According to the recent Q2 2022 report from the Bitcoin Mining Council (BMC), sustainable sources of energy provide about 60% of the electricity needed to run Bitcoin (BTC) mining equipment.
In its Q2 review of the Bitcoin network released on Tuesday, July 19, The BMC discovered that the usage of sustainable energy by the global Bitcoin mining industry has increased by 6% from Q2 2021 and by 2% from Q1 2022, reaching 59.5 percent in the most recent quarter, making it one of the most sustainable industries globally.
An observation by the council also showed conformity in the surge in miners’ sustainable energy mix with an increase in mining efficiency.
Q2 Bitcoin mining hash rate is up by 137 percent year over year, while energy usage only heightened by 63 percent, pointing to a 46 percent gain in efficiency.
Additional information about Bitcoin Mining's energy efficiency was given out in the BMC’s YouTube briefing of its full report on July 19 with MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor. He expressed that miners’ energy efficiency has increased by 5,814% compared to eight years ago.
Additionally, it was discovered that Bitcoin mining used just 0.15 percent of the world's energy supply and produced only 0.09 percent of the 34.8 billion metric tons (BMt) of carbon emissions that were anticipated to be produced globally.
In the briefing, Saylor made note of the inaccuracy of projections made by Bitcoin's critics regarding the energy consumption of the network:
People have been predicting that Bitcoin would use up all the energy in the world for quite a while. That’s not happening, and it’s not going to happen because of the efficiency dynamics. Mining efficiency is a part of a "virtuous cycle," according to Marathon Digital Holdings CEO Fred Thiel, which will cause the sector to become "more and more energy efficient":
The efficiency gains are 100% focused on energy consumption because energy is our key input cost. Energy prices increase, forcing us to become more efficient.
The report further explained how the rapid increase in network efficiency over the previous eight years directly resulted from the rising Bitcoin price.
Read also: Ethereum Topped $1.6k as Bitcoin Grazed $23k
Price hikes pave the way for a heightened demand for ASIC mining equipment, which supports device innovation. As less profitable products are driven off the market by more profitable ones, the industry as a whole becomes more efficient. More efficient devices are also more cost-effective and profitable.
Members of the BMC, who collectively control 50.5% of the world's Bitcoin mining hashing power, provided the data for the research.
The amount of electricity used for Bitcoin mining in the US has attracted the attention of lawmakers there.
The Energy Department (DOE) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) received a letter last week from six US politicians, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, requesting that mining corporations submit reports on their emissions and energy usage.
According to the report above, it's vivid to see that Bitcoin will be thriving on sustainable energy for years to come. But do you think this will go on for a long time? Share your thoughts with us in the comment section.
