Bhutan Is Looking to Use Hydropower in New Ways to Boost the National Economy

This initiative isn't the Himalayan country's first venture into crypto, as it has already made millions of dollars from related investments.

Bhutan, the Himalayan kingdom known for its Gross National Happiness Index, is also setting its sights on becoming a green digital currency leader.

This initiative is part of a broader strategy to create jobs and keep more talent in the country, which is suffering from a massive drain of young and educated professionals.

"We are a nation that runs 100% on hydropower. And every digital coin we mine in Bhutan using hydropower offsets that coin which gets mined using fossil fuels,” said Ujjwal Deep Dahal, CEO of the fund Druk Holding and Investments Ltd., at the World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact Summit in September.

The goal is to expand its current capacity of 3.5 gigawatts to 15 gigawatts within 15 years, which would put it close to half of what some analysts predict would be necessary to meet the country’s goal.

The initiative comes as stakeholders look for more solutions to reduce the digital currency’s potential for environmental damage.

It’s an understatement to say that crypto assets are energy-hungry—it would take three years for the average person in a country such as Ghana or Pakistan to use as much electricity as a single bitcoin transaction does, per the International Monetary Fund.

Because it uses so much energy, digital currency can strain area grids—regardless of power source—creating more risk for power outages.

During extreme weather events like heat waves, this can be life-threatening, which is all the more concerning given that extreme conditions have grown more frequent and severe due to the accelerated rising of global temperatures fueled by pollution from dirty energy.

Per United Nations University, the global bitcoin mining carbon footprint equals burning 84 billion pounds of coal, which would take planting 3.9 billion trees to offset. The water waste is just as bad, as the industry uses enough to fill over 660,000 Olympic-sized pools.

While encouraging more renewable power use could be enough for some miners to limit planet-warming pollution from the sector, issuing more tax regulations may also help.

IMF data projects that a direct corrective tax of $0.047 per kilowatt-hour could influence miners to make more efforts to reduce pollution.

Like the nation of Bhutan, others are following the green crypto wave. The GRASS coin—short for Green Asset Solutions and Sustainability—funds eco-friendly projects. Plus, there are crypto cards that use significantly less energy than traditional ones.