Bitcoin Mining Draining the World’s Electric Grid

Bitcoin Mining Draining the World’s Electric Grid. The process of bitcoin mining ensures that the cryptocurrency can be produced and offered to the public. But the process often requires a massive amount of energy due to the need for large computers to stay operational.

This has caused serious concern with regards to how electricity is used around the world. More energy-producing resources are being utilized around the world just to mine the bitcoin. These involve massive computing systems that operate to mine the coin. Such actions are causing concern over how well the world’s electric stores can be utilized for producing the bitcoin as those machines have to consistently stay active.

Power Compare, a British energy cost comparison site, found that the amount of electricity used to mine the currency is greater than the total amount of power consumption in 159 countries around the world.

Specifically, the annual electricity consumption of the bitcoin is around 29.05 TWh. This is about 0.13 percent of the overall electricity usage throughout the world.

The report suggests that the energy used by the bitcoin is greater than the energy used in more than twenty European countries. Ireland, Iceland, Croatia and many former Yugoslavian states have used less energy per month in recent time than what was used around the world for bitcoin mining needs.

Power Compare also says that the demand for bitcoin mining is only rising, thus making the threat to the world’s electric grids greater. In the last month, the amount of energy used for bitcoin mining went up by 30 percent.

An interesting revelation through the study says that many of the more civilized countries where electricity is readily available still use more energy than what is used for mining bitcoins. The energy used for the bitcoin is less than 10 percent of the energy consumption in the United States, China, Japan, the United Kingdom and Canada. That bitcoin mining total is less than 30 percent of what is consumed in Mexico, Australia, Argentina and Saudi Arabia.

Also, there are only three countries in Africa that use more energy than the bitcoin. South Africa, Egypt and Algeria all use more energy. Most countries around Africa use less than a third of the energy the bitcoin uses in a typical month.

This study reveals that the bitcoin is very popular and will continue to be mined. However, it is also clear that the energy used could put the world at harm as more resources are being used in the process of making it work.

Still, some points suggest that the impact of the bitcoin on the environment could be minimal. The development of solar powered-mining farms and even wind energy locations could help ensure renewable energy is used when mining the coin. Also, the number of bitcoins left to actually mine is declining as 16.7 million of the possible 21 million bitcoins have already been mined. Still, it could take several years or even decades before that maximum could actually be reached. This is due to the process for mining such coins becoming more complex as fewer coins are available.