Sweden is faced with a dilemma: whether to use electricity to create jobs or for Bitcoin mining. It could prove difficult for this Northern European country making a decision.
A recent interview with Bloomberg, Khashayar Farmanbar, Sweden’s Energy Minister, stated that it is more important to offer electricity for job-creating projects such as steel plants than for Bitcoin mining firms that consume huge amounts of energy.
“We need energy for more useful things than Bitcoin, to be honest,” Farmanbar said in the interview that was published in Bloomberg media on Saturday.
Last month, the Swedish government requested the energy agency – a government agency responsible for the supply and use of energy in the country – to track how much electricity is used for digital infrastructure, with a focus on cryptocurrency mining.
Farmanbar refused to speak about the measures that could be taken by the energy agency to curb crypto mining. According to the report, the energy ministry could prioritize new power users according to their potential benefit to society by creating jobs.
According to the Sweden Energy Agency (Sweden Energy Agency), crypto mining is not relevant when the manufacturing sector has been considered. The power consumption of bitcoin mining is a serious threat to society welfare and isn’t creating as many jobs.
An alternative option that the energy ministry could look into is to cancel tax incentives for specific data centres. These taxes were originally designed by the agency for traditional companies such as Meta Platforms and Microsoft. This has meant that mining companies have also benefited by these incentives by default. But, that is likely to change.
Protecting Environment
Officials from the Swedish government called for the EU to ban energy-intensive crypto mining methods as proof of work in January.
These activities cannot be tolerated when all countries need to reduce their energy consumption to counter the climate threat, according to officials.
According to the government, Bitcoin mining is harmful to the environment and global efforts to transition to renewable energy. According to Sweden, Bitcoin production using renewable sources is not good for the environment.
Months before Sweden’s proposal, China, which had dominated the crypto mining sector, moved and outlawed mining in the country. With China’s move, miners migrated worldwide, looking for cheap electricity and a friendlier regulatory environment. Currently, the U.S leads in the lion’s share of the global mining market, followed by Kazakhstan and Russia. However, energy consumption by crypto miners from these countries is still a major problem.
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