Numerous theories have been put forth to calculate the electricity consumption for bitcoin mining. The literature reports that the Patch methodology (Li et al., 2019 (link)) facilitates a single value for electricity consumption and, hence, has few limitations. So, this work gives a more detailed way to figure out how much electricity Bitcoin mining uses.
The Patch Methodology uses commercially available mining equipment and its efficiency to figure out how much electricity is used every day (Johnson and Pingali, 2021 ). Miners use power-intensive equipment to verify the crypto transactions on the network; the power consumed by the equipment depends on its efficiency and hash rate. Li et al. (2019 (link)) computed electricity consumption as the product of hardware efficiency and the network hash rate of cryptocurrencies. Using the Patch method, the amount of electricity used in 2021 is estimated to be 60 TWh. However, these results are not consistent with the existing literature (de Vries, 2018 (link)). In this work, to get a more realistic estimate of how much electricity is used, the limitations of the Patch method are overcome with an extended approach.
As the geographical locations of crypto miners are not known, it may be hard to find a single value for the amount of electricity used for Bitcoin mining. So, this work extends the Patch methodology by adding an upper and lower limit to the amount of electricity used. It also narrows the range of possible solutions.
The Patch Methodology uses commercially available mining equipment and its efficiency to figure out how much electricity is used every day (Johnson and Pingali, 2021 ). Miners use power-intensive equipment to verify the crypto transactions on the network; the power consumed by the equipment depends on its efficiency and hash rate. Li et al. (2019 (link)) computed electricity consumption as the product of hardware efficiency and the network hash rate of cryptocurrencies. Using the Patch method, the amount of electricity used in 2021 is estimated to be 60 TWh. However, these results are not consistent with the existing literature (de Vries, 2018 (link)). In this work, to get a more realistic estimate of how much electricity is used, the limitations of the Patch method are overcome with an extended approach.
As the geographical locations of crypto miners are not known, it may be hard to find a single value for the amount of electricity used for Bitcoin mining. So, this work extends the Patch methodology by adding an upper and lower limit to the amount of electricity used. It also narrows the range of possible solutions.
Free full text: Click here
