Re:Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power
by digging on Friday February 09, 2024 @12:11PM
(#39317291)
> Energy consumption by banking? We can calculate that.
Great, thank you for doing so. I wish TFA had given even half this effort.
Re:Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power
by duskwuff on Friday February 09, 2024 @02:49PM
(#39319612)
> Datacenters used less than 0.1 petawatt-hours in 2020 [4], or about 2% of total energy consumption.
FWIW, that's a projection from 2016, but it should still be in the right ballpark.
Comparing Bitcoin power usage to all other data center power usage is also enlightening. Those data centers are hosting the majority of the world's online services as well as providing services used by physical businesses; they're doing a lot more useful work, for more people, than Bitcoin is.
All commercial buildings in the United States used about 6.8 trillion BTUs, or 2 trillion kWh (2 petawatt-hours), of power in 2018 [1]. That's just over half of the 3.9 petawatt-hours used by the country as a whole [2]. Of that, 16% was consumed by offices [3], so we're down to 8%. That's all office buildings, so what percentage of office building space is devoted to banking? Does banking use more than 1/3 of total office space in the United States? If so, you have a point. That seems highly unlikely.
(Datacenters used less than 0.1 petawatt-hours in 2020 [4], or about 2% of total energy consumption. Again, I doubt banks were using the lion's share of that, so it doesn't move the needle much.)
[1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/commercial...
[2] https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/power-and-utilities...
[3] https://www.eia.gov/consumption/commercial/pba/office.php#:~....
[4] https://eta.lbl.gov/publications/united-states-data-center-e....