White House Representative Outlines Bitcoin Mining vs the Environment Study

Principal assistant director for energy for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Costa Samaras, told Bloomberg in an article published Thursday that the Biden administration is taking cryptocurrency’s mining and its effects on the environment under deep consideration. 

This article by Bloomberg comes a few months after President Biden’s March executive order, where he called for a “whole-of-government” strategy to protect consumers, financial stability, national security and address climate risks when looking at the crypto industry. 

“It’s important, if this is going to be part of our financial system in any meaningful way, that it’s developed responsibly and minimizes total emissions,” Samaras said. “When we think about digital assets, it has to be a climate and energy conversation,”

Furthermore, Samaras announced that his team plans to conduct a study investigating all things related to crypto, energy and the environment. His team plans to analyze everything from local noise pollution to the energy efficiency of using different mining techniques: proof-of-work vs proof-of-stake. While some of these explorations may seem trivial to others, he assured people that everything is on the table to ensure a thorough study. 

Samaras noted that the White House will keep an open mind to all possibilities when carrying out their research and when curating evidence. 

“We need to think about what would be the appropriate policy responses under a world that shifted to proof-of-stake, or a world that has some continuous mix of proof-of-work and proof-of-stake,” Samaras said. “Proof-of-work is energy-intensive by design, but it also increases security.”

One of the questions Samaras and his team hope to answer regards the economic incentive of mining versus the disincentive that is the price for electricity. 

“We’ve seen miners set up in places where the electricity prices are low and they’ve secured favorable industrial rates,” he said. “I would like to go see the evidence that an afternoon peak mining tariff slows down mining operations.”

In a comprehensive study conducted by the University of Cambridge, they concluded that Bitcoin mining is consuming as much electricity as some countries, including Pakistan, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Slovakia and many more. 

However, despite the comments from Samaras, it left Bloomberg wondering if any policy action follows recommendations from the Energy Department or the Environmental Protection Agency. The Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t broadly regulate energy usage from specific consumers and industries so the chances of the government getting recommendations from them regarding cryptocurrency mining remains suspect at best. 

Author: Tyler Irvin

Related Articles