比特币矿工正在从加密货币的历史高点中获利，但环境成本正在上升

比特币价格的飙升为比特币矿工创造了一个奖励结构，让他们可以使用更多的资源来寻求更多的财富。

Bitcoin miners are facing pressure to use renewable energy as the cryptocurrency’s soaring price is leading to increased energy consumption.

由于加密货币价格飙升导致能源消耗增加，比特币矿工面临着使用可再生能源的压力。

A surge in the bitcoin price creates a rewards structure for bitcoin miners to use more resources to seek even more riches. They get paid in the currency, and higher demand makes each new find more valuable and enticing.

比特币价格的飙升为比特币矿工创造了一个奖励结构，让他们可以使用更多的资源来寻求更多的财富。他们以货币支付报酬，更高的需求使每一个新发现都更有价值和诱人。

“Miners can make a lot of money because price is running much faster than miners’ ability to add capacity,” Fred Thiel, Thiel, CEO of bitcoin mining giant Mara Holdings, formerly Marathon Digital Holdings, told Marketplace. Even as the excitement tapers off, don’t expect mining to slow down. The crypto community is optimistic about the Trump administration’s desire to acquiesce to miners’ needs.

比特币矿业巨头 Mara Holdings（前身为 Marathon Digital Holdings）首席执行官 Fred Thiel 告诉 Marketplace：“矿商可以赚很多钱，因为价格运行速度远远快于矿商增加产能的能力。”即使兴奋逐渐减弱，也不要指望采矿业会放缓。加密社区对特朗普政府默许矿工需求的愿望持乐观态度。

But bitcoin mining requires an enormous amount of computing power. In fact, it uses more energy than entire countries, including Poland and Egypt, per a University of Cambridge analysis.

但比特币挖矿需要大量的计算能力。事实上，根据剑桥大学的分析，它使用的能源比整个国家（包括波兰和埃及）还要多。

As the world’s climate changes at an alarming pace, with this year seeing record-high global temperatures and devastating hurricanes making landfall, burning dirty energy and polluting Earth with gases such as planet-heating methane is only adding to the problem.

随着世界气候以惊人的速度变化，今年全球气温创历史新高，毁灭性飓风登陆，燃烧肮脏的能源并用加热地球的甲烷等气体污染地球，只会加剧问题。

Bitcoin mining is not alone in using an enormous amount of energy for computing processes. Artificial intelligence, including ChatGPT, is another energy hog and competes for the same energy at data centers. That development can be especially concerning when those energy demands lead to a renewed reliance on dirty energy.

比特币挖矿并不是唯一在计算过程中使用大量能源的行为。包括 ChatGPT 在内的人工智能是另一个能源消耗大户，它们在数据中心争夺同样的能源。当这些能源需求导致人们重新依赖肮脏能源时，这种发展尤其令人担忧。

“It’s taking … gas plants that have actually been shuttered and bringing them back online just for the purposes of cryptocurrency mining,” environmental policy advocate Liz Moran said.

环境政策倡导者利兹·莫兰 (Liz Moran) 表示：“为了加密货币挖矿的目的，它正在将实际上已经关闭的天然气工厂重新投入运行。”

For one thing, there is ample resistance to bitcoin mining throughout the world. Local residents can make their voices heard and advocate for bans outside of operations that rely solely on renewable energy, which has at least become more common among professional mining companies.

一方面，世界各地对比特币挖矿存在很大的阻力。当地居民可以发出自己的声音，并倡导禁止仅依赖可再生能源的业务，这至少在专业矿业公司中变得越来越普遍。

Bans can be counterproductive if bitcoin miners are tapping into clean energy sources and will then move to areas where coal or natural gas could sub in.

如果比特币矿商正在利用清洁能源，然后转移到煤炭或天然气可能进入的地区，那么禁令可能会适得其反。

Thus, there are large efforts pushing bitcoin and AI companies to tap into cleaner energy sources such as solar, wind, and hydro — especially if the last can be done through wave energy rather than creating new dams. In the case of AI, Microsoft took the drastic step of reopening a part of the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear power plant — which is cleaner in the sense of air pollution, though there is still nuclear waste byproduct to contend with. Japan, meanwhile, has taken the lead in using excess wind and solar energy to power mining.

因此，人们正在大力推动比特币和人工智能公司利用太阳能、风能和水力等清洁能源——特别是如果最后一种能源可以通过波浪能而不是建造新的水坝来实现的话。就人工智能而言，微软采取了重大举措，重新开放了臭名昭著的三哩岛核电站的一部分——从空气污染的意义上来说，该核电站更清洁，尽管仍有核废料副产品需要处理。与此同时，日本率先利用过剩的风能和太阳能为采矿业提供动力。

Another solution is creating more accountability for miners, which the Energy Information Administration has pursued.

另一个解决方案是为矿工建立更多的责任，这是美国能源信息管理局所追求的。