It’s well known that crypto mines are energy hogs. But an investigation by congressional Democrats released Friday revealed the scale at which mining threatens U.S. climate goals.

The country’s seven largest crypto mining companies are responsible for using a combined amount of energy that could power nearly all the residences in Houston.

• The seven companies alone require 1,045 megawatts of power to stay up and running, according to the probe.
• Many plan to expand much further. In total, the seven companies want to add 2,399 megawatts of mining capacity "in the next few years."
• Marathon Digital Holdings, which operates almost 33,000 mining rigs, wants to have 199,000 in the next two years. Greenidge Generation Holdings wants to ramp up its mining tenfold in states including South Carolina and Texas by 2025.

Mining in the U.S. has skyrocketed since China cracked down on crypto mines last year. But outright banning mining in the U.S. won’t solve the global problem, Protocol Climate editor Brian Kahn told me.

• “If the U.S. banned it, it may just end up in fill-in-the-blank-country,” he said. “It's kind of a game of whack-a-mole.”
• If the U.S. wants to meet Biden's goal of cutting carbon emissions in half by 2030, regulation is a must.

Democrats called for a useful first step: requiring energy use disclosures from mining operations. Bigger solutions include implementing a compliance carbon market, Brian said, but we’re more likely to get a more piecemeal approach, with regulation decided at the state and local level. “But it's clear that the lawmakers are paying attention,” he said. “Bitcoin miners beware.”

— Nat Rubio-Licht