"US Judge Halts Government Effort To Monitor Crypto Mining Energy Use"

"Federal judge in Texas says new requirement would cause ‘irreparable injury’ to industry amid surging electricity usage".

"The US government has suspended its effort to survey cryptocurrency mining operations over their ballooning energy use following a lawsuit from an industry that has been accused by environmental groups of fueling the climate crisis.

A federal judge in Texas has granted a temporary order blocking the new requirements that would ascertain the energy use of the crypto miners, stating that the industry had shown it would suffer “irreparable injury” if it was made to comply.

The US Department of Energy had launched an “emergency” initiative last month aimed at surveying the energy use of mining operations, which typically use vast amounts of computing power to solve various mathematical puzzles to add new tokens to an online network known as a blockchain, allowing the mining of currency such as bitcoin."

Oliver Milman reports for the Guardian February 27, 2024.

Source: Guardian, 02/28/2024