{"id":220722,"date":"2021-04-06T20:15:32","date_gmt":"2021-04-06T17:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/chinas-bitcoin-mining-rush-risks-derailing-climate-goals\/"},"modified":"2021-04-06T20:15:32","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T17:15:32","slug":"chinas-bitcoin-mining-rush-risks-derailing-climate-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/chinas-bitcoin-mining-rush-risks-derailing-climate-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"#China’s bitcoin mining rush risks derailing climate goals"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#China’s bitcoin mining rush risks derailing climate goals<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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\n The price of a bitcoin surged fivefold in the past year, reaching a record high of over $61,000 in March
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China’s electricity-hungry bitcoin mines that power nearly 80 percent of the global trade in cryptocurrencies risk undercutting the country’s climate goals, a study in the journal Nature Communications<\/i> said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are minted by solving puzzles using powerful computers that consume enormous amounts of electricity\u2014much of it produced by coal plants.<\/p>\n

The Nature Communications<\/i> study found that unchecked, China’s bitcoin mines will generate 130.50 million metric tons of carbon emissions by 2024\u2014close to the annual greenhouse gas emissions from Italy or oil-rich Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

Chinese companies with access to cheap electricity and hardware handled 78.89 percent of global bitcoin blockchain operations as of April 2020, the study said.<\/p>\n

This involves minting new coins and keeping track of cryptocurrency transactions.<\/p>\n

About 40 percent of China’s bitcoin mines are powered with coal, while the rest use renewables, the study said.<\/p>\n

But the coal-guzzling rigs are so large they could end up undermining Beijing’s pledge to peak carbon emissions before 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2060, it warned.<\/p>\n

“The intensive bitcoin blockchain operation in China can quickly grow as a threat that could potentially undermine the emission reduction effort,” co-author Wang Shouyang from the Chinese Academy of Science<\/a>s told AFP.<\/p>\n

The government should focus on upgrading the power grid to ensure a stable supply from renewable sources, Wang said.<\/p>\n

“Since energy prices in clean-energy regions of China are lower than that in coal-powered regions… miners would then have more incentives to move to regions with clean energy.”<\/p>\n

This year the crypto-mining industry is expected to use 0.6 percent of the world’s total electricity production, or more than the annual use of Norway, according to Cambridge University’s Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index.<\/p>\n

The price of a bitcoin has surged fivefold in the past year, reaching a record high of over $61,000 in March, and is now hovering just below the $60,000 mark.<\/p>\n

Given the profits available, Wang said imposing carbon taxes was not enough to deter miners.<\/p>\n

China banned trading in cryptocurrencies in 2019 to prevent money laundering, but mining is permitted.<\/p>\n

Coal-rich regions are now pushing out bitcoin miners as they struggle to curb emissions. <\/p>\n

Last month, Inner Mongolia announced plans to end the power-hungry practice of cryptocurrency mining by the end of April after the region failed to meet annual energy consumption targets. <\/p>\n

The region accounted for eight percent of the computing power needed to run the global blockchain\u2014a set of online ledgers to record bitcoin transactions. <\/p>\n

That is higher than the amount of computing power dedicated to blockchain in the United States.<\/p>\n

Nasdaq-listed Bitmain, which operates one of the biggest cryptocurrency mining pools in the world, said they were shifting operations in Inner Mongolia to areas with more hydropower like Yunnan.\n <\/p>\n\n

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Why does bitcoin use 10 times more electricity than Google?\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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\n More information:<\/strong>
\n Shangrong Jiang et al. Policy assessments for the carbon emission flows and sustainability of Bitcoin blockchain operation in China, Nature Communications<\/i> (2021). DOI: 10.1038\/s41467-021-22256-3<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

\n \u00a9 2021 AFP<\/p>\n

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Citation<\/strong>:
\n China’s bitcoin mining rush risks derailing climate goals (2021, April 6)
\n retrieved 6 April 2021
\n from https:\/\/techxplore.com\/news<\/a>\/2021-04-china-bitcoin-derailing-climate-goals.html<\/p>\n

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