In a recent report, the White House released an assessment of the environmental impact of crypto mining. There are several measures that are recommended in the report to limit the energy consumption of proof of work mining, primarily by establishing standards for crypto miners.
What are the Effects?
As part of his Executive Order 14067, issued on March 9, 2022, President Biden signed an executive order that outlines specific measures to ensure the responsible development of digital assets in keeping with climate change objectives and for the benefit of all Americans. According to Executive Order 14067, this report provides the results of the assessment.
It was stated in the report that between 2018 and 2022, the global crypto-asset economy is expected to grow at an exponential rate, with estimates of annualized electricity usage doubling to quadrupling in that period. The published estimates in August 2022 indicate that crypto-assets will consume between 120 and 240 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, a level that is greater than the total annual electricity consumption in a significant number of countries, including Argentina, Australia, and many others.
The amount of electricity you save by using a data center is equivalent to 0.4% to 0.9% of the total electricity you use on an annual basis and is comparable with the annual electricity you save by using a conventional data center.
According to the report, miners have made significant contributions to the industry through innovations. As part of the article, the author discussed how flared, and vented methane is beneficial to the climate since it is used in mining.
There was also a call for the mining industry to provide better data on its use of clean energy, and the report suggested that miners could build zero-carbon energy capacity that produces more electricity than their crypto-mining facility needs or will be required to do so as a condition of their employment.
Additionally, the report mentions that blockchain is being used to enable California’s Flex Alert system, which is one emerging use of blockchain technology in energy management. It is designed to enable grid operators to push out requests for energy conservation during a grid outage, to interact securely with the customers to collect their participation rates, and to understand the participation rates while ensuring that customer confidentiality is maintained.
In conclusion, the paper concludes that it is possible to utilize blockchain and distributed ledger technologies to facilitate the development of energy and environmental markets, particularly carbon markets, distributed energy resource coordination, and general supply chain management.
