“We
need energy for more useful things than bitcoin,” Minister Farmanbar argued.
Khashayar Farmanbar – Energy Minister of Sweden – believes the
nation’s electricity supply should be focused on something “more useful” than
bitcoin mining. Over the years, the country has made a name for itself as one
of the world’s biggest steel producers, and that is where it should double down
efforts, the politician added.
Sweden’s
steel industry produces over 4.4 Mt of crude steel annually. Swedish steel is
also known for having superior quality, and it is widely used in automobile
manufacturing and the machine sector. Producing it up to 2013, though, was an
energy-intensive process. Consumption deployed in the industry in one year
equaled almost 20 TWh (15% of the total annual electricity consumption in the
country that year).
In
the following years, the authorities made certain amendments, and the demand
for energy in the sector decreased by
nearly two times. Last year, the Swedish venture Hybrit started manufacturing
steel using renewable electricity and hydrogen instead of coal, considered
another notable step in making the process greener.
On
the contrary, bitcoin is still widely-criticized for its electricity
consumption and thus harming the environment. According to some estimations,
BTC mining requires more energy than what whole countries like Sweden or
Ukraine consume per year.