I see a lot of back-and-forth about the energy consumption of cryptocurrency rigs. Some say that widespread adoption of cryptocurrency will cause such an energy demand that it will derail any plans to reduce emissions in the short to mid term. Others claim that Christmas lights use more electricity. Obviously, there are uncertainties here in term of how the technology develops and that rate of adoption. Bill Gates and others say that today's crypto mining techniques are inefficient and will be replaced in the future with something much better. What are the best and worst case scenarios on this, and is it (or will it) be included in the En-ROADS model?
1 Comment
Janet Chikofsky
said
over 1 year ago
Hi Paul,
We haven't looked into this, but I will add it to our feature requests for our modelers to consider.
Paul Kane
I see a lot of back-and-forth about the energy consumption of cryptocurrency rigs. Some say that widespread adoption of cryptocurrency will cause such an energy demand that it will derail any plans to reduce emissions in the short to mid term. Others claim that Christmas lights use more electricity. Obviously, there are uncertainties here in term of how the technology develops and that rate of adoption. Bill Gates and others say that today's crypto mining techniques are inefficient and will be replaced in the future with something much better. What are the best and worst case scenarios on this, and is it (or will it) be included in the En-ROADS model?