Today’s webinar hosted by the Energy Information Administration laid out its plans for future efforts at data collection surveys targeting U.S.-based bitcoin mining operations after an agreement was reached on March 1 of this year to cease the previous emergency survey and destroy all records collected during its operation.
They have clarified that there is currently no survey effort pending at the Federal Registrar or underway at this time, and the purpose of the webinar was to seek feedback from members of the public and participants in the ecosystem on the types of information they could collect, what types of data have already been collected that could be valuable to them, and what important factors they should consider when formulating a future survey.
They reiterated that the two main challenges they face in trying to get a clearer picture of the state of bitcoin mining in the United States are the difficulty in identifying mining operations among general energy consumers on the grid, as well as the ability of mining operations to quickly relocate to areas with lower electricity prices, making it difficult to track the current state of operations.
They currently plan to begin the process of launching a survey sometime this year, potentially this quarter, and plan to incorporate any feedback that industry participants and other members of the public are willing to offer in structuring the survey.
Several industry members participated in the webinar: Thomas Mapes of the Digital Energy Council, Michael Postupak of the Blockchain Association, Margot Paez of the bitcoin Policy Institute and Georgia tech, Jayson Browder of Marathon Digital Holdings, Lee Bratcher of the Texas Blockchain Council, and others.
All speakers reiterated that bitcoin mining can have a net positive effect on energy infrastructure, particularly by helping to facilitate demand response programs to free up electricity during periods of high peak demand from regular consumers, and in creating more renewable energy production capacity by absorbing excess production when there is no other source of demand during periods of electricity surplus.
Lee Bratcher specifically mentioned the topic of bitcoin miners who were specifically selected for a survey aimed exclusively at them, and addressed the idea of expanding the survey to incorporate data centers in general, specifically distinguishing between data centers that are inflexible and must remain on constantly and flexible data centers that can be dynamically shut down in response to the needs of consumers or network operators.
Jayson Browder seconded this as a source of hesitation and skepticism from mining operators in the industry as to why they were being targeted by the survey.
Dennis Heidner, an audience member who attended the webinar, raised concerns that miners’ capital investment could disincentivize them to stop operations during periods of high demand. This was a concern raised with the EIA when structuring future surveys as a factor to consider, given that miners still need to work to recoup their hardware investments and scaling back operations results in a loss of revenue during that time period.
Margot Paez suggested the idea of Georgia tech partnering with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where researchers… Arman Shehabi is currently conducting an investigation on ai and data center energy consumption. Their reasoning was that research is already being conducted to gather the type of data the EIA is seeking in its surveys, and given the relationships they have developed within the mining industry and the relevance of data center energy consumption to the EIA’s overall concern about bitcoin mining, this partnership could combine already existing research to address the EIA’s needs.
This would also allow an impartial non-governmental group to handle data collection, working to anonymize the data while providing the EIA with accurate insight needed to inform policy decisions without compromising the privacy of mining operations within the space.
Overall, the webinar indicates a profound rethinking of the approach the EIA is taking in terms of data collection on bitcoin mining operations in the United States. It appears that, following the court rejection of the emergency survey, they are open to a collaborative path with industry players to move forward in achieving an accurate view of energy consumption on which policymakers can base their decisions, rather than the conflicted and hasty path that the emergency survey attempted to take.
