Bitcoin hash rate continues to chart astounding record highs just weeks before the fourth halving. Meanwhile, critics worry Bitcoin mining could be hazardous to the environment.

That hasn’t stopped the price from soaring to a multi-year record high of $46,670, 67% of its historical all-time high price of $69,000 in November 2021.

However, according to a recent analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Bitcoin miners in the United States alone use as much electricity as the entire state of Utah.

The EIA study also estimated that Bitcoin mining accounts for somewhere between 0.6% to as much as 2.3% of all electricity demand in the U.S. in 2023.

Bitcoin Mining Environmental Concerns

Bloomberg Crypto says that mines have generated more than hash power. They’ve also generated “mounting concerns from policymakers and electric grid planners about straining the grid during periods of peak demand, energy costs, and energy-related carbon dioxide emissions.”

Bitcoin mining firms will soon have to report information about their electricity usage to the EIA, the statistical research arm of the Department of Energy. In a press release out Wednesday, the EIA said:

“We will specifically focus on how the energy demand for cryptocurrency mining is evolving, identify geographic areas of high growth, and quantify the sources of electricity used to meet cryptocurrency mining demand.”

In 2022, Democratic lawmakers asked the biggest Bitcoin mining operations in the U.S. to disclose their electricity usage and any info about pollution from their operations.

Congress asked the Department of Energy and the EPA to require these disclosures after none of the companies provided all the information lawmakers requested.

According to a recent ar