The Environmental Impact of Small-scale Crypto Mining
How bad is personal GPU mining with NiceHash?
One of the biggest negative aspects of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is their environmental impact. To progress and update the blockchain, most coins use mining, which requires massive amounts of computing power and energy.
I have been doing some small-scale personal mining with my graphics card recently and I always felt guilty about the carbon emissions it is producing. So I tried to calculate the impact of my mining and how bad it is for the environment.
My Mining Impact
For the past few weeks, I have been using NiceHash to sell my GPU’s hashing power when I’m not using it for anything else. To avoid damaging the card too much and to keep the fans quieter, I have set the power limit of my Nvidia GTX 1060 6 GB to 65 W instead of its maximum of 120 W. Because the card draws about 10 W in idle, this means it is consuming 55 W from mining that it wouldn’t be consuming otherwise.
I am assuming about 12 hours of mining per day, which is probably about where my average has been for the last few days. This means, if I were to mine for one year, I would use about 240 kWh of electricity.
