersâ within the region, which may come to impact bitcoin mining operations.
Officials in China’s capital of Beijing are conducting examinations of data centers involved in “cryptocurrency mining” to “better understand their impact on energy consumption,” according to a
Although the report refers to cryptocurrency at large, it is well known that China-based companies contribute the majority of bitcoin mining hash rate, controlling over 70% of the network’s total hash rate and consuming a significant amount of energy, according to this map from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index.
Per the report, “The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology on Tuesday sent an ‘emergency notice’ to the city’s data centre operators to report if they’re involved in bitcoin and other cryptocurrency mining businesses. If so, they need to report the amount,