Bear Flat Dispatch: Cryptocurrency and sustainability

Like it or not, it seems like cryptocurrency is here to stay. I personally don’t really see the need for yet another form of currency, but what do I know? There are those who proclaim it as a form of freedom from government oversight, which sounds perfect for criminals as well. Of course, many see it as an investment opportunity, like we needed more of those too. However, I don’t really care about all of that. What bothers me is the enormous waste of electricity required to do the blockchain mining. 

The statistics are staggering: “The average energy consumption for one single Bitcoin transaction in 2022 could equal several hundreds of thousands of VISA card transactions,” reads a report from Statista. Some of the energy consumption numbers given for cryptocurrency transactions are hard to believe, but suffice to say that they require lots of energy. While still in its infancy, total cryptocurrency power consumption is surpassing the total usage of various countries around the world. There is speculation that some of that may change with advances in technology, but that is by no means guaranteed at this time. 

The high demands of blockchain mining has resulted in a gold rush search for large amounts of cheap power, preferably in cool climates, and B.C. has laid out the welcome mat for them. That is the part that really ticks me off. I suppose having had most of our farmland expropriated for the lie that Site C dam was needed to power “450,000 homes” makes me more sensitive than most to this new waste of electricity, but we should all be concerned. 

Despite decades of repeated predictions by BCH that demand would go up, consumption of electricity in B.C. has basically flatlined despite a growing population. Of course, those predictions were required to build a false business case for Site C, but the reality was that new efficiencies and the permanent closure of many mills cancelled out any increase in demand. So the B.C. government and BCH were giddy to see a new potential customer in cryptocurrency. Of course, those “mining” operations need cheap power to be profitable, so rest assured that you and I are subsidizing them with our higher residential rates. 

 In response to climate change and smart economics, the switch to electrification is happening around the world. I have no doubt that B.C. will need additional electricity generation in the future, and all forms of generation do have an environmental and carbon footprint. Fortunately, the lowest footprint and cheapest cost is now from green renewables such as solar and wind. In fact, the absolutely lowest impact will come from distributed generation such as solar net-metering into the grid from homes and such. This can be done with virtually no additional grid distribution cost, and B.C. is well positioned to gain any foreseeable additional load from that. This would be a win-win for ratepayers and the utility, unlike the waste of money and environmental damage from megaprojects such as Site C. 

So that is the good news, but the bad news is how we are taking on a massive new load with little if any benefit to society. In a world that is switching to electrification, we need to be smarter on how we use it. It is reported that Tim Berners-Lee, credited as the inventor of the World Wide Web, has gone so far as to describe “Bitcoin mining” as “one of the most fundamentally pointless ways of using energy.” 

I think that pretty much sums it up. 

Ken Boon lives and writes at Bear Flat.

Have an opinion? Send your letters to editor@ahnfsj.ca