Bitcoin mines contradict China's zero carbon goals
China is home to over 75% of the world's bitcoin mines, and they are power hungry.
REUTERS - DADO RUVIC
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
Digital is polluting, and if left unchecked digital currency could even derail Beijing's zero carbon targets.
In any case, this is what a study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences published by the journal
Nature
says
.
China is home to over 75% of the world's bitcoin mines, and they are power hungry.
Publicity
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With our permanent special correspondent in China,
Stéphane Lagarde
Even more energy-intensive than the data center, the Chinese bitcoin mines which supply 80% of the global cryptocurrency trade should consume 297 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024;
this is more than what was used by a country like Italy in 2016, according to this study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, published in partnership with the universities of Surrey, Tsinghua and Cornell.
The researchers' results are bad news, as they run counter to the Chinese president's announcement last year.
Beijing has set itself the goal
of peaking carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.
40% of bitcoin produced by coal
Cryptocurrency mining is very energy intensive.
Miners are using increasingly powerful computers capable of performing the complex equations that allow bitcoin transactions.
Hence their installation in Chinese provinces and regions where electricity is cheaper: Yunnan in the South, Sichuan and Xinjiang in the West, but also and especially the North.
8% of these mines are in Inner Mongolia, more than in the United States as a whole (7.2%).
Knowing that 40% of them still run on coal.
“
Carbon emissions from this emerging industry have a potentially negative effect on China's climate neutrality goals
,” said Jiang Shangrong, lead author of the study cited by
China Sciences Daily
“
Intensive Blockchain Operations in China can quickly become a threat
, continues Wang Shouyang.
And that could potentially undermine the effort to reduce emissions,
”
adds the co-author of the study
and also a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Virtual yuan
Inner Mongolia got the message.
This Chinese autonomous region still very dependent on coal did not sufficiently limit its energy consumption in 2019. Wrath of the central power, Hohhot now intends to ban the exploitation of bitcoin by the end of April.
Miners could attempt to evade regulations by moving to provinces, including hydro-rich southern China.
Bitcoin production could also
conflict with the digital yuan
.
While the Chinese authorities have supported the development of Blockchain technology that helps secure bitcoin transactions, they have so far limited the trade in digital currencies to prevent money laundering.
The People's Bank of China plan to pave the way for the virtual yuan could go even further, according to
Bloomberg
, since it includes a provision prohibiting individuals and entities from making and selling digital currency.
►
To read also: Bitcoin: a currency of the future?
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