Mining for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies consumes as much electricity as a typical household uses in 13 years. And that’s just for one coin.
Global electricity demand for bitcoin mining in August of 2021 was approximately 13.4 gigawatts, and meeting that demand spewed 65.4 million metric tons (Mt) into the earth’s atmosphere, according to a new study by Alex de Vries and others published last month.
The study concluded that China’s shutdown of bitcoin mining by the end of June 2021 resulted in a year-over-year increase of 17% in August CO2 emissions. On August 1 of last year, Blockchain.com estimates that mining operations totaled almost 109 million terahashes per second. By February 18, that total rose to 205.2 million terahashes (one terahash is 1 trillion hashes — guesses — per second). With the hash rate rising by about 50%, it’s likely that CO2 emissions rose by a similar amount.
Creating and selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) also uses a lot of electricity and generates significant emissions. A new report from NFT Club estimates that an average NFT dumps about 211 kilograms (kg) of CO2 into the atmosphere as a result of its creation and initial sale.
NFT Club breaks the carbon cost down further by estimating costs at various stages along the transaction chain.
To offset the cost of carbon, NFT Club also has estimated how many trees it will take to suck up the CO2 produced by all those NFTs. An average tree will absorb about 60 kg of carbon during its lifetime. That works out to a requirement for 3.52 trees to offset the CO2 emissions of a single NFT.
According to the NFT Club report, the most popular (and most damaging in terms of CO2 emissions) NFT collection has been CryptoKitties. More than 2 million NFTs have been minted and sold and more than 890,000 secondary sales have occurred. CryptoKitties minting and first sales generated 167.55 million kg of CO2 and secondary sales generated 72.28 million kg of CO2.
That is about 240 million metric tons of CO2, or about 0.076% of the 31.5 billion metric tons of CO2 the International Energy Agency estimates was emitted in all of 2021. Mining for bitcoin and ethereum reportedly spewed 78 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere last year.
To offset just the CO2 generated by CryptoKitties, NFT Club estimates that 4 million trees would need to be planted. To offset 5 million NFT sales, a total of 6.85 million trees would need to be planted. As an example, Snoop Dog has issued 3,683 NFTs and would need to plant 5,050 trees to offset the CO2 emissions the creation and sale of those NFTs. An average acre of forest contains about 2,500 trees and can absorb 144,640 kgs of CO2, and account for the CO2 emissions from 1,764 NFTs. To offset emissions from 5 million NFTs, 6.85 million trees would need to be planted, enough to cover 2,740 acres. That is an area of about 4.3 square miles.
24/7 Wall St.Sponsored: Want to Retire Early? Here’s a Great First Step
Want retirement to come a few years earlier than you’d planned? Or are you ready to retire now, but want an extra set of eyes on your finances?
Now you can speak with up to 3 financial experts in your area for FREE. By simply clicking here you can begin to match with financial professionals who can help you build your plan to retire early. And the best part? The first conversation with them is free.
Click here to match with up to 3 financial pros who would be excited to help you make financial decisions.
Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.
Editors' Picks
