Why Bitcoin Is Good For The Planet & Climate, & Free Of Energy Limits To Its Growth
(image by Gustavo Quepón)
The massively polluting, destructive, private banks and financiers, who economically and environmentally rule over and exploit our planet and oppress billions of lower and middle class human beings (banks which Bitcoin is on the verge of outright eliminating) want to deceive you. They would like you to believe that because Bitcoin relies on electricity-intensive computer processing to be 'mined' (created and secured as money) it is somehow environmentally problematic, and will supposedly not be able to find sufficient low cost, clean electricity to support its powerful growth.
Nothing could be further from the truth, and in fact the opposite is true.
As Bitcoin grows, it lifts up existing neglected clean energy sources, directly drives more rapid expansion of new renewable power production, and in the process continuously creates increased supplies of low cost electricity for its own growth. (Renewable generation now provides the world's lowest cost electricity.)
Bitcoin has also begun directly competing with, and helping to gear down, the current US Dollar-based finance-capitalist juggernaut which is ravaging our planet and climate via a huge, quadrillion dollar, debt-based bubble Ponzi scheme, which must devour more and more of nature and people's well being, to pay back debts and interest. Bitcoin allows individuals, businesses and even entire countries to escape the Ponzi and shift their wealth into a safe form of money that does not deteriorate, and that banks cannot control.
Nations like El Salvador, seeing that Bitcoin is providing economic leverage to challenge the old system, have made bold moves to use Bitcoin to break free of US Dollar and global bank hegemony, and are using renewable energy to mine their own Bitcoin. (See extensive links below the article referencing these and other details.)
Bitcoin Compared To Gold Mining
To put Bitcoin into context around energy use and environmental impacts, it is key to compare Bitcoin to gold. In its current stage of development Bitcoin is frequently, and correctly, called "digital gold". Bitcoin is treated much like gold by people and institutional investors who buy it. Similar to gold, Bitcoin has a strictly limited supply that can never increase (21 million Bitcoin) making it an asset which cannot be lowered in value by inflation of its supply. This is why Bitcoin consistently goes up in price as the number of people and institutions buying it increases. In the decade since its creation Bitcoin has been the best performing asset in the global market. People buy Bitcoin to hold a form of money that does not constantly decrease in value over time (as does the US Dollar).
Gold itself, though it serves a similar purpose, does not perform as well because it is bulky, heavy, hard to move around, and requires physical security (vaults, guards, etc) while Bitcoin can be easily stored and transferred in seconds electronically. Gold mining requires more, and far more polluting energy use than Bitcoin mining (you can't mine gold with solar panels) and gold mining also leaves in its wake vast poisonous chemical contamination and direct environmental destruction of land, natural water sources, and wildlife habitat. If savers and investors were to all completely switch from gold to Bitcoin, the climate and the Earth would be far better off. And there is emerging evidence that this is indeed already happening. Investors and savers, are increasingly favoring Bitcoin over gold. This is part of the reason Bitcoin’s value has gone up, while the value of gold has remained flat.
Bitcoin Is Saving Neglected Clean Electricity Sources
Many existing cleaner electricity sources are not being used to full capacity because of changes in electricity demand, and/or because batteries are not yet robust enough to store all excess electricity generated during hours when customer demand is low. These sources have to be 'curtailed' (shut down) to avoid overloading the grid with electricity that will not be drawn out by customers. Such shut downs can mean dramatically less revenue from electricity sales for clean energy facilities. Bitcoin mining solves this problem through buying and using up any electricity that would otherwise have to be geared down, and in turn this helps these facilities make enough revenue to stay economically strong. New York and Costa Rica have shown recent examples of Bitcoin mining being employed to re-energize neglected hydroelectric plants.
Clean Energy Expansion & Scaling Up Renewables To Support Bitcoin's Growth
Bitcoin and other 'Proof of Work' cryptocurrency mining is being used to accelerate clean energy installation, and can also facilitate more rapid adoption of mass transit and building electrification. Unlike battery storage, which is only now becoming cost neutral, Bitcoin, by its very nature, creates proactive immediate income with which to more quickly build larger and/or more widespread solar, wind, and geothermal installations, far beyond the current local need for them.
For example, a small city might be able to build a 50 megawatt solar, battery storage, and heat pump based renewable energy microgrid, and get it to pencil out nicely and be economically sustainable. But if that city were to also insert a large enough mobile Bitcoin mining farm into that project from the start (thereby bringing in immediate income) it could instead build solar panels and batteries to full capacity to use sunlight above and beyond the current electricity need, because the Bitcoin mining farm can eat up and pay for the excess electricity that would normally be 'curtailed'. This could be done until electrified mass transit and natural-gas-to-electric building retrofits come online to take over using the excess generated electricity.
Bitcoin mining enables such electric transportation upgrades and gas-to-electric building retrofits to move forward as quickly as they can be built, because renewable electricity generation will already be installed for them ahead of time (first being used by Bitcoin mining rigs). A city would engage in a contract with Bitcoin miners in which the miners would gradually use less of the renewables, as expanding electrified transportation and building infrastructure draws more and more of that clean electricity.
At the end of the contract, the Bitcoin mining rigs would just pack up and go to another city to help build more microgrid installations, starting the whole process all over again. This can easily continue without end, providing low cost electricity for any Bitcoin mining operation that needs it.
There are so many cities on Earth which need to transition quickly to clean energy, and would benefit from Bitcoin mining contracts to accelerate their installation of renewables, that there is essentially unlimited capacity for Bitcoin to grow while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and helping to save the planet.
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References
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Asks El Salvador to Reject Bitcoin Forever
https://www.livebitcoinnews.com/the-imf-asks-el-salvador-to-reject-bitcoin-forever
El Salvador’s Crypto Mining ‘Volcanode’ Begins Operations
https://www.banklesstimes.com/news/2021/09/29/el-salvadors-crypto-mining-volcanode-begins-operations
Scores Of Global South Nations Join El Salvador Conference On Bitcoin Adoption
https://www.wionews.com/world/el-salvadors-nayib-bukele-promotes-bitcoin-adoption-by-emerging-countries-480023
Costa Rica hydro plant gets new lease on life from crypto mining
https://reuters.com/technology/costa-rica-hydro-plant-gets-new-lease-life-crypto-mining-2022-01-11
Mechanicville, NY hydro plant gets new life
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Mechanicville-hydro-plant-gets-new-life-16299115.php
How Bitcoin Contributions Funded a $1.4M Solar Installation in Zimbabwe
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/01/26/how-bitcoin-contributions-funded-a-14m-solar-installation-in-zimbabwe
Abilene Texas partners with Lancium to build a 200MW Bitcoin farm
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/abilene-texas-approves-lancium-based-bitcoin-farm-hoping-to-make-1bn-in-20-years
What is a microgrid?
https://microgridknowledge.com/microgrid-defined
California Independent System Operator study on the potential for cryptocurrency mining to reduce renewable electricity curtailment
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3452015
Video: 'Bitcoin for Beginners' Andreas Antonopoulos on the crucial importance of Bitcoin to a democratic economic transformation
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Eric Brooks is a full time grassroots environmental and social justice organizer, a keen student of economics and geopolitics, a Bitcoin investor, and an expert in clean energy and climate policy.