Enlarge / A employee installs a row of recent mining machines on the largest bitcoin mining facility within the US, situated in Rockdale, Texas, on October 9, 2021. Consultants say lax regulation and low-cost electrical energy within the US are a draw for bitcoin miners, whose energy-gulping computer systems race to unlock models of the forex. (credit score: Mark Felix/AFP through Getty)
The Biden administration is now requiring some cryptocurrency producers to report their power use following rising issues that the rising trade may pose a risk to the nation’s electrical energy grids and exacerbate local weather change.
The Vitality Data Administration introduced final week that it might begin amassing power use knowledge from greater than 130 “recognized industrial cryptocurrency miners” working within the US. The survey, which began this week, goals to get a way of how the trade’s power demand is evolving and the place within the nation cryptocurrency operations are rising quickest.
“As cryptocurrency mining has elevated in america, issues have grown in regards to the energy-intensive nature of the enterprise and its results on the US electrical energy trade,” the EIA mentioned in a brand new report, following the announcement. “Issues expressed to EIA embrace strains to the electrical energy grid in periods of peak demand, the potential for greater electrical energy costs, in addition to results on energy-related carbon dioxide emissions.”
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