Skip to Content
Blockchain

No, Bitcoin probably won’t doom our climate—but we have no idea how much electricity it uses

October 30, 2018

Nobody knows how much electricity Bitcoin is using now, or will use in the future. A new analysis in Nature Climate Change makes the most dramatic claim yet regarding Bitcoin’s growing environmental impact: that carbon dioxide emissions from Bitcoin mining alone could be enough to increase global temperatures by 2 °C within just a couple of decades.

The paper has drawn sharp rebukes from Bitcoin aficionados and energy experts who have criticized its assumptions and methodology. But let’s face it: Bitcoin is using a massive amount of electricity—we just lack the data to properly assess its scale and impact.

To arrive at their conclusion, the authors of the new paper first determined the electricity consumption of Bitcoin mining rigs and the emissions from electricity production in the countries where those machines are located (commonly China, where coal is particularly cheap). Then they looked at the rate of adoption of broadly used technologies like credit cards, electricity, and dishwashers. They found that if Bitcoin sees adoption at a pace that is the average of those rates, it will cause catastrophic global warming by the early 2030s.

Critics argue that extrapolating Bitcoin’s electricity use from today’s data doesn’t make sense, since the mining process is designed to change over time. Many observers believe that technological innovations, like the lightning network, will make Bitcoin more energy efficient.

But besides that, the growth of Bitcoin mining will depend on additional factors, including Bitcoin’s price, the cost of electricity, the efficiency of the mining rigs, and government policies, points out Jonathan Koomey, a researcher who has written extensively about the electricity use of data centers.

It’s hard enough knowing how much electricity Bitcoin is using today, writes Koomey, since the best estimates don’t include much, if any, data from real facilities. “If we’re to get a better handle on Bitcoin electricity use, such field studies and data are vital,” he says.

 

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language

A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.