Benzinga | Sep 15, 2021 10:05AM EDT

Bitcoin's Energy Use This Year Already Exceeds All Of 2020: Report

The Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) blockchain has reportedly consumed more power over the last nine months than it did in the entirety of 2020.

What Happened: A recent study from Bloomberg found the Bitcoin network's energy use this year has surpassed the 67TWh of electricity used in 2020.

"By the end of this year, it looks set to have used 91TWh of energy - as much as Pakistan," the report said.

The report reasoned that as the price of Bitcoin continues to rise, more miners with less energy-efficient machines were joining the network, further driving up the energy use.

Why It's Important: The longstanding debate around Bitcoin's energy consumption was further intensified earlier this year when Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) cited it as the main reason for halting Bitcoin payments.

Yet many Bitcoin proponents argued that Elon Musk's concerns over the cryptocurrency's energy consumption may be misguided.

Yassine Elmandjra, a crypto analyst at Ark Investment Management, said the impact of Bitcoin mining might speed the world's transition to renewable energy.

More renewable energy could be provisioned to the grid by transforming intermittent power resources into baseload generation through energy storage, the analyst said.

In the absence of Bitcoin mining, renewables would reportedly only be able to satisfy only 40% of the grid's needs. Yet 99% of the grid's requirements could be met by renewables with the commercial "subsidies" associated with Bitcoin mining, he said.

BTC Price Action: Bitcoin was trading at 447,871 Wednesday morning, up 2.93%.