US Department of Energy Attempts New Survey on Crypto Mining Energy Usage
The government and the crypto mining sector are once more having a go at the matter, first attack was not successful due to lawsuits that the attempt faced.
Public Webinar Seeks Feedback
The Energy Information Administration (EIA), the statistics arm of the DOE, held a public webinar on Wednesday. The audience was made up of experts from various fields, such as crypto miners and blockchain developers. Harvey, who works at EIA, as the moderator of the meeting exclusively concentrated on this dialog that is to be the base of the survey before the formation of guidelines in the federal register.
Previous Emergency Data Collection and Legal Pushback
In February, the DOE initiated an emergency data collection from crypto mining companies suggesting that there was a 50% increase in the price of Bitcoin over the past months, which gave them grounds. However, this was no piece of cake, as a lawsuit followed from the Texas Blockchain Council and bitcoin mining company Riot Platforms who claimed that the DOE was not authorized to enact such measures under the cover of an emergency. The lawsuit was settled when the agency signed an agreement with the EIA to delete the gathered data.
Key Challenges in Tracking Crypto Mining Energy Usage
During the webinar, Harvey mentioned three primary issues to be resolved in the new survey design:
- Identifying Key Energy Use Factors: Knowing what the players industry-appreciated factors are such as the use of energy for the PoW technology in the mining of cryptocurrencies.
- Relevant Data Collection: Defining the data that has to be extracted from miners.
- Existing Information Utilization: Recognizing the present data that can substitute the need for a new survey and thus decrease the costs.
Complexity of Tracking Energy Use in Crypto Mining
Harvey noted the “main difficulties” suffered in the first attempt at the survey, which include such problems as the identification of market participants and the “fluctuating nature” of the mining industry. The new survey, once structured, will be the subject of approval from the DOE before it can be enacted.
