• Bitcoin’s annual electricity consumption adds up to 45.8 TWh (45.800.000.000 kWh)
  • The corresponding annual carbon emissions range from 22.0 to 22.9 MtCO2
  • This level sits between the levels produced by the nations of Jordan and Sri Lanka

src: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542435119302557

a lot of bitcoin infrastructure was build up/is running in China, probably because of cheap energy costs (compared globally)

China only: “According to our Simulation, the annual energy consumption of the Bitcoin Blockchain in China will reach its maximum of 296.59 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2024.

This exceeds the electricity consumption of Italy and the Netherlands in 2016.” by the way, Germany consumed 585 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2018.

As a result, there will be CO2 emissions of 90130.5 metric tons, which is more than the emissions of the Czech Republic and Portugal in 2016, but much less than Germany in 2018.

This corresponds to 10.77 kilograms per 1 dollar of added value.

One small consolation of these robust figures might be that Bitcoin uses a much “greener” energy than most developed countries.

auto translated from: https://bitcoinblog.de/2020/09/30/bitcoin-droht-die-anstrengungen-chinas-zur-reduktion-der-co2-emissionen-zu-unterminieren/

# how many kWh are 1 TWh? (src)
echo '10^12' | bc
1000000000000 Wh
# 1000 Wh = 1kWh
echo '1000000000000/1000' | bc

1 TWh = 1.000.000.000 kWh

# in words:
# 1 TWh are 1 US-billion kWh or 1 DE-Milliarde kWh

“In 2018, total gross U.S. greenhouse gas emissions were 6676.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMT CO2Eq)” (src)

so Bitcoin uses round about 22 MtCO2

how much is 1 MtCO2 ?

Conversion of 1 MMT CO2 (million metric tons of carbon dioxide) to Familiar Equivalents

  • 216,000 passenger cars not driven for one year
  • 114 million gallons of gasoline saved
  • 2.3 million barrels of oil saved
  • One year of electricity use by 128,000 average U.S. households
  • 26,000,000 tree seedlings grown for 10 years
  • 833,000 acres of pine or fir forests absorbing CO 2 for one year
    • so the world wide bitcoin community would need to plant and ecological use (plant more than harvest) a forest of 18.326.000 acres (74162 km2) to balance out the CO2 emissions caused by BitCoin blockchain calculations and mining
    • c’mon guys! this is completely doable! plant and maintain 75000 km2 of forest by 2030! make bitcoin co2 neutral! (#argh) X-D

src: https://web.archive.org/web/20170203035147/https://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/factsheets/1mmtconversion.pdf

backup here: Conversion of 1 MMT CO 2 to Familiar Equivalents – 1mmtconversion.pdf

list of country by co2 emissions:

 

Other gases (emitted less) have also climate changing potential:

Links:

https://www.coindesk.com/carbon-footprint-bitcoin

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