{"id":67884,"date":"2022-09-30T10:11:19","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T07:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=67884"},"modified":"2025-09-07T09:01:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T06:01:27","slug":"scientists-call-bitcoin-digital-oil-because-of-its-climate-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/scientists-call-bitcoin-digital-oil-because-of-its-climate-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists call Bitcoin ‘digital oil’ because of its climate impact"},"content":{"rendered":"

From a climate-damage perspective, Bitcoin acts more like ‘digital oil’ than ‘digital gold’. This is stated in a study<\/a> by researchers in the economics department at the University of New Mexico.<\/p>\n

Researchers found that from 2016 to 2021, for every dollar of Bitcoin’s market value created, there was an average of $0.35 in global climate damage.<\/p>\n

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“On this scale, Bitcoin mining sits somewhere between beef production and crude oil burned as fuel, and is orders of magnitude higher than wind and solar energy,” the study’s authors added.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

They concluded that mining the first cryptocurrency has too many ‘red flags’ to be considered a sustainable sector of the economy. The network’s transition to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm would not radically change the situation, the researchers added.<\/p>\n

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“If the industry does not move from PoW<\/a> to PoS, then this class of scarce digital commodities may need to be regulated. Such a delay is likely to lead to an increase in global climate damage,” the article says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

According to CCAF<\/span><\/a>, the Bitcoin network currently consumes 94 TWh per year. By comparison, the annual energy usage of all refrigerators in the United States amounts to 104 TWh.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, losses in electricity transmission in the United States alone reach 206 TWh per year. This could power the Bitcoin blockchain twice as much, although power demand has fallen by 28% since mid-June.<\/p>\n

According to CCAF, the share of green energy in mining stands at 37.6%<\/span><\/a>. Bitcoin Mining Council in the second quarter of 2022 estimated this figure at 59.5%<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Earlier in September, the White House released report<\/a>, in which it urged regulators to discuss imposing stringent measures on Bitcoin mining due to its large carbon footprint.<\/p>\n

In the same month, the Environmental Working Group, a non-governmental environmental group, said there is a need for transition of Bitcoin to the Proof-of-Stake<\/a> algorithm.<\/p>\n

CCAF calculated that from the inception of the Bitcoin network up to September 21, 2022, Bitcoin miners produced 199.65 million tonnes of CO\u2082e<\/a>. The annual figure stands at 48.35 million tonnes of CO\u2082, representing 0.1% of global emissions.<\/p>\n

Read ForkLog’s Bitcoin news on our Telegram<\/a> \u2014 crypto news, rates and analytics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In terms of climate damage, Bitcoin acts more like ‘digital oil’ than ‘digital gold’, according to researchers at the University of New Mexico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[18,1137,1259,167],"class_list":["post-67884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-bitcoin","tag-cryptocurrency-mining","tag-ecology","tag-research"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"8","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67884"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67886,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67884\/revisions\/67886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}