7 minutes read Posted by Florian Bayard on September 19, 2020 at 1:00 p.m. The article was updated on September 19, 2020, at 1:13 p.m.

Contrary to popular belief, Bitcoin allows the development of green, renewable and environmentally friendly energy. BTC is therefore not a time bomb for the planet. In this dossier, we twist the necks of the many prejudices concerning the relationship between the king of cryptocurrencies and ecology.

Critics of Bitcoin (BTC) regularly highlight its high energy consumption . To mine BTC and make transactions, it is imperative to solve mathematical equations. This process requires colossal computing power.

To perform these calculations, miners rely on computers, specialized integrated circuits (ASICs) and mining farms. In order to power these machines, they obviously need an electrical power source.

Bitcoin power consumption

According to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index , a platform that monitors Bitcoin’s energy consumption in real time, BTC mining consumes an average of 53.62 TWh per year . This is more than Israel (55 TWh / year), Romania (49.64 TWh / year) or even Uzbekistan (49.07 TWh / year).

A study by French energy broker Selectra drives home the point and claims that a Bitcoin transaction consumes the energy equivalent of a light bulb on for three months, or around 100 kilowatts per hour (KWh).

„Bitcoin is not viable either for large-scale use or for generalization of its use in transactions,“ said Aurian de Maupéou, co-founder of Selectra

Other studies also point to the production of CO2 that accompanies BTC mining . According to an investigation by Alex Hern , journalist at the Guardian, Bitcoin mining releases 20 megatons of CO2 per year into the atmosphere, the equivalent of cities like Hamburg, Vienna or Las Vegas, or even a million plane flights. transatlantic.

Faced with these deliberately alarmist comparisons, one might fear that bitcoin could cause ecological catastrophe in the years to come as cryptocurrency becomes popular.

Questioned by us, Sebastien Gouspillou , co-founder and president of Bigblock Datacenter , believes that these alarmist studies only seek to „discredit Bitcoin by passing it off as an ecological disaster“:

“Total consumption cannot seriously be compared to that of a country. If a new country had been created 12 years ago, and its consumption was comparable to that of Romania, wherever it is located, this would have created a supply-demand imbalance, new plants would have been created, ” Sebastien Gouspillou advances.