Bitcoins energy consumption compared to other similar global industries: surprise!

shortsegments in #hive-167922 • 3 years ago

How does the Bitcoin Mining Industry's energy usage compare to other industries?

I think it is time to reframe the whole discussion of Bitcoin energy consumption.
The current discussion focuses on comparing Bitcoin energy consumption to one country at a time, and ranking it in a list ranking countries by energy consumption.
I think this approach is not logical because Bitcoin isn’t mined in only one country.
It is mined worldwide, and used worldwide.
So why would we compare world wide Bitcoin energy consumption to one countries energy consumption?
[source for title picture above] (https://pixabay.com/images/search/bitcoin%20electricity/)

Think about it for a moment:

If we were comparing the energy consumption of electric cars versus the energy consumption of gasoline powered cars.
We would not compare the energy consumption of all electric cars in the world to energy consumption of gasoline cars in one country.
And we definately would not look at that comparison and say that because energy consumption in electric cars worldwide is greater then the energy consumption of all the gasoline cars in Spain, electric cars are bad because they consume to much electricity.
No, we wouldn't do that because it's not logical because it's not an apples to apples comparison.
We would compare the energy consumption of electric cars in every country added up together to gasoline car energy consumption in every country added up.
In other words we would compare the Global energy consumption of electric cars to the global energy consumption of gasoline cars, because that would be logical.
That is why I say that if we want to assess the energy consumption of Bitcoin, we must compare global Bitcoin energy consumption to the global energy consumption of other industries.
Then we have logical comparisons, which can give us meaningful data.

Pause to think about this please.

So I have looked for articles comparing the global energy consumption of Bitcoin with the global energy consumption of similar industries like Gold Mining and jewelry Industry, or banks, as in the Finance and Insurance industry.
I think you will be surprised by what I found.

First start with two questions:

Question number one is how much energy do Bitcoin mining and blockchain transactions consume in one year globally.
Question number two How much energy are other similar commodities and similar industries consuming in one year.
#Note: An equally important measurement is how much carbon dioxide does Bitcoin mining and transacting produce each year. So I will also add that number.

How much energy does Bitcoin consume and how much carbon does it produce

Cambridge Bitcoin Energy Consumption (CBECI) estimates Bitcoin annual energy usage at 79 terawatt hours (79 TWH per year.)
Bitcoin produces 22.1 Megatonnes of carbon per year.

Now to decide if Bitcoin is naughty or nice...

We will check our list and just like Santa Claus we will check it twice: Looking at both energy consumption and carbon dioxide production. To answer the second question; How much energy are the other commodities and industries producing.

Bitcoin versus Building and Construction Industry

Building and Construction

Electricity 167,472 terrawatt hours (167,472 TWH)
Bitcoin: 79TWh, or 0.19% of the building and construction industry

Building and Construction Globally

36,440 Megatonnes of CO2 per year
Bitcoin: 22.1 Megatonnes of CO2 per year, or 0.18% of the building and construction industry

Source: International Energy Association: Report: Key World Staistics

How does that look on a graph?

You know a picture is as good as a thousand words:
Bitcoin is the very small number on the far left!

source

NEXT: BITCOIN’S ENERGY USE COMPARED TO THE TRANSPORTATION INDUSTRY

Transportation Industry Globally
Energy Consumption equals 34,582 TWh.
Bitcoin consumption equals 79 TWh, or 0.23% of the transportation industry

Transportation CO2 production equals 8,096 Megatonnes.
Bitcoin CO2 production equals 22.1 Megatonnes, or 0.28% of the transportation industry

source
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How does that look on a graph:

Thats Bitcoin, the small number on the far left!

Source

NEXT BITCOIN’S ENERGY USE COMPARED TO THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY

This data is from a famous article produced by the European Journal of Public Health September 2020, “Health Care’s Climate Footprint: The Health Sector Contribution And Opportunities For Action,”

Bottom Line:

Healthcare consumes 3,716 TWh of electricity and produces 1,603 Megatonnes of CO2.
Bitcoin consumes 79 TWH and Bitcoin produces 22.1 Megatonnes of CO2.

Bitcoin uses only 2.1% of the energy healthcare uses, and emits only 1.4% of the CO2 healthcare does.

NEXT Bitcoin versus Gold mining and jewelry industries

Gold mining and jewelry industry consumes 265 TWh of electricity annually and produces 145 megatonnes of CO2 annually
• Bitcoin: consumes 79 TWh of electricity versus 265 TWH, or 29.8% of the gold mining and jewelry industries.
• Bitcoin: produces 22.1 Megatonnes of CO2 versus 145, or 15.2% of the gold mining and jewelrey industries.
• source

NEXT Bitcoin versus the Finance and Insurance Industry

Studies done by the University of California at Berkeley, using the CoolClimate Network Model
Finance and Energy Industry consumes electricity 4,939 TWH annually
Finance and Energy Industry produces 1,368 megatonnes of carbon dioxide Co2 annulaly/
Bitcoin consumes 79 TWh or 1.6% of Finance and Insurance Industry does
Bitcoin produces 22.1 Megatonnes of CO2 or 1.6% of Finance and Insurance Industry
source

NEXT Bitcoin versus Global Military-Industrial Complex

Global Military Industrial Complex consumes 6,691 TWh annually
Global Military Industrial complex produces 2,500 Megatones of carbon dioxide annually
Bitcoin electricity consumption 79 TWh or 1% of Global Military Industrial complex
Bitcoin carbon dioxide production 22.1 Megatonnes or 0.88% of Global Military Industrial complex .

• source

Now let us look at the big picture.

How does Bitcoin compare to all these industries on the same graph: Gold and jewelry, Finance and Insurance, Building and Construction, Healthcare, Transportation and Healthcare graphically.

How does the multiple industry comparison look on a graph?

This graph has all these industries and Bitcoin on this graph. Bitcoin is the smallest consumer of energy of all of them on the far left.

Source

Last Words

Bitcoin is a global phenomenon, and to accurately measure and compare it to other industries we must compare global data to global data.
Once we do this we find that Bitcoin actually consumes a very small amount of energy when compared to other similar global commodity industries like Gold, Finance, Healthcare, Transportation, the Military and the Building & Construction Industry.
This also allows us to see that banning Bitcoin on the basis of it’s energy consumption makes no sense because there are no bans on industries which consume far more electricity.
I think this data suggests that it is more logical and fair to apply existing laws to Bitcoin.
In closing I suggest you look at this graph below one more time, Bitcoin is on the far left, the smallest number by far for energy consumption.
I ask you if banning Bitcoin will make a significant impact on global energy consumption?
What do you think?
A picture is worth a thousand words :)

This post was written by @shortsegments. He has been writing about cryptocurrency, blockchain and Bitcoin for 5 years.

You may also want to read this post about mining Bitcoin and electricity costs ;

https://leofinance.io/@readthisplease/bitcoin-mining-and-cost-of-electricity

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References

Buildings Status Report for Building and Construction 2020 Report
International Energy Associations Report titled World Energy Statistics reports
United Nations Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction
Bitcoins energy use compared to other industries
Link: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/bitcoin-energy-use-compare-industry
European Journal of Public Health September 2020, “Health Care’s Climate Footprint: The Health Sector Contribution And Opportunities For Action
Link: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/bitcoin-energy-use-compare-industry