New Research Challenges Bitcoin Mining’s Impact on the Environment

New research published in the The New Scientist challenges previous research by arguing that Bitcoin mining has a smaller carbon footprint than previously thought.

Source: Susanne Köhler and Massimo Pizzol

The previous research accused Bitcoin mining of contributing as much as 63 megatonnes of CO2 per year, but Massimo Pizzol and Susanne Köhler at Denmark’s Aalborg University point out in their paper that the original research made too many assumptions about energy consumption. Pizzol and Köhler show that carbon emissions from electricity generation and mining fractions are not uniform across China, as the original findings argued. Instead, 12.3% of Bitcoin mining comes from Inner Mongolia, which relies on coal for energy production. This then translate to Mongolia contributing 26.2% to Bitcoin’s overall carbon footprint, which is then counterbalanced by mining contributions coming from Sichuan that is able to generate significant electrical supply via…