https://ift.tt/3esKPfk miners generated more than $15 billion in revenue during 2021

And destroyed an unknown amount of the planet in the process. Bitcoin is an environmental disaster.

Currently using over 0.5% of *global* electricity, and rapidly rising, nearly all bitcoin generation comes about through increased fossil fuel generation – this is even true when the bitcoin mining operation is co-located at a renewable plant – the reason is that almost all generation is grid-connected, and the marginal producers on all grids are fossil plants.

If you take power from one place, it has to be made up somewhere else, and that somewhere else will be a coal or gas plant.

The only time this is not true is for curtailed renewable generation, however curtailment is rare and short-lived – just as nature abhors a vacuum, markets abhor curtailment.

“Bitcoin mining consumes 0.5% of all electricity used globally and 7 times Google’s total usage, new report says”

[https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-mining-consumes-0-5-230550638.html](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-mining-consumes-0-5-230550638.html)

“Crypto boom strains Kazakhstan’s coal-powered energy grid”

[https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/crypto-boom-strains-kazakhstans-coal-powered-energy-grid-2021-11-10/](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/crypto-boom-strains-kazakhstans-coal-powered-energy-grid-2021-11-10/)

“Old coal plant is now mining bitcoin for a utility company”

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/09/old-coal-plant-is-now-mining-bitcoin-for-a-utility-company/](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/09/old-coal-plant-is-now-mining-bitcoin-for-a-utility-company/)