Colin Walker, Nicholas School MEM’18
Here’s an update on previous reports about Bitcoin’s energy intensity by myself and Tim. As you might imagine, hearing that crypto-mining’s energy usage surpassed entire countries’ usage turned a lot of heads. Public Radio International (PRI) dug a little deeper, to try to identify better estimates and put those estimates into context. PRI found that Bitcoin energy estimates vary greatly, though a particularly robust (and visually appealing) estimate is the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index (BECI), which tracks daily estimates since February 2017 (see image). Here’s a “fun” fact: in the last month alone, BECI estimates increased from 47 to 54 TWh/yr.
Some context for all you savvy MEMs: Dutch professor Harald Vranken estimates that the entire banking system currently uses 650 TWh/yr, much more than Bitcoin’s current consumption. While unfortunately a global banking system LCA doesn’t exist (get on it, BEs!), we can normalize energy usage as compared to producing fiat currency:
“…it takes about the same amount of energy to produce a 50 Euro bill as it does to power a 60-watt lightbulb for roughly half an hour. Producing the same value of bitcoin would require enough energy to power your house for four days.”