# 🌍 Bitcoin's green paradox: why 70% of its energy comes from elsewhere... where no one wants to buy it

### Introduction: an invisible revolution

For years, Bitcoin has been portrayed as an energy drain—a threat to the climate, an industrial waste in the age of carbon sobriety. Yet a silent transformation has taken place. In 2025, **Bitcoin mining is no longer an energy consumer—it has become an _energy recapturer_, a _stabilizer_, even a _green catalyst_**.

The numbers speak for themselves:

- **Global continuous power**: 12.8 to 41.8 GW (equivalent to 10 to 30 nuclear power plants operating continuously)

- **Estimated annual consumption**: between 112 and 366 TWh — certainly massive, but now **largely uncorrelated with conventional grids**.

- **Energy efficiency of ASICs**: 12 to 30.5 J/TH — a 60% improvement in three years, thanks to 3 nm chip generations and advanced cooling systems.

- **Marginal cost of producing one BTC**: $34,616 to $98,632 — reflecting not waste, but a **strategy to valorize economically dead resources**.

But behind these numbers is **a systemic logic** that is revolutionizing the environmental interpretation of Proof-of-Work.

## 🔋 70% of mining relies on _economically residual_ — even _negative_ — energy

Contrary to caricatural representations, **Bitcoin mining does not plug into the domestic grid**. It goes where electricity is _unmarketable_ — too remote, too intermittent, or too costly to transport.

In 2025, the distribution is clear:

| | | |

| ------------------------------------------------------------- | ------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

| **Surplus renewable energy** (excess wind/solar, curtailment) | ≈ 40 % | Energy _lost_ if not used — value close to zero or even negative (turbine shutdown costs) |

| **Flared gas/landfill methane** | ≈ 30 % | Gas destroyed by combustion or released — recovery via mining reduces GHGs ×84 |

| **Recovered heat (data heat reuse)** | ≈ 2 % | Industrial co-product — in cold countries, it covers up to **70% of the net energy cost** |

| **Low-cost grid / surplus nuclear / underutilized hydro** | ≈ 25 % | Energy that cannot be exported or is not profitable to sell on the spot market |

| **Other / uncertainties** | ≈ 3 % | — |

👉 **Fundamental conclusion**: _~70% of global mining power is fueled by energy that, without Bitcoin, would either be lost, emitted as methane, or burned for free._

This is no longer anecdotal. It is a **structural pattern**.




## 🌱 Three levers for environmental transformation — already at work

### 1. **Absorbing renewable surpluses: the invisible stabilizer**

Mining is **the most responsive and scalable flexible load** in the world:

> According to Duke University (Feb. 2025), miners achieve a **95% load reduction in less than 2 minutes** during peak demand — compared to 20-40% for other loads (e.g., electrolysers, batteries).

The result? Wind/solar farms become **profitable where they were previously unviable**. In Iceland, Texas, and Scandinavia, operators are integrating mining _from the design phase_ of renewable projects.

### 2. **Methane neutralization: a _positive_ externality**

Methane (CH₄) has a **global warming potential 84 times greater than CO₂ over 20 years**.

However, each MWh produced from flared gas avoids:

- open-air combustion (flaring → CO₂ + soot)

- or worse: venting (direct emission of CH₄).

Today, companies such as **MARA** and **Stranded Energy** are converting oil sites into **mobile mining plants**, capturing 95% of the methane that was previously lost.

→ _Not only does mining not increase the carbon footprint—it reduces it._

### 3. **Heat, a valuable by-product**

A miner consumes 100% electricity—and releases **90% of that energy as heat**. In cold climates (Canada, Finland, Iceland, Siberia), this becomes an **energy service**:

- Heating agricultural greenhouses (e.g., _BitcoinHeating_ in Sweden)

- Municipal swimming pools (e.g., _Heatmine_ in Helsinki)

- District heating networks

> According to the _International District Energy Association_ (July 2025): **1 MW of recovered heat = 455 tons of CO₂ avoided/year** vs. an oil-fired boiler.

Mining is no longer a _cost_ — it is a **by-product**.

## 📚 An emerging scientific consensus

The data is no longer debatable:

- **Cambridge (Apr. 2025)**: **52.4% sustainable energy** in the mining mix — _and an active contribution to grid stability_.

- **PNAS (2024)**: the combination of _Bitcoin + green hydrogen_ increases wind power capacity by **+73%**.

- **Journal of Cleaner Production (2024)**: in 96% of cases, mining with renewables is **more profitable than hydrogen production**.

- **IEEE Access (2025)**: ROI of **57.7%** for a PV + mining system — compared to **12.5%** with batteries alone.

And above all:

> “Mining is not competitive — it is complementary. It buys what nobody wants, when nobody wants to buy it.”

> — **Lal & You, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (2023)**

## 🌐 A press finally in line with reality

Three years ago, headlines read “Bitcoin is devouring the planet.”

Today?

✅ **89.5%** of mainstream press articles are positive or nuanced

✅ **91%** in the climate/sustainability press

✅ **80%** of peer-reviewed studies highlight **positive externalities**

Among the notable headlines:

- **BBC**: “Bitcoin brings renewable power to rural Africa”

- **Reuters**: “MARA's flaring-to-mining operation slashes methane”

- **Financial Times**: “Bitcoin can deliver environmental and social benefits”

- **Technology Review**: “Bitcoin mining saved an iconic African national park”

- **Wall Street Journal**: “Bhutan used hydropower Bitcoin mining to raise public wages by 65%”

## 🔮 Conclusion: mining as transitional infrastructure

Bitcoin mining in 2025 embodies a **new energy logic**:

> **It's not the amount of energy that matters — it's its marginal value.**

Where electricity has a social cost (outages, price spikes, emissions), mining shuts down.

Where it is waste (surplus, gas, heat), it turns on — and transforms it into currency, heat, stability, development.

It is no longer a question of justifying Proof-of-Work.

It is a question of **recognizing it as a flexible, decentralized, and profitable decarbonization infrastructure** — perhaps _the most effective ever deployed on a global scale_.

What if, in the end, **the “waste” lies elsewhere — in systems incapable of valorizing their own surpluses?**


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_Sources: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI), Duke University (2025), PNAS, Journal of Cleaner Production, IEA, Renewables Now, Bloomberg, Reuters, The Financial Times, and 20 peer-reviewed studies published since 2021._

📌 Data consolidated via [batcoinz.com](https://batcoinz.com) & [ccaf.io](https://ccaf.io/cbnsi/cbeci)

[Source](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bitcoin-o%C3%B9-en-est-le-21112025-nicolas-cantu-mlvve/)