A group of Democrat lawmakers led by US senator Elizabeth Warren, who has come to the fore with her opposition to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, asked six more mining companies to provide detailed information on their energy use.
Warren made a similar request last December from Greenidge Generation Holdings, which is powering its New York facility with a natural gas plant.
Environmental Impact Too Much!
Mining companies Warren requested information from include Riot Blockchain, Marathon Digital Holdings, Stronghold Digital Mining, Bitdeer, Bitfury Group and Bit Digital.
The letter, led by Warren, asked each mining company by February 10 to detail electricity consumption, plans to scale, deals with utility companies, and the impact on energy costs for consumers and small businesses.
Warren made the following statements in the letter:
“The extraordinarily high energy use and carbon emissions associated with bitcoin mining could frustrate our hard work in tackling the climate crisis.
Not to mention the harmful effects of Bitcoin mining on local environments and electricity prices.
We need more information about the operations of these crypto mining companies to understand the full extent of the implications for our environment and local communities.”
The excess amount of energy used in Bitcoin mining has been one of the topics that has been talked about for a long time.
In this context, Eric Thedeen, President of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), stated that the EU’s PoW model should be banned and crypto currency miners should be directed to the proof of stake model.