{"id":218779,"date":"2018-01-11T07:17:13","date_gmt":"2018-01-11T05:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=218779"},"modified":"2018-01-11T07:17:13","modified_gmt":"2018-01-11T05:17:13","slug":"bitcoin-upstages-electric-cars-as-driver-of-global-power-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/218779\/bitcoin-upstages-electric-cars-as-driver-of-global-power-use\/","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin upstages electric cars as driver of global power use"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The global power needed to create cryptocurrencies this year could rival the entire electricity consumption of Argentina and be a growth driver for renewable energy producers from the US to China.<\/p>\n

Miners of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies could require up to 140 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2018, about 0.6% of the global total, Morgan Stanley analysts led by Nicholas Ashworth wrote in a note Wednesday. That\u2019s more than expected power demand from electric vehicles in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf cryptocurrencies continue to appreciate we expect global mining power consumption to increase,\u201d Ashworth wrote in the note.<\/p>\n

While the figure is too small to be a major driver of global utility shares, it represents an important growth story for companies investing in wind and solar power combined with energy storage – a list that includes NextEra Energy Inc, Iberdrola SA and Enel SpA, according to the note.<\/p>\n

Other potential beneficiaries include big oil companies that are investing in renewable energy and green-power developers that are backed by initial-coin-offering capital raises.<\/p>\n

One eager entrant is Hydro-Quebec, Canada\u2019s biggest electric utility. It\u2019s in \u201cvery advanced\u201d talks with more than 30 cryptocurrency miners – many of them currently operating in China — and expects to announce agreements in 2018, Marc-Antoine Pouliot, a spokesman, said Wednesday in a phone interview.<\/p>\n

Within four years, Hydro-Quebec envisions miners soaking up about five terawatt-hours of power annually – equivalent to about 300,000 Quebec homes – from the surplus created by the region\u2019s hydroelectric dams. \u201cIf we have to invest in our transmission network, these investments will be paid for by the miners,\u201d Pouliot said.<\/p>\n

Electricity demand for bitcoin mining rose to about 20.5 terawatt-hours a year by the end of 2017, according to a report Wednesday by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. That equates to more than half the 38 terawatt-hours of electricity used annually by the world\u2019s biggest traditional miner, BHP Billiton – or a 10th of the electricity needed to power South Africa.<\/p>\n

Uncertainties Abound<\/strong><\/p>\n

In China, miners used 15.4 terawatt hours, which is just a blip in the country\u2019s massive power industry. Even though it plays host to the world\u2019s biggest community of bitcoin miners, they only used 0.2 percent of the country\u2019s annual electricity production, according to the report.<\/p>\n

Miners will probably concentrate in low-cost power regions, including China and the US Midwest and Pacific Northwest. Miners earn bitcoin-denominated rewards for performing the complex calculations needed to confirm transactions in the cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n

The Morgan Stanley report did, however, offer some caution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are plenty of uncertainties which means energy consumption could inflect in either direction,\u201d Ashworth wrote. \u201cThis is clearly not an exact science.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Read: This graph shows just how popular Bitcoin is in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The global power needed to create cryptocurrencies this year could rival the entire electricity consumption of Argentina and be a growth driver for renewable energy producers from the US to China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":212409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[5537],"class_list":["post-218779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-bitcoin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218781,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218779\/revisions\/218781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}