US Department of Energy demands consumption stats from bitcoin miners

The US Energy Information Administration will survey “commercial cryptocurrency miners” to understand their electricity consumption.

The survey, filed as an “emergency collection of data request,” was authorized by the Office of Management and Budget on Jan. 26.

“Recognizing that this emergency collection is experimental and provisional with the understood intention that EIA wants to build to a new standard collection,” the OMB wrote in its approval.

The EIA didn’t immediately return a request for comment from Blockworks on the survey and who the Administration will be contacting. 

According to a press release on the site, the EIA will also open a public comment on the collection of crypto miners’ energy use data. It’s unclear when the comment period will open and what the deadline will be. 

Read more: Another bitcoin miner has gone public in the US

Miners who have been identified and contacted by the EIA “are required to respond with details related to their energy use.”

“We intend to continue to analyze and write about the energy implications of cryptocurrency mining activities in the United States,” Joe DeCarolis, administrator for 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,” he continued.

Read more: Why did Cambridge revise its bitcoin electricity consumption index?

The EIA is an agency within the US Department of Energy.

In 2022, lawmakers — including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA — asked federal regulators to make crypto miners disclose their emissions and energy use. The six Democratic lawmakers penned a letter to both the Department of Energy and the US Environmental Protection Agency.

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