Truth be told, nobody knows exactly how much energy bitcoin mining consumes globally. Cryptocurrency miners are secretive about their trade, but everyone agrees the electricity use of crypto mining must be very large.
“A glib answer most economists would give is that markets would sort out the problem,” says Alan Shipman, a lecturer of economics at Open University. Let’s unpack that.
It’s not all powered by coal, but it mostly is
One of the early concerns over bitcoin’s electricity use was that almost all of it was sourced at polluting coal power plants in China. It’s likely true that a lot of it does still come from coal power plants, but in a bid to cut pollution the Chinese government has taken steps (paywall) in the past year, telling local utilities not to give crypto miners low-cost deals on electricity. The upshot is that many miners have since moved out of China.
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