Congressional Democrats are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy to deal with the current proliferation of cryptocurrency mining inside the US. In a letter despatched Friday (through The Guardian), Senator Elizabeth Warren and 5 different lawmakers mentioned the 2 companies ought to work collectively to require crypto mining companies to reveal their vitality use and emissions.
The request comes after the group not too long ago accomplished an investigation that started in the beginning of the yr. According to the letter, knowledge collected from seven of the most important mining firms within the US, together with Stronghold, Bitfury and Riot, signifies they’ll collectively use greater than 1 gigawatt of electrical energy. Put one other manner, that’s virtually sufficient to energy all of the residential buildings in Houston.
Warren and the opposite lawmakers say they’re involved about what all that energy use will imply for the setting and customers. Regarding the previous, they state that emissions knowledge from three of the surveyed firms point out they emit roughly 1.6 million tons of CO2 yearly or the equal of the tailpipe emissions of just about 360,000 vehicles. “Bitcoin miners are using huge quantities of electricity that could be used for other priority end uses that contribute to our electrification and climate goals, such as replacing home furnaces with heat pumps,” the letter states.
On the latter level, the lawmakers cite a 2021 examine from the University of California, Berkeley that estimated crypto mining in upstate New York raised annual electrical energy payments by roughly $165 million for small companies and $79 million for customers. What’s extra, they are saying their investigation doesn’t even scratch the floor of the complete affect of crypto mining on energy use and emissions within the US. “None of the companies provided full and complete information in response to our questions,” they observe.
“The results of our investigation, which gathered data from just seven companies, are disturbing, with this limited data alone revealing that crypto miners are large energy users that account for a significant – and rapidly growing – amount of carbon emissions,” the letter states. By requiring crypto mining companies to reveal their vitality use and emissions, the group says the EPA and Department of Energy might present lawmakers with higher knowledge to tell future coverage selections. The companies have till August fifteenth to answer the request.