This story was originally published in High Country NewsIt appears here as part the Climate Desk collaboration.
The gradual shift Cyberspace promises a new way of life, far from the three-dimensional space once promised. Jetsons-style efficiency, a tidy transition from physical stuff’s environment-harming ways to a clean and impact-free digital world. We would telecommute in cyberspace, rather than driving on polluting roads in polluting vehicles. We would also work in paperless offices in which no trees were cut to print memos or correspondence. And, instead of using coins made from mined metals, we’d switch to digital currency — no mines, no blasting, no gouging required.
The JetsonsThey were right, at least in part. Many physical offices have been left empty by the Zoom boom, which was sparked by COVID. This has drastically reduced commute times that are mind-numbing and gas-guzzling. Cash and coins are increasingly passé. When was the last paper interoffice memo you received? However, the pressure on the physical environment has not been lifted by the mass migration from digital to physical. That’s because what happens in cyberspace doesn’t stay in cyberspace.
Every office email, every social media “like,” every credit card transaction and telecommuter call still has to be processed by physical computers — real machines that use real energy and water and have real environmental impacts. Even cryptocurrency, or Bitcoin, which lacks a physical presence of its own, must be “mined” in an energy-intensive way.
Thousands of servers, storage units and network devices stacked up in sprawling warehouses across the West — on the fringe of Phoenix, Ariz., along the Columbia River, and even in Wyoming’s hinterland — suck juice from the grid to process millions of transactions. The electricity is equipment-straining heat that must be emitted using water or more electricity. Instead of seeking veins of gold or silver, cryptocurrency miners chase cheap energy — even setting up shop on oil and gas pads to utilize methane that otherwise would be flared — because more power use equals greater computing capacity, which equals higher profits.
As with all types of energy waste, the effects depend on where the electricity is coming from. Google, Amazon, Facebook and others purchase solar and renewable power to run their data centers. A few Bitcoin miners have also pledged to power their operations entirely using excess solar power during low grid demand. That would certainly help solar — but so far the promise has yet to be realized on any large scale.
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Cryptocurrency mining is often seen as a process of solving complex equations. This conjures up images of a Red Bull-guzzling genius, staring at a calculator trying to find the Bitcoin-creation formula. But actually, it’s less about calculation than it is about trial and error — making guesses in hopes of landing on a random 64-digit number. Whoever has the most energy-intensive computing power can make the most guesses in a short time frame, and whoever makes the most guesses likely will solve the puzzle first and will be rewarded for their “proof of work” with one of a finite number of bitcoins. Or, to put another way, the more power one has, the greater chance they have of hitting the jackpot.
Technology is another energy hog. #ClimateCrisis
As each cryptocurrency gains in value, so does its number of miners. More miners equals more computing power, which means more electricity is consumed. Some cryptocurrencies are considering moving away from “proof of work” to a “proof of stake” system that uses less electricity but is also less secure.
In the early days of Bitcoin’s creation, people could “mine” the coins using a powerful standard desktop computer. However, each bitcoin that is mined requires more computing and energy to acquire the next one. Now that 18.5 million of the 21 million bitcoins in existence have been mined, only huge banks of cryptocurrency mining “rigs” can provide enough computing power to be successful. This, in turn, takes huge amounts of energy.
Sources: U.S. Energy Information Administration (US DOE), Carbon Brief, Wyoming Hyperscale White Box and EZ Blockchain Salt Lake Tribune, Casper Star-Tribune, Data Center Dynamics. Berkeley Lab. City of Mesa. Arizona. Marathon Digital Holdings.
Luna Anna Archey/High Country News: Data visualization design