The United Nations report: Bitcoin "mining" has increased global energy consumption by 34 times in 8 years
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) recently released its latest "Digital Economy Report 2024". The report said that while digitalization has driven global economic growth, the impact on the environment is also increasing. The report said that it is estimated that the energy consumption of global data centers in 2022 is comparable to that of France, while the global energy consumption generated by bitcoin "mining" increased by about 34 times between 2015 and 2023. This puts huge pressure on the local power grid. For example, data centers in Singapore will account for around 7% of the country's electricity demand in 2020, while in Ireland, this proportion will be as high as 18% in 2022.