Cryptocurrency Mining Is Using as Much Energy as the Entire State of Utah

Last month, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) reported that they now forecast Texas’ power demand to just about double in the next six years.

Cryptocurrency mining is a power-hungry process that is largely responsible for the projected doubling of Texas' power demand in the next six years.

One Bitcoin transaction, which takes about 10 minutes, uses the same amount of power as a household in 36 hours or 26,000 VISA card transactions.

According to the US Energy Information Administration, Bitcoin miners use as much energy as the entire state of Utah.

Based on a tool created by Cambridge researchers to track Bitcoin mining power usage, the current yearly power consumption is greater than all of Norway's annual power usage.

The high power consumption of cryptocurrency mining is why it costs so much to bail cryptominers out when electricity demand peaks.

For instance, last year, ERCOT paid Bitcoin miner Riot $31 million to conserve power during grid strain.

And during the 2021 winter storm, the Bitdeer mining facility got $18 million to conserve.