Heatwave Mortality Study Highlights Energy Risk for Crypto Miners

Counting the dead

The paper compares two approaches to tallying heat-related mortality, a task that's proven notoriously difficult. Estimates vary widely depending on the method, and the uncertainty matters for public health policy. But the same kind of methodological debate applies to another contested number: how much energy crypto mining actually consumes.

Just as heatwave death counts depend on assumptions about baseline mortality and lag effects, estimates of mining's electricity use rely on models with significant margins of error. That's a point regulators might want to keep in mind when they cite precise figures to justify policy.

The energy strain

Heatwaves don't