As more people start to mine the bitcoin to acquire it, there are concerns that the amount of power being used by the bitcoin is too high. This especially comes as the website BitcoinEnergyConsumption.com is reporting that the amount of energy used by bitcoin miners has increased substantially over the past year.
The website states that the bitcoin energy consumption index a year ago was at about 9 TWh used per year. A TWh is a terawatt-hour, a measurement of one trillion watts of power or a thousand gigawatts being used at a period of time.
As of January 13, that consumption index is listed at 40.6 TWh per year. This means that the amount of power used by bitcoin miners around the world has increased by more than four times over the past year.
The site also says that while revenues from bitcoin mining around the world is listed at about $15.32 billion per year, the estimated cost to mine the coin is at $2 billion per year. This means that the expenses associated with getting the currency to be mined will be very high. However, the revenue could potentially decline as the value of the bitcoin changes. The bitcoin has been extremely volatile in recent time with the value changing thousands of dollars at a time.
The total value of energy used per year was calculated based on mining revenues with estimates on what part is spent on energy and how much money miners pay for every kilowatt of power being used. It is estimated that for every five cents spent on energy that one kilowatt-hour or kWh was utilized.
BitcoinEnergyConsumption.com also states that bitcoin mining functions make up for close to 0.2% of the world’s overall energy consumption. It is equal to about 1% of the United States’ annual energy consumption and nearly two-thirds of energy consumption in the Czech Republic.
Meanwhile, there are a few countries in the world that spend less energy every year than bitcoin miners do. While about 40.6 TWh is spend on bitcoin mining throughout the world, the entire country of Hungary uses about 40.3 TWh of energy every year. New Zealand uses about 41.4 TWh per year while Hong Kong uses around 44 TWh. In short, the bitcoin would be listed at the 57th place if it were to be ranked among countries around the world regarding how much energy is used in a year.
Fortune also states that the bitcoin mining process uses much more energy than Tesla electric vehicles. The site states that the nearly 280,000 Tesla vehicles on the road today used about 1.3 TWh of energy last year.
The statistic comes as miners are being required to use more energy just to get bitcoins produced. With fewer bitcoins available for mining, it becomes harder for those miners to get the currency ready. There are a little more than 16.8 million bitcoins on the market right now. The most that can be potentially produced is 21 million bitcoins. This is a big point that could influence miners over how much money they would spend in the future for energy needs.
