The US Department of Energy is to begin a survey of cryptocurrency mines’ electricity consumption, following years of concern expressed by environmental advocates.
Crypto mining is the process of validating new transactions and generating new tokens – the ‘miners’ receive new cryptocurrency in exchange for use of their computing resources to find solutions to cryptographic problems. These problems have grown more complex over time, requiring more computing resources and cooling systems, and therefore more electricity. Last year, the Rocky Mountain Institute estimated that Bitcoin mining alone consumes 127TWh of electricity – more than that of Norway.
A 2022 study published in Joule estimated that Bitcoin mining is responsible for 0.2% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The vast electricity consumption associated with crypto mining has prompted some interventions, including the Chinese government issuing a ban on mining and ordering financial bodies to stop facilitating transactions in 2021. This led to the US becoming the global centre for crypto mining. Lesser restrictions on crypto mining have been introduced by Canadian provincial and US state authorities. For instance, in 2022, New York State became the first state to restrict crypto mining powered by fossil fuel plants with a two-year moratorium on new permits.
That year, Democratic lawmakers requested that the country’s largest crypto mining companies disclose data on their electricity consumption, but failed to elicit a “full and complete” response from the companies. This led to the lawmakers writing to the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency requesting that they force the companies to comply.
Now, the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) – which collects, analyses and disseminates information about energy use – is set to track electricity consumption by these crypto mining operations.
It will launch a “provisional survey” of select Bitcoin miners, which will be required to provide details of their energy use. Among other questions, the survey will aim to identify what energy sources are being used to power these operations.
“We intend to continue to analyse and write about the energy implications of cryptocurrency mining in the [US],” said Joe DeCarolis, administrator of the EIA, in a press release. “We will specifically focus on how the energy demand for cryptocurrency mining is evolving, identify geographic areas of high growth, and quantify the sources of electricity used to meet cryptocurrency mining demand.”
Speaking to Reuters, EIA representative Glenn McGrath said: “We do think it is a significant source of demand, which is worthy of our efforts to quantify it. However, until we are able to substantiate the activity with better data, we too have more questions than answers.”
He added that the EIA has received requests from a range of sectors to collect data on crypto mining energy use.
