FUTURE ENERGY: Mining Cryptocurrency with Non-traditional Electric Sources
It has been well-documented that popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum combined use more energy than Iceland, Syria and Jordan. The good news though, is that this is driving crypto-miners to use clean energy, lowering costs, helping the planet and even generating profit. Mining is the process by which new crypto coins are created. Unlike traditional money that is printed and distributed by the government, cryptocurrency doesn’t have a ‘central government’ per se. Instead, ‘miners’ use software to solve mathematical equations (known as hashes) which verify transactions. As an incentive, each miner receives a small amount of cryptocurrency in exchange; a service that could be described as competitive bookkeeping. The mining process itself is both computationally and energy intensive, especially as the millions of processors worldwide need to be cooled, using even more power. Sebastiaan Deetman, an environmental researcher from Leiden University calculated that if...