Bitcoin mining consumes 0.5% of global electricity, research shows

A recent study shows that Bitcoin mining consumes about 91 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity each year, equivalent to about 0.5% of the world's total electricity consumption. This is more than the electricity consumption of Finland, a country of 5.5 million people, and more than seven times the electricity consumption of Google's global operations. In the past five years, the electricity consumption of Bitcoin mining has increased tenfold.

This is roughly equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of Washington state, and more than one-third of the annual electricity consumption for residential cooling in the United States.

With the sharp rise in the price of Bitcoin in recent years, it is not difficult to predict that Bitcoin's power consumption will continue to grow. As competition intensifies, Bitcoin mining has become an independent industry that requires specialized machines, servers and huge data centers that need sufficient cooling capacity to prevent the computers from overheating.

The mining process itself has become more sophisticated, from something that could be mined easily on a desktop computer in 2011, when the cryptocurrency had little traction, to something that now requires about 13 years of electricity for an average household to mine.

The environmental impact of mining has long been a consideration for those who have been following Bitcoin and the wider cryptocurrency space. Earlier this year, Iran experienced a power outage that was partially attributed to Bitcoin mining. In March, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates warned that Bitcoin was "bad for the climate." U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also said that Bitcoin's energy consumption is "shocking."