New US bill demands Bitcoin miners declare energy consumption
In a statement released on Thursday, US. Senator Edward J. Markey and Representative Jared Huffman said they had introduced the Crypto-Asset Environmental Transparency Act, which would mandate the disclosure of carbon dioxide emissions from cryptocurrency mining operations using greater than 5 MW of electricity, which includes the vast majority of Bitcoin mining projects.
Energy consumption in the US mining industry will be made public
US. crypto miners would be under additional pressure from a proposed measure that would require them to report their greenhouse gas emissions and highlight the industry’s negative impact on the environment and the electrical system.
Senator Edward Markey has presented legislation that would force crypto miners utilizing more than 5 megawatts of electricity (a threshold that most Bitcoin mining operations would pass) to report emissions and the source of power. The US Environmental Protection Agency would look at the effects of current and future cryptocurrency mining activities, such as the strain they put on the power grid and their dependence on fossil fuels, and recommend policies to state governments to lessen the energy consumption of the industry.
Senator Edward J. Markey and Representative Jared Huffman announced yesterday that they had introduced the Crypto-Asset Environmental Transparency Act, which would mandate the disclosure of carbon dioxide emissions from cryptocurrency mining operations using more than 5 megawatts of power, which is the case for the vast majority of Bitcoin mining projects. The legislation had the support of Senator Jeff Merkley.
The congressmen said that Bitcoin miners consume as much electricity as it would take to power every home in the United States, citing a report from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from August.
How Bitcoin affects the environment
Other cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum and Cardano, are created using proof of stake (POS) rather than proof of work (PoW) as obtained in Bitcoin mining which means they need a lot less energy.
Bitcoin mining consumes about as much energy as Egypt each year as of 2022, according to studies. This amounts to around 100 TWh. In any case, it’s not easy to trace Bitcoin’s carbon impact back to the source of the electricity used in mining.
Bitcoin has negative effects on the environment since it speeds up the rate of global warming. This is because the electricity used in bitcoin mining is sometimes produced by fossil fuel-based power plants using gas and coal. Burning fossil fuels like coal and natural gas releases greenhouse gases that warm the planet and alter the weather. Bitcoin mining like this is expected to account for 0.1% of global GHG emissions by 2022. Second, there’s the air pollution from using coal to generate energy, and third, there’s the e-waste from bitcoin mining machines that break down quickly.
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