Bitcoin mining estimated to represent 0.9% of global carbon emissions in 2030

Study from the New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) has projected that Bitcoin’s energy consumption will remain below 0.5% of the global total over the next decade.

Bitcoin mining estimated to represent 0.9% of global carbon emissions in 2030

NYDIG published its 'Bitcoin Net Zero' research paper this month, finding that Bitcoin’s energy consumption and carbon emissions will not surge in the coming years following the adoption & its use.

The study, which was penned by Castle Island Ventures partner Nic Carter and NYDIG founder Ross Stevens, elaborates how the network’s carbon emission may change in the future, depending on fluctuations in Bitcoin’s price, mining difficulty, and energy consumption.

The study’s most aggressive outlook found that Bitcoin’s emission would still represent a tiny fraction of the global total even if the price of BTC went through the roof by the year 2030, concluding:

“Even in our most aggressive, high price, scenario, in which Bitcoin reaches $10 trillion by 2030, its emissions amount to only 0.9 percent of the world’s total, and its energy outlay is just 0.4 percent of the global total.”

The report projects the future growth of Bitcoin mining based on the data from the year 2020. The researchers calculated the historical electricity consumption of Bitcoin miners as a function of the network hashrate and machine efficiency.

As of now, BItcoin mining uses 101 TWh per year or 0.45% of global electricity. According to Cambridge University, the Bitcoin network consumes more energy than the entire country of the Philippines. However, the university also found that Bitcoin consumes less electricity total than all the refrigerators in the U.S. combined, and only 4.6% of the total energy used for residential air-conditioning worldwide.

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