Bitcoin mines are increasingly getting problematic on many fronts.
A New York Times investigation recently revealed that bitcoin mines were responsible for the increase in pollution and more expensive electricity bills for everyone near it for the past few years.
The investigation is dubbed as the most comprehensive analysis yet of Bitcoin's impact on the environment and energy system in the US, per The Verge.
Bitcoin Mining Issues Details
The US has become a haven for bitcoin miners worldwide; nearly 17% of all the world's bitcoin miners call the US their home as of April 2021 - a trend that started even before China expelled bitcoin mining from the country, per a CNBC report citing data from Cambridge University.
However, there is little to celebrate if this trend is viewed from an environmental and energy angle. The New York Times' investigation revealed that bitcoin mines use more electricity than the communities surrounding them, driving up pollution from coal and gas power plants and electricity bills for their neighbors.
Let's start with the specifics: the publication found that 34 of the biggest crypto mines in the US use as much as 40 megawatts of power or higher to run their mining operations. This consumption means that every single one of these 34 crypto mines uses at least 30,000 times as much electricity as the average home in the country.
This large need is due to the long hours computers need to stay on to successfully run an algorithm to solve mathematical puzzles and gain a few bitcoins.
To fuel this need for electricity, power grid operators consume as much fossil fuel as needed to power their main and even backup generators, creating the equivalent of 3.5 million gas-powered cars' worth of carbon pollution, per WattTime. These power grid operators must also pay Bitcoin mining companies significant amounts per hour to keep their computers off after midnight or if the system is about to fail.
Two crypto mining companies even revived closed fossil fuel power plants to power their operations exclusively, per an earlier report from The Verge.
This increase in fossil fuel consumption and power generation led to an increase in electricity bills in some areas, with the neighbors of 10 of the 34 mines seeing their bill increase by as much as 5% or $1.8 billion per year, per the energy research and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie for the publication.
Some, if not all, bitcoin mining companies even resell electricity at rates 100 times higher than what its neighboring communities pay, according to Ed Hirs, a professor at the University of Houston who teaches energy economics and a critic of the crypto mining industry.
Calls For Change
Thankfully for Prof. Hirs, many like-minded people want to place regulations on crypto miners in the country. Democratic lawmakers are calling on federal agencies to require crypto companies to divulge information about their operations to meet the Biden administration's climate goals.
Environmental advocates are also spreading awareness about crypto mining and its effects on neighborhoods; some are even filing lawsuits against them, like what happened in New York.
Meanwhile, some crypto mining companies have switched to running in rural areas and are now using renewable sources of electricity to power their operations.
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