Bitcoin’s price surge has made mining lucrative, but it uses an extraordinary amount of energy - Vox

An expensive fantasy

"As the value of Bitcoin reached a new high this week, we also learned that mining the cryptocurrency soaks up more energy than 159 individual countries, according to one controversial estimate.

Over at Digiconomist, a Bitcoin blog and analysis site, owner Alex de Vries reported this week that the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, an measure of the energy used to mine the digital currency every year, reached 30.59 terawatt-hours."

Bitcoin’s price surge has made mining lucrative, but it uses an extraordinary amount of energy - Vox