Bitcoin mining often gets a bad rap for being harmful to the environment as well as a high fossil fuel consuming activity. It’s believed to have a rather large carbon footprint.
While this can be the case, many bitcoin miners are becoming a lot more aware of their carbon footprint and are taking action to make sure they are doing as little damage to the environment as possible.
In this article, we are going to go over several of the most important ways you can reduce your carbon footprint and become a more environmentally responsible bitcoin miner in the future. Read along and figure out how.
How Does Bitcoin Mining Work?
Before we can jump into environmentally friendly bitcoin mining, we’ll quickly go over how exactly bitcoin mining works.
Bitcoin mining uses high-powered computers to solve puzzles at a rapid pace. Essentially, these computers are racing against other miners’ computers in an effort to solve the puzzle and post to the blockchain first.
Once this happens, the puzzle is verified by others to be correct, and once verified the miner is rewarded with a bitcoin.
As the mining industry has gotten more and more competitive, so has the need to for more computational power, and as a result, more power consumption.
In a world where renewable energy is still the exception compared to the norm, this has created elevated levels of carbon emissions, which has a negative effect on the atmosphere, ozone layer, and the quality of the air we breathe.
This has pushed a lot of large-scale bitcoin miners to look at ways they can become more environmentally friendly, and so far, it has manifested itself in two ways mainly, which we will go over below.
Carbon Emission Offset Credits
Carbon emission offset credits are growing in popularity across the country in an effort to reduce the environmental impacts of industry. Large-scale bitcoin mining operations are no different.
Essentially, carbon emission offset credits are one company or operation that is unable to realistically lower its carbon footprint, purchasing credits from an industry that is taking steps to reduce their environmental impact to offset them. This leaves a net-neutral or better carbon footprint.
This a two-pronged approach that is good for the environment and also good for businesses who possess the carbon emission offset credits. It drives the economy and also funds more environmentally friendly business practices.
Companies in the bitcoin mining industry are leaning heavier and heavier on carbon emission offset credits for their mining operations. Some are even boasting net-negative carbon emissions due to the volume of offset credits they have purchased.
These are a great step to lowering the carbon footprint of your mining operation.
Operate with Renewable Energy Sources
By now, we’ve all heard about the need for renewable energy sources across the globe. Not only is coal fired power harmful to the environment, it is non-renewable, meaning that someday the world will run out.
Large-scale bitcoin mining operations are now looking more and more at placing their operations in areas where renewable energy can be utilized. This is beneficial on a few fronts. The first obviously is that it’s extremely environmentally friendly. In addition to this, renewable energy sources are more cost-efficient, meaning cost savings for miners and larger profits.
Some sources of renewable energy include hydroelectric power, solar power, and wind turbine farms. Renewable sources of energy are still evolving in the country and are not as widespread as coal fired or nuclear power plants yet.
Renewable sources of energy are the way of the future, and it is possible that the rise of crypto mining could be the push that the world needs toward renewable energy. Time will tell.
Invest in Energy Efficient Equipment
Energy efficient equipment has become more commonplace these days, but the mining industry is just coming around to it.
Companies like Intel have unveiled chips that use less energy in a direct effort to cater to the mining industry’s high level of power consumption.
In addition to energy efficient chips, newer more energy efficient computers and servers can help reduce the amount of power a miner is using. This works well to increase profits as well as there is a smaller energy bill at the end of every month.
Conclusion
Bitcoin miners are looking toward the future and trying to get rid of their bad reputation from a carbon footprint standpoint, and they are doing a nice job.
Using carbon emission offset credits, switching to renewable energy sources, and investing in better equipment are some of the best ways to become more environmentally friendly.
We challenge you to take a look at your operations and find out some ways that you can help reduce your carbon footprint. There is some low hanging fruit we’re sure, and we all will thank you for it someday.
