How crattiful mining target clean energy

CNN
–

In the daylightThe law enforcement officers on the periphemia of the city of Sukhuti on the periphesia ranged on the outskirts of Suhumi, the Russian Russian crossing Georgian region. No one is there; Nor drugs or weapons. Just a large cold cabinet that contains dozens of electronic devices.

This is my cryptocurrency.

The RAID video was published in December by Abkhaz Press Service, one of the many has published On YouTube From 2021. CRIPTO mining is prohibited in Abkhazia, and for years, this energy intensive flourishing industry, attracts cheap hydroEftion regions.

It comes for Abkhazia at the price. The region usually faces a seasonal lack of energy because the water level falls in winter, but they became more ramethical due to cried-mining, which sucks electricity 24 hours a day.

Abkhazia experienced mutilation. Daily power cuts were introduced for four hours At the beginning of November. By the second week in December, Abhaz residents had almost ten hours of darkening a day. Badra Gunba, Achazia’s acting leader, declared critical electricity in the region, it was facing a “humanitarian catastrophe”, according to Reuters report.

Yes “My” for digital currencies, powerful computers perform trillion calculations per second. The more mines the power of the computer has, the more profitable mining will be. All this increases to the huge amounts of electricity use.

Where once abhasia was almost fully powered by a renewable hydroelectric power plant, now increasingly relying Subsidized energy from Russia to help reduce obscuration. Like most Russian energy comes from fossil fuelsCripto mining is It also contributes to more climatic pollutants created by the region.

What happens in Abkhazia is extremely, but it indicates a global trend. The crippto industry, while always unstable, flourishing and is hungry for power. “Electricity is the largest entrance of the cost of CRIPTO,” Teresa Sabonis-Helf, Professor of Energy Security at Georgetown University.

In order to get it, many miners – illegal, like those in Abkhazia, as well as legal-operational companies – seeking in places where they can touch cheap electricity, often those with abundant renewable power. Experts warn that they can come at the price of the local population, exacerbating the lack and redirection of clean energy.

Global Mining Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurca, spends more energy than it uses All Pakistan, home more than 230 million people, according to 2023. Years study Published the university of the United Nations. CIPO Electricity Industry is expected to increase 40% between 2022. and 2026. years, according to the International Energy Agency report.

President Donald Trump promised to turn into the US to the world “CRIPTO CAPITAL“And the demand for electricity, it is expected to record almost 16% until 2029. years, partly due to portable centers that are powered by crypto mining and AI, according to one analysis.

Some American companies criptocurrenci is pretending to get renewable energy to find cheaper, clean ways to start their business.

In December, the announced Florida-Headquartered Holdings Holdings announced that she bought the wind farm in North Texas in Mining Bitcoin. “We use renewable resources that would otherwise diminish (i) reduce the cost of production of bitcoin,” Fred Thiel, Mara’s president and director in December statement.

But it also looks next. Mara plans to generate 50% of income abroad until 2028. years. Has operations in Paraguay, which Running on hydroelectric power plants. This is “Vin-Vin formula,” Mara spokesman said. The company uses “insufficiently used renewable sources”, enhances the development of renewable projects and contributes to the overall network stability, and at the same time increases access to accessible, reliable energy, he told CNN.

But some experts take care of additional pressure on energy networks in countries where access to electricity is already patch. Many low-income households In Paraguay, you still use firewood for heating.

“If you use all this cheap, cleaning hydro (power), and then people and small businesses must also go somewhere else,” said Mandy Deroche, a deputy lawyer based on American non-profit non-profit non-profit countries.

In Paraguaya, these fears were abolished by proliferation of Cowboy Crypto’s miners, which, unlike Mara, operate illegally. The State Energy Company Ande reports that about 28% Electricity in the country is lost every year, in part by a fraudulent cryptian mining.

Ethiopia is another country that attracts crypto miners, where the current is almost entirely launched by hydroelectric power plant.

Bitfufu, Singapore-seat is the Bitcoin mining company, which mainly operates in the United States, announced a new share in Bitcoin facility in Ethiopia in October.

The acquisition will contribute to Ethiopia’s economy and increase access to people in cheap power, the company said, as well as used both Bitfuf-bottomed. “With power costs on average below 0.04 US $ per kilowatt-bare, this acquisition is expected to cost Bitfuf at Bitcoin,” he said in October edition.

Some experts, however, have expressed concern about the potential influences of the growing crypto industry in Ethiopian. “I would really question any claim that Ethiopia was to develop a crypto, Mikael Alem Gorski, co-founder of solar energy program 10 Green Gigovatt for Ethiopia.

Almost half of the country’s population does not have a reliable approach to electricity, according to World Bank. “Where my father lives, in Addis in the capital, have electricity three days a week,” Gorski CNN said. “All those ideas that the country had excess electricity or has enough electricity false.”

“(Companies) cannot get more electricity from transmission lines because it is a very small generation that is centralized. Thus people import oil for electricity generators,” Gorski added.

Bitfufu did not respond to CNN request for comment.

Often the reasons for the region that is profitable for crypto miners, the same reasons that make it vulnerable, said Kaveh Madani, ecological scientist and the director of the University of University of United Nations University, Environment and Health.

It becomes in common “to see (CRIPTO) mining in areas already having problems: lack of energy, environmental problems and so on,” he told CNN.

Madani, who co-authored the Una report About the environmental impacts CRIPTO mining called for “regulatory interventions and technological advanced progress”, to ensure the expansion of the crypto industry does not have an unintentional consequence of the environment.

“When you notice that groups currently benefit from mining bitcoin and which nations and generations will taste the most from their consequences of the environment, you cannot think about the inequalities and injustices of implications,” he said.

In Abkhazia, anger on Cript’s influence is growing.

Local activists in the village of Adziuvzha, in December they took over questions in their hands, asking relief for cryptic equipment Local media reports.

“We’ve been through the first quarter of 21. Centuries and our people dream of electricity,” said Nugzar Kasia, a representative of the Council of Stars, said local media outlet ashara. “If there is respect for their people, any feeling of patriotism, they should rule out the mines and allow people to live in peace.”