Seven crypto miners are showing “disturbing” energy use, lawmakers say

Senator Elizabeth Warren and other lawmakers have asked federal regulators to instruct cryptocurrency miners to disclose their emissions and energy use.

Democratic lawmakers presented “disturbing” findings from a study of the environmental impact of crypto mining in a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy on Friday.

Seven companies including Riot, Bitdeer, Bit Digital and Stronghold have combined capacity to use almost the same amount of electricity required to power all homes in Houston, Texas – the fourth most populous city in the United States – their data was found.

“Our study suggests that the overall US crypto-mining industry is likely to be problematic for energy and emissions,” lawmakers wrote. They believe that disclosing this information will support public policy decisions such as monitoring energy use and providing data on national and regional grid loads.

The letter highlighted lawmakers’ concerns that cryptocurrency mining in the United States has exploded since the attack in China – once the world’s largest mining center – with the nation’s global share of mining increasing nearly ten times in the last four years.

They also raised concerns about how mining has triggered a jump in electricity costs for small businesses and residents. For example, residents of Plattsburgh, New York saw prices jump by $ 300 in the winter of 2018 after bitcoin miners found electricity there “plentiful and cheap.”

Some miners have struggled with the downturn in the crypto market. Compass Mining recently faced charges by being the host company Dynamics Mining for an alleged failure to pay an electricity bill, but the company denied these allegations.

The legislators also wrote that the total annual global power consumption associated with Bitcoin and Ethereum is estimated to be around 300 TWh (terawatt hours) in May 2022, corresponding to the annual power consumption in the UK.

“And this power consumption has major emission consequences: the energy used to extract Bitcoin and Ethereum in 2021 resulted in nearly 80 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions,” they said.

The environmental impact of bitcoin mining is the subject of debate, with some miners welcoming further investigation.

Ethereum’s energy consumption is expected to fall by 99.95% after The Merge, as soon as September.

Democrats have previously written to the US Environmental Protection Agency in May, describing how the amount of emissions produced by bitcoin mining corresponds to that in a small country like Greece. But the Bitcoin Mining Council lobby group punched holes in that letter, saying it contained several inaccuracies – such as a claim that “a single Bitcoin transaction can drive the average US household for a month.”

In June, the New York legislature passed a bill that would temporarily ban new bitcoin mining operations that use proof-of-work authentication methods for blockchain transactions. That bill could have been signed into law or vetoed by Gov. Kathy Hochul, but she refused to commit and said her team would look closely at the bill in the coming months.

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