Bitcoin Is Greener Than Ever — 3 Key Takeaways From the Latest Bitcoin Mining Council Report | by Sylvain Saurel | Jan, 2022
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Bitcoin consumes only 0.14% of the world’s primary energy. This represents 220 TWh per year, compared to 40,406 TWh per year for China, or 24,386 TWh for America. For the whole world, the total is 154,750 TWh:
You’ve probably heard Bitcoin’s opponents say that its network consumes as much energy as this or that country. Well, the Bitcoin network accounts for only 2.1% of the electricity produced in America. That’s a far cry from the disaster that opponents of the Bitcoin network are always trying to portray to the general public.
The Bitcoin Mining Council’s report also puts Bitcoin’s electricity consumption in perspective with respect to various industries:
Gold mining, for example, consumes twice as much electricity as Bitcoin mining with a consumption of 571 TWh per year. Aviation is at 4,063 TWh per year. The world of finance and insurance is very close to 5,000 TWh per year. Finally, residential buildings is the most consuming industry at 26,481 TWh per year.
This report also highlights a rapid improvement in the efficiency of Bitcoin Mining machines. A 9% quarter-on-quarter increase is noted. This efficiency had already increased by 23% and 15% in the previous two quarters:
Energy efficiency has increased 58-fold in the last 8 years. The Bitcoin Mining Council expects it to increase threefold over the next four years and then twofold at the end of the next four years:
On top of that, there is the Halving process, which halves the incentive to consume energy. Halving means that the number of BTC units distributed to miners is halved every four years.
The last point that caught my attention in this Bitcoin Mining Council report is that 58.5% of the energy consumed by the Bitcoin network worldwide comes from renewable energy. In the previous report, this figure was estimated at 57.7%:
In the case of Bitcoin Mining companies that are members of the Bitcoin Mining Council alone, we even reach 66.1% use of electricity from renewable energy. No country or industry in the world has a better carbon footprint than Bitcoin.
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