Bitcoin price is constantly in crypto news, so is Bitcoin’s energy consumption. With most of the authorities fighting to implement more regulations and lesser subsidy to the miners due to their outrageous demand for electricity, the bitcoin mining appears to do more harm than good to our ecological system.
However, on the flip side of the assertion made above, Bitcoin mining can be sustainable and can even be used to neutralize the carbon footprint of other energy intensive processes. But this can be pulled off only under the right set of circumstances. One can thereby, expect mining to produce a minimal carbon output. Moreover, its energy emissions can be recycled for other eco-friendly endeavors.
Bitcoin uses a hash algorithm known as proof of work to order and to officially add transactions on its blockchain. So miner, the people who are responsible for processing transaction, run high electricity demanding computations on their computers to crack the tough math algorithm, which once solved will add a new block. As a reward, the miner will be reward with the bitcoin. As a result, the network attracts more value and miners who compete with each other trying to locate a new block. This results in far more energy investment required solve these equations.
If the downsides of this power consumption are to be seen, then the Bitcoin mining consumes more energy than a small country (e.g., Bulgaria, North Korea), which could be anywhere from 1 to 35 terawatt-hours per year.
On the other hand, some people have argued that innovations like the Lightning Network will rule out this problem, while other critics claim that a proof-of-stake, distributed consensus mechanism could prove to be more ecologically sound.
Thus the process of Bitcoin mining is torn between two sides of an argument, those who think it is highly unsustainable and needs be fixed, and those who think nothing needs to be fixed.
Hydroelectric power has emerged at the top of the crypto conservationist’s table. Chinese mining farms have long drawn cheap surplus energy from hydroelectric dams. One of the oldest of these, BW, for instance, helped to pioneer the practice. Founded in 2014, the mining operation has drawn renewable energy to power its rigs since 2015.
Although its roots lie in China, hydroelectric mining has found its way into other regions as well that offer cheap river-run energy. In Austria, the Damblon sisters at HydroMiner have done enough research to harness the output of hydroelectric dams in the alps for their own operation. The sisters founded the HydroMiner Limited Company in 2016 alongside a posse of Viennese miners.
By 2017, the team established its first facility in Schönberg, Austria, which draws a base energy output of 290 kWh for its 120 mining units. Their second mining farm in Waidhofen an der Ybbs, Austria, receives a consistent supply of 600 kWh for its 250 Antmine 29s and 1152 GPUs. The team built this second farm thanks to funds from its H2o token ICO. Each H2o token guarantees 5 kWh worth of mining time, which holders can redeem for any cryptocurrency the facilities mine using the project’s mining portal.
With the ICO proceeds, HydroMining will look to establish a facility outside of Austria, either in Canada, Georgia or some other country with low-cost, clean energy. According to the Damblons, hydroelectric energy in Austria is 85 percent cheaper than average electricity costs. They can pump energy into their mining rigs for 3-5 cents per kWh, and the Austrian climate is ideal for keeping their hardware cool.
To quote another example, NastyMining, an Arizona-based bitcoin mining organization harnesses solar and wind energy to run its mining rigs. Since 2017, NastyMining has ramped up its commitment to these sustainable mining practices, utilizing a wind turbine donated by YoBit exchange and a generous donation of solar panels from SunPower solar company to run the ASIC rigs in its facility.
Thus, there are certain innovators in the cryptocurrency and mining industry who are trying to leverage certain sources of renewable energy in order to create a fix for the electricity problem, thereby paving a way for the future miners, who won’t have to step back because of the resources problem.
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