Green Bitcoin? Over 52% of Mining Now Uses Sustainable Energy

The latest Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance report confirms the United States and Canada dominate global bitcoin mining, collectively controlling over 80% of reported activity. Bitcoin mining is now 52.4% reliant on sustainable energy, with hydropower (23.4%) and wind (15.4%) as leading sources.

North America Dominance

According to the latest Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) report, the United States has solidified its position as the largest global mining hub with a 75.4% share of reported bitcoin mining activity. When this is combined with Canada, which accounted for 7.1%, the two North American countries controlled more than 80% of the reported activity, which may indicate that mining companies are concentrated in that part of the world.

While, the report’s summary does acknowledge possible bias in the findings; the survey findings nevertheless “reveals directionally relevant developments,” including emerging activity in South America and the Middle East. Until mid-2021, China was widely recognized as the No. 1 bitcoin mining country. However, a crackdown against this activity forced some mining companies to relocate to neighboring countries and, in some cases, to the U.S.

As reported by Bitcoin.com News in 2022, while the crackdown did impact miners’ operations, it did not result in China immediately losing its position as one of the top bitcoin mining countries. The report suggested that miners had resorted to using virtual private networks (VPN) to conceal their location from authorities.

When China started cracking down against bitcoin miners, some reports indicated that this was being done in part to help the country achieve President Xi Jinping’s goal of carbon neutrality within four decades. The crackdown, along with pressure from climate activists, forced bitcoin mining to prioritize clean and renewable energy sources.

Now, more than three years later, bitcoin mining is now seemingly reliant on sustainable energy sources.

“The survey indicates that miners’ electricity mix is predominantly sustainable (52.4%), with renewables accounting for 42.6%. Hydropower constitutes the largest sustainable source (23.4%), followed by wind (15.4%), nuclear (9.8%), solar (3.2%), and other renewables (0.5%). Fossil fuels make up 47.6%, primarily natural gas (38.2%), which is also the single largest energy source, followed by coal (8.9%) and oil (0.5%),” the CCAF report stated.

Bitcoin Mining Power Consumption up 17% YoY

Meanwhile, the reliance on sustainable energy sources did not prevent the annualized electricity consumption associated with bitcoin mining from rising by 17% year over year to an estimated 138 terawatt-hours, or 0.54% of global electricity consumption. According to CCAF, bitcoin miners also reported a median electricity cost of $45 per megawatt-hour and “an all-in cost of $55.50 per megawatt-hour, with electricity constituting more than 80% of their cash-based operational expenses.”

Meanwhile, the CCAF survey data revealed that 98% of respondents’ power capacity is dedicated to bitcoin mining. Still, the survey report acknowledges that the bitcoin mining industry is at a “critical juncture,” and unless it starts to diversify, it is headed for even dire times.

“Diversification into high-growth sectors like HPC serving computationally intense AI workloads, leveraging existing infrastructure, is emerging as a key adaptive strategy,” the report explains.

The CCAF identifies innovative energy solutions like using flared natural gas, recovering waste heat, and demand-side response as some of the ways miners can deal with dwindling mining revenues. Hashprice hedging could also help manage financial risks in the future, similar to how energy price hedging is already a key risk mitigation strategy, the report added.