The European Union announced to development of energy efficiency measures for blockchains as the blockchains are consuming more energy. These measures are introduced by the European Commission as part of wider plans to control the energy consumption of the ICT sector.
These measures include an energy label for computers, an environmental labeling scheme for data centers, and measures to make clear how much energy telecom services utilize.
Kadri Simson, the energy commissioner, said that the aim is to make their energy system more efficient and ready for an increasing share of renewable energy sources. Moreover, he said that for this, they need more innovative digital solutions and a grid that is much smarter and more interactive than it is today.
This step from Europe will provide financial support for research into digital technologies, especially in the energy sector. However, it didn’t underline whether any of this support would also be in the crypto sector. The European Union has taken a fairly permissive attitude to crypto mining, while China has issued outright bans.
In March 2022, the Economics and Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliament rejected efforts to ban proof-of-work crypto mining in Europe. From the Markets in Crypto Assets bill, European Parliament removed the offending relevant paragraph from this bill before it was voted on. At the end of 2023, MiCA will be ready to come into play, which will force some market players to make disclosures about their environmental and climate footprint.
Not only just EU regulators paying attention to crypto mining, but is occurring all over the world. Elizabeth Warren, the senator of Massachusetts, with a group of six other U.S. lawmakers addressed a letter to U.S. Senator Pablo Vegas, who is the CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.
In that letter, they highlighted concerns regarding crypto mining in Texas. They said that these crypto-mining operations may have an impact on climate change and the stability of the energy grid. This shows how the world taking these blockchain and crypto-mining operations and taking steps to solve these issues.
