The term carbon-positive is used when an energy source releases carbon in supplying energy. Carbon-neutral or carbon-free means that energy is generated through completely zero-carbon sources. On the other hand, carbon-negative sources are beneficial to carbon emissions as they remove carbon from the atmosphere while generating energy.
In March 2021, the global Bitcoin network was 59% carbon-positive and only 41% carbon-neutral. These numbers have changed dramatically since then.
As of June 2022, carbon emissions from the global Bitcoin network dropped to 38%, while carbon-free energy usage reached 58%. Furthermore, 1.57% of the network started to use carbon-negative sources, reducing the carbon intensity of the network by 4.2%.
Numerous studies have compared Bitcoin’s energy usage and carbon emissions with other prominent fields. The results show that Bitcoin seems to do less harm than all.
A study from Arcane Research revealed that the energy requirement of Bitcoin mining will gradually decrease after each halving. The report explains that Bitcoin price may increase slower than the block halving, which will reduce energy demand. Also in the report, unless Bitcoin hits $650,000 by 2040, energy consumption will not be higher than it is now.
The number of companies using carbon-neutral and carbon-negative energy sources has also increased. The most recent initiative in this area came from Block, Blockstream, and Tesla, when they partnered up to build a carbon-free mining farm in May 2022. Previously, Marathon Digital announced the replacement of its energy sources to carbon-free ones.
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