E-Mail
IMAGE: Melting of glaciers in Alaska, Greenland, the Southern Andes, Antarctica, the Caucasus and the Middle East accelerated in the mid-90s, becoming the main driver pushing Earth s poles into a sudden. view more
Credit: Credit: Deng et al (2021) Geophysical Research Letters/AGU
WASHINGTON Glacial melting due to global warming is likely the cause of a shift in the movement of the poles that occurred in the 1990s.
The locations of the North and South poles aren t static, unchanging spots on our planet. The axis Earth spins around or more specifically the surface that invisible line emerges from is always moving due to processes scientists don t completely understand. The way water is distributed on Earth s surface is one factor that drives the drift.
Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
China will have to clean up its entire power sector by 2050 if the world is to achieve the Paris Agreement goal of holding global warming to 1.5°C, meaning its carbon emissions must peak much earlier than currently planned.
The country, which is the planet’s biggest emitter, made a surprise pledge last year to reach “carbon neutrality” by 2060, leading to a fresh wave of research on how it can end its huge reliance on coal and green its fast-growing economy.
Advertisement
An analysis published today adds to the growing consensus that China’s electricity sector must be fully decarbonised by 2050. At the start of last year, coal provided around two-thirds of electricity supplies in the country, with renewables, including hydro, at around a quarter.
Some 75% of the world’s bitcoin mining is done in China, where there is cheap electricity and relatively easy access to manufacturers who make specialized hardware, according to the study.
Unlike most forms of currency issued by a single entity like a central bank bitcoin is based on a decentralized network and needs to be “mined.”
This mining on computers uses vast amounts of electricity, especially when conducted on a large scale.
China could end up exceeding its emissions reduction targets as a result of carbon-intensive bitcoin mining, according to a study published this week.
Some 75% of the world’s bitcoin mining is done in China, where there is cheap electricity and relatively easy access to manufacturers who make specialized hardware, according to the study. As a result, the nation’s bitcoin carbon footprint is as big as one of its ten largest cities, the paper claims.
Springtime is coming to the North American cryptocurrency mining industry. With access to robust capital markets, cheap power, a stable political climate and increasing participation of technological innovators, industrial-grade mining operations are burgeoning in the United States and Canada, providing competition to Chinese mining pools that now control more than half of the world’s hashing power.
These new ventures are acutely aware of the need to minimize mining’s carbon footprint. In March, when Neptune Digital Assets and Link Global announced they would develop a new five-megawatt Bitcoin mining facility in Alberta, Canada, for instance, Neptune CEO Cale Moodie cited the “substantial global pressure to develop