Amandeep SuterOne of the most influential persons on the planet is the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk. He is also one of the front runners for sustainable and clean energy. The Tesla CEO wants no part in Carbon emission and has made it clear about it through his idea of Carbon Tax. But his EV company, Tesla’s recent investment of over $1.5 Billion in bitcoin might lead Tesla to carry the dirty baggage of Carbon emission caused by the mining of Bitcoin.
The Cars of the future with the currency of the future –
Tesla cars are loved for their efficiency and the fact that they run on clean energy. Tesla is considered to be one of the prime players to benefit from the shift towards sustainable energy. But its new association with Bitcoin might put it under some questions and negatively impact Tesla’s carbon footprints.
Tesla has announced that it would accept payments in Bitcoin in the near future. The EV cars associating with digital currency, what a perfect match, right? Well, not really!
The Baggage of Bitcoin
The problem here is that, according to Reuters, Bitcoin generates more carbon emissions than a country. Since “mining” bitcoin requires the processing of heavy and complex mathematical transitions, one also requires superfast and rugged computer systems that eat up more electricity than the Netherlands in 2019.
Developing countries like Sri Lanka and Jordan are estimated to generate carbon dioxide between 22 million metric tons annually. Guess how much CO2 Bitcoin generates? Well, between 22 million to 23 million metric tons!
The most valuable cryptocurrency’s environmental impact has been known for a while now. In fact, you will be shocked to learn that a report in 2018 said that Bitcoin uses more electricity than all the Tesla cars combined on the road. Tesla’s association with Bitcoin has surged the latter’s value to an all-time high. Today, Bitcoin’s market is more significant than three of the most valuable banks combined, Bank of America, JP Morgan, and Citi Bank.
Conclusion
There have been reports suggesting that miners are looking for potential solutions. The idea is to reduce carbon emissions from Bitcoin mining and search for a sustainable power source.
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It will be interesting to see whether Tesla, whose CEO, Elon Musk promotes the carbon tax, would also pay the taxes for using bitcoins. Ideally, Tesla should also include the carbon emission caused by bitcoin mining. This will allow Tesla’s users can know if the whole story behind how sustainable their EVs are.