A new study has shown that bitcoin mining can be beneficial as opposed to the popular idea that its energy consumption is hazardous to the environment.
The new research was published on 30 August 2018 by Nodeblockchain, a Toronto based multi-disciplinary crypto asset company that deals in asset management and proof of stake mining.
According to the paper The Positive Externalities of Bitcoin Mining written by Saad Imran the head researcher at Nodeblockchain, bitcoin mining is evolving and will come to the stage where miners will look for “renewable energy” sources to avoid wastage as that is the only way to stay profitable.
Here is an excerpt from the paper:
“The relentless competition and economic incentive design results in an environment where miners will not make their decisions based on negative environmental externalities, but on profit motive alone. We believe that in the long-run, Bitcoin miners will increasingly seek renewable sources as opposed to fossil fuel energy sources.”
He argued that Bitcoin may have “what we believe to be the positive externalities of Proof-of-Work mining.” and maintained that the mining industry is structured in a way that miners are rewarded for efficient use of energy and so does not encourage energy waste.
Imran also stressed that energy efficiency is increasing with increasing cost of mining and bitcoin mining energy consumption is nothing compared to the energy consumption of the world as backed by Marc Bevand.
“It is evident that relative to the total energy consumption in the world today, Bitcoin’s energy footprint is miniscule.”
The paper was written to counter the popular notion that bitcoin mining consumes more energy than most countries in the world and will ultimately cause a catastrophic event termed The Cryptoapocalypse, and to prove to the world that mining may rather be beneficial.
One of the benefits of bitcoin mining shown in the paper is a fair distribution of energy consumption with mining naturally gravitating towards parts of the world where energy is surplus.
It will also encourage waste recycling by using otherwise flared natural gas using a mobile mining technology that uses natural gas for mining on the oil exploration site thus reducing waste of natural gas.
The paper suggests that use of environment friendly methods to improve mining efficiency will be a win-win as the environment will remain safe when waste products of oil exploration (natural gas) are harnessed by miners to maximize mining efficiency and profit with little capital and so should be adopted.
