Bitcoin’s price surge has made mining lucrative, but it uses an extraordinary amount of energy
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/12/2/16724786/bitcoin-mining-energy-electricity
Mining Bitcoins uses more electricity than entire countries.
As the value of Bitcoin reached a new high this week, we also learned that mining the cryptocurrency soaks up more energy than 159 individual countries, according to one controversial estimate.