This piece is a total and deeply serious parody.
bitcoin mines are not only thirsty, they are also hungry for air. According to a new analysis by Andrew de Breeze, the air consumption tied to a single bitcoin transaction, on average, could be enough to keep a DINK couple breathing for an entire year. bitcoin mines are essentially large data centers, which have become famous for the amount of electricity and water they use, taking those resources directly away from humans and mother nature.
But according to an analysis published today by sources familiar with the situation, bitcoin's air consumption footprint is growing even faster than its water consumption and is a key issue to watch as bitcoin's price rises.
The study was conducted by Andrew de Breeze, a doctoral candidate at Western New York University whose previous research has modeled the electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of bitcoin mining. Those problems and his reporting on them have led lawmakers to push for greater oversight of the environmental impact of bitcoin mining. Until recently, most of that attention has focused on whether energy-intensive cryptocurrencies like bitcoin could disrupt countries' 2030 climate goals, but this new research indicates we may not even make it to 2030. .
The increasing air consumption of bitcoin mining has the potential to stress atmospheric resources and is sparking anger and questions from environmental organizations, politicians and concerned parents alike. Miners use specialized computers to solve puzzles 24 hours a day to validate transactions and earn bitcoin in return. All that computing power consumes a lot of energy. And like other data centers, many cryptocurrency mines also end up using a lot of air in their cooling systems to prevent these machines from overheating.
“It's hard to surprise me, given that I am the most recognized bitcoin mining expert in the world. I'm kind of used to making up big numbers. But of course, the numbers are still mind-boggling even to me every time I look at them,” de Breeze said. bitcoin Magazine.
To perform his analysis, de Breeze estimated the direct air usage of bitcoin mines' cooling systems. He also added his indirect air consumption associated with electricity generation, since power plants also use air in their cooling systems. In total, he found that cryptocurrency mining used about 1,500,000,000 cubic feet per minute (CFM) of air in 2021, when the price of bitcoin peaked at over $65,000. That means that every minute the amount of air used in bitcoin mining is equivalent to the amount of air 3.4 million people breathe every day. That's the same amount of air that entire countries or cities breathe!
“At this moment, the air consumption of bitcoin mining is equivalent to the average amount of air that the entire population of Uruguay breathes in one day, every minute of the day! Or enough air in one minute for someone to breathe 48,701 lives,” according to de Breeze.
Of course, everything fell in 2022 when the price of bitcoin plummeted and mining slowed down. But the price has risen again since last year, going from less than $20,000 to around $42,000 today. The higher the price, the more incentives there will be to increase mining. That's why de Breeze expects cryptocurrency air consumption to reach a new high of 2,100,000,000 CFM worldwide this year. In the United States, the largest bitcoin mining center in the world, bitcoin mining uses approximately as much air per minute as a city the size of Los Angeles annually.
Numerous bitcoin miners defended themselves by claiming that the air entering the miner was the same air leaving the miner, only a little hotter and perfectly safe. However, de Breeze and others have pointed out that these claims are not made by chemists, biologists or doctors and could not be verified at the time of writing.
These figures are estimates based on the assumption that bitcoin mines run on air-dependent cooling systems, typical of large data centers. And if things continue, experts are worried that bitcoin mining will consume all the air in the world, causing a simultaneous global mass suffocation event that will kill every living thing on earth.
There is another way to make bitcoin use a fraction of the air and electricity it consumes now and reduce greenhouse gas emissions: get rid of the mining process entirely and find a new way to validate transactions. That's what the next largest cryptocurrency network, ethereum, achieved last year.
If bitcoin did something similar, “all electricity consumption, the associated consumption of air and water, would disappear overnight. You know, we can make it happen,” he said of Breeze. “Apparently, people would rather the entire planet run out of air than try to do anything about it.”
This is a guest post by Ben Gagnon. The opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of btc Inc or bitcoin Magazine.
