The Department of Energy will track energy used in crypto mining

The business of minting cryptocurrencies here in the United States is growing bigger by the day. In January 2020, just 3.4% of the world’s bitcoin mining took place here. That figure ballooned to almost 38% in just two years. As we’ve talked about on this show, mining bitcoin and some other cryptocurrencies burns through a lot of electric power. The Energy Information Administration has been interested in tracking this activity, sifting through articles in the media and company reports. But the federal agency has decided to start collecting information from cryptocurrency miners themselves about where they operate and how much energy they use. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali asked Mark Morey, senior adviser for electricity analysis at the EIA, about the project.