“Renewable energy, bit coin power consumption can not solve”

Alex de Vries, a block-chain expert in PwC, one of the world’s top four accounting firms, has published a study in the journal Cell, saying that renewable energy can not address bitcoin’s sustainability.

According to his research, the power consumption of bit coin in 2018 is estimated to be 40-62.3 TWh. 40.3 TWh in Hungary and 62.1 TWh in Switzerland. He cited a study published in 2014 that estimated total energy consumption in the financial sector would reach 650 TWh per year. This includes data centers, bank branches and ATMs. On the other hand, the bit coin energy consumption estimate only considers the mining, not the ATM, exchange wallet provider, and payment service provider.

He also notes that carbon dioxide emissions during bitcoin trading exceed emissions from existing non-cash transactions. While non-cash trades will end at 0.4kWh, compared to 491.4-765.4kWh per bit coin transaction. As a result, the amount of carbon dioxide emissions from bitcoin amounts to between 19 million and 29.6 million tons per year.

The study concludes that renewable energy, including external factors such as enormous energy costs and the rapid exchange of mining hardware, is sufficient to solve bitcoin energy problems.

He suggests that PoS, which replaces the PoW, can prevent motivation for extreme energy consumption and limited hardware development for specific applications. For more information, please click here .