Environmental, social and governance (ESG) analyst Daniel Batten said on Tuesday that the computational backbone of the Bitcoin network now uses 52.6% sustainable energy. Batten and on-chain analyst Willy Woo created dynamic Bitcoin ESG charts to show the progress of the protocol.
Contrary to Cambridge University data, analyst says Bitcoin mining uses 52.6% sustainable energy
These days, there is a major debate about the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining. On March 7, 2023, ESG Analyst daniel liston tweeted about the new ESG charts he helped design willy woo showing Bitcoin’s progress towards sustainable energy use at 52.6%. They also highlight total emissions, emissions per dollar and the intensity of emissions.
Ribbon shared a preview of the charts and noted that the data will update dynamically. The analyst also saying that the information on the methodology and graphs will be published soon. ESG analyst Daniel Batten’s dynamic Bitcoin ESG charts were revealed at a time when several US politicians, including Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, are raising concerns about bitcoin mining operations.
Senators Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Jared Huffman (D-CA) have introduced a bill that would mandate “an interagency study on the environmental and energy impacts of mining crypto assets.” However, politicians and media publications have been accused of use questionable data and methodology to assess the environmental impact of Bitcoin.
For example, the Digieconomist blog, run by Alex de Vries, an employee of the Dutch Central Bank, has been called a “conflict of interest” due to your affiliation with the bank. However, several environmental activists and politicians cite de Vries’s work. The Batten chart preview is not just an eye-catching visualization, as the ESG analyst explained his findings and methodology in a recent editorial published on February 19, 2023.
In the article, he discusses the Bitcoin Mining Council report and a study by the University of Cambridge. Data from the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance (CCAF) is regularly cited by politicians and the press when it comes to Bitcoin and environmental concerns. Batten’s findings in the article indicate that 52.6% of the energy used for Bitcoin mining is sustainable. The ESG analyst also describes his methodology on its website and discusses the limitations of the CCAF model.
According to Batten’s study, the researcher’s “overall zero-emissions energy figure is 7.2% lower than the BMC data,” however, “it is significantly higher than the CCAF report from September 2022.” Additionally, Batten was able to “nearly replicate” the CCAF methodology that resulted in 37% sustainable energy, and then factored in the limitations of the CCAF report to arrive at the actual figure.
Batten argues that his model is more realistic until CCAF takes into account off-grid and flaring gas extraction. “Between September 2022 and June 2023, we anticipate that the Bitcoin network will operate with 4.5% more zero-emissions power sources,” the report states. Furthermore, the report noted that some critics have claimed that Bitcoin is based on networks that are predominantly coal-powered, but the data from Batten and CCAF do not support the carbon hypothesis.
Do you think that the use of sustainable energy sources for bitcoin mining will continue to increase in the coming years? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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