In 2021, when China banned bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, crypto miners flocked to the United States in search of cheap electricity and looser regulations. In a few short years, the U.S.’s share of global crypto mining operations grew from 3.5 percent to 38 percent, forming the world’s largest crypto mining industry.
The impacts of this shift have not gone unnoticed. From New York to Kentucky to Texas, crypto mining warehouses have vastly increased local electricity demand to power their 24/7 computing operations. Their power use has stressed local grids, raised electricity bills for nearby residents, and kept once-defunct fossil fuel plants running. Yet to date, no one knows exactly how much electricity the U.S. crypto mining industry uses.
That’s about to change as federal officials launch the first comprehensive effort to collect data on cryptocurrency mining’s energy use. This week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an energy statistics arm of the federal Department of Energy, is requiring 82 commercial crypto miners to report how much energy they’re consuming. It’s the first survey in a new program aiming to shed light on an opaque industry by leveraging the agency’s unique authority to mandate energy use disclosure from large companies.
“This is nonpartisan data that’s collected from the miners themselves that no one else has,” said Mandy DeRoche, deputy managing attorney in the clean energy program at the environmental law nonprofit Earthjustice. “Understanding this data is the first step to understanding what we can do next.”
Wow, shocking to are some miners using fossil fuels. Most mining is powered by renewable energy.
We really need a carbon tax.
Exactly. A carbon tax fixes a ton of other problems as well (top sources of greenhouse gas emissions):
Oh, and by biggest impact isn’t on average people, but on industries that have money to invest in reducing their own costs. It’ll probably make some products more expensive in the short term, but it’ll also create jobs for people who can reduce carbon footprint, and the increased costs should be temporary as companies adjust to the tax.
A carbon tax is one of my top political priorities, perhaps second only to election reform.
What about sanctioning countries that are committing genocide?
No, sanctions don’t seem to work consistently and often backfire. If a country has already resorted to genocide, I highly doubt sanctions are going to convince them to stop.
Thats a generalization. Israel absolutely couldnot continue their genocide without the US sending them money and weapons. Sanctions in this case would absolutely stop that and bring an end to the genocide.
Well yeah, you made a general statement (countries committing genocide), so I made a general response.
In the case of Israel, maybe it would, but that’s because Israel needs the US and Europe for trade because much of the rest of the world hates them. >50% exports go to US and EU, and just under half of imports come from US and EU.
But if we sanction Israel, they’ll likely increase trade dramatically with China, which isn’t in US interests, especially since we’ve given them so much military tech that China would be very interested in getting access to. Israel isn’t just going to roll over, they’ll take any action they can to continue their current agenda, just like Russia is doing despite crippling Western sanctions.
That’s what the whole article I linked is about. Sanctions can work, but they often backfire as well. It’s probably easier and more effective to make military equipment sales contingent on Israel reforming how they conduct their war.
China also opposes Israel’s war crimes. And Israel couldn’t support their population with trade alone. They’re dependent on money from the US just to keep food and water flowing
we really need to outlaw bitcoin. its stupid
We just need to execute all crypto bros. Greedy, boring arseholes.