Bitcoin is a big energy consumer, using an estimated 0.55% of all electricity generated in the world today, according to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance.
If Bitcoin is ever going to clean up its environmental impact, it’ll need a lot of renewable energy to make it happen.
While Elon Musk recently raised concerns about the sustainability of the process to the forefront, it is just a piece of the green energy discussion that has been ongoing for some time.
Crypto mining is global, and Atlantica’s business is spread among North America, South America, and the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region.
The company made just over $300 million in equity investments in 2020, but in the first quarter of 2021, it already had agreed to $280 million in new investments, including the third-largest geothermal plant in the U.S.
Looking out to the medium term, management thinks it will grow distributable cash by 5% to 8%, giving investors good reason to expect past dividend growth to continue.
Daniel Foelber : High electricity consumption is par for the course when it comes to Bitcoin mining.
A finite supply of 21 million tokens paired with a 10-minute average mine time per Bitcoin block ensures that a surge or decrease in computing power doesn’t affect supply.
The reality is that Bitcoin’s electricity consumption could continue to rise as long as there’s profit to be made from mining more tokens.
Travis Hoium : As Howard and Daniel have pointed out, Bitcoin requires a lot of energy, and simply putting more renewable energy onto the grid will help clean up this cryptocurrency’s impact.
Unlike most solar companies, First Solar has been profitable for most of the past decade and has arguably the best balance sheet in the industry.
As the critical component to solar farms, solar panels will continue to be in high demand as renewable energy demand increases and Bitcoin plays a role in that.