A recent study revealed that bitcoin’s carbon footprint is officially higher than that of beef production. But why? Well, the thing about bitcoin mining is that it requires a large amount of computational power – which also demands a lot of electricity.
The mere act of generating electricity burns a huge amount of fossil fuels, which releases toxic greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These gases are responsible for climate change, seeing as they trap heat in the atmosphere which would otherwise be able to escape. While oxygen and nitrogen can hold onto heat and absorb radiation – greenhouse gases cannot.
Bitcoin mining’s impact on the environment is so severe, that a number of influential public figures have taken a stand against it. Even Tesla tycoon, Elon Musk, ceased to accept bitcoin as payment out of concern for bitcoin’s impact on the environment.
Determining BTC’s carbon footprint means we need to look at the global estimate of bitcoin miners’ locations, as well as how much electricity they’re using and the regional CO2e emission coefficients (by generation type). By this standard, the CO2 emitted in 2021 was 126 times higher than 2016. In 2022, the bitcoin network was said to have released almost 50 million tons of C02, and while that is around 14% lower than that of 2021, we clearly still have a long way to go.
This is why so many bitcoin miners around the world are joining bitcoin mining pools, especially green mining pools like PEGA Pool. In fact, we are the world’s first and only eco-friendly mining pool to date and are planting trees in an effort to offset the damage caused by the industry’s CO2 emissions.
Why trees? Because they absorb carbon dioxide from the air around them and create new oxygen in return. Trees are key players in the global fight against climate change, and while we’d need around 300 million trees to see a real and significant difference, we know that numbers like this are not impossible to achieve. In 2019, Ethiopia planted more than 350 million trees in a single day, smashing the existing world record.
In a mining pool, you can join forces with other miners to mine blocks as a collective and lower bitcoin’s carbon footprint. With PEGA Pool, bitcoin miners can save 50% on pool fees if they mine using renewable energy. We are working to reduce bitcoin mining’s impact on the environment.