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Could Bitcoin emissions push global warming above 2 °C?

Nature Climate Change volume 9, pages 656–657 (2019)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 28 August 2019

The Original Article was published on 29 October 2018

arising from Mora, C. et al. Nature Climate Change https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0321-8 (2018)

In a recent commentary, Mora et al.1 hypothesize that cumulative GHG emissions of Bitcoin alone could amount to ~231.4 GtC within the next 16 yr (on the basis of their median scenario), pushing global warming above 2 °C. To put these numbers in context, the carbon budget of ~231.4 GtC is equivalent to ~63 yr of emissions from global power generation at the rate observed in 2017 (that is, ~3.7 GtC)2. Bitcoin mining is undoubtedly electricity intensive. However, the electricity demand scenarios calculated by Mora et al. seem unlikely, as Bitcoin-related emissions would entail a tripling of global electricity generation within the next five years (see Supplement). We regard infrastructure bottlenecks and soaring electricity prices as barriers to such growth levels. For example, global electric power capacity increased by only ~ 17% over the past five years.

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Data availability

The authors declare that all data supporting the findings of this study are available in the article, the Supplementary Information and in ref. 1.

References

  1. Mora, C. et al. Bitcoin emissions alone could push global warming above 2 °C. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 931–933 (2018).

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  2. World Energy Outlook 2018 (International Energy Agency, OECD, 2018); https://doi.org/10.1787/weo-2018-en

  3. Krause, M. J. & Tolaymat, T. Quantification of energy and carbon costs for mining cryptocurrencies. Nat. Sustain. 1, 711–718 (2018).

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  5. Decker, C. With 100% segwit transactions, what would be the max number of transaction confirmation possible on a block? Bitcoin Stack Exchange https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/59501 (2018).

  6. Dittmar, L. & Praktiknjo, A. The electricity intensity of Bitcoin mining. In 41st International Conference of the IAEE (IAEE, 2018); https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.36097.30567

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Lars Dittmar, Aaron Praktiknjo.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Climate Protection, Energy and Mobility, Berlin, Germany

    Lars Dittmar

  2. Institute for Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Aaron Praktiknjo

Authors
  1. Lars Dittmar
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  2. Aaron Praktiknjo
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Correspondence to Lars Dittmar or Aaron Praktiknjo.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Fig. 1, Table 1 and references.

Supplementary Data 1

Excel file that reproduces the results from the mean values of ref. 1.

Supplementary Data 2

R script provided by Mora et al. with additional code added to track electricity consumption.

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Dittmar, L., Praktiknjo, A. Could Bitcoin emissions push global warming above 2 °C?. Nat. Clim. Chang. 9, 656–657 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0534-5

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