The mining of %Bitcoin ($BTC) has become less environmentally friendly since the Chinese government declared the practice illegal, according to a new study.
Mining refers to the process of creating new Bitcoins using banks of powerful, energy-intensive computers.
The share of renewable energy powering mining fell from 41.6% in 2020 to 25.1% last August as miners stopped using Chinese hydro electricity and moved to the U.S. and other countries where gas supplies much of the computing power needed to mine for %Cryptocurrencies.
Researchers estimate that Bitcoin mining now causes carbon emissions comparable to those emitted by the country of Greece.
The findings have been made in a peer-reviewed study published in the scientific journal “Joule.”
Bitcoin miners will generally move to places with cheap electricity in order to maximize their profits. In the past, Bitcoin miners in China would move from provinces with inexpensive electricity generated by fossil fuels to those with an abundance of hydropower.
But after bans throughout China, Bitcoin mining was eliminated in China by June of last year. Forced out of China, the crypto miners moved to countries ranging from Canada to Kazakhstan.
These moves have increased the proportion of fossil fuels used to mine Bitcoin, particularly natural gas. The net result is that the carbon intensity of Bitcoin has increased by about 17%.
Bitcoin, the research suggests, now produces more than 65.4 mega tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. By comparison, Greece produced 56.6 mega tonnes of carbon dioxide in all of 2019.
The authors of the study say their research highlights the need for the cryptocurrency industry to accelerate efforts to decarbonize.
Previously, the Bitcoin Mining Council estimated that the global mining industry’s sustainable electricity mix had grown to approximately 58.5% — a finding that the study’s authors refute.