Cornell engineering researchers have found that untapped solar, wind and hydroelectric energy in the US could support the rapid growth of transactions involving non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Roxanne E. and Michael J. in Energy Systems Engineering at Cornell Engineering. Jack Professor Fengqi Yu is the corresponding author of “Climate Concerns and the Future of Non-Fungible Tokens: Leveraging Environmental Benefits of Ethereum Merges”, published on July 10. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. You co-authored with Apoorva Lal, a graduate student in chemical and biomolecular engineering and a member of the You research group.
The processing of NFT transactions, which has quadrupled in the past five years, was once highly energy-intensive, but has recently been made more sustainable with a switch to more energy-efficient algorithms. But the researchers said those savings would be largely offset by the anticipated surge in annual NFT activity.
Excess renewable energy, du to lack of storage capacity, forces grid operators to reduce generation. Your idea will make good use of all that unused energy-producing potential.
“It’s the same idea as having a car parked in someone’s garage,” you said. “If it is not being run, they can lend it to someone for carsharing. In our case, wind, solar and hydropower sources that are not being used can be used to do something good. could.”
“Of course, this will depend on industry and policy makers,” he said, “but technology-wise, we show that it is very possible because these energy sources already exist.”
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Their main finding: The increased NFT processing activity could be powered, in part, from existing power sources—or underutilized. Fifty megawatts of potential hydropower from existing US dams not currently used to generate electricity, or 15% of the wind and solar energy that cannot crrently be harnessed or stored from sources in Texas Lightning can be used for rapid growth in NFT transactions.
Blockchain technologies provide a high level of security in a variety of applications, including NFT transactions, but the energy required to process each transaction is problematic in an increasingly globalized world.
“Initially, people only cared about the utility of these applications,” Lal said. “But then they started to realize the energy and climate implications, because the essence of all these applications is the use of enormous amounts of energy.”
Without any effort to make NFT transaction processing more sustainable, the authors wrote, their annual emissions would reach the equivalent of 0.37 megatons of carbon dioxide – close to the CO2 emissions from 1 million single-trip flights for one passenger from New York to London. . ,
In September of 2022, the Ethereum blockchain answered the call for more sustainable business by switching from the energy-intensiveProof of Work (PoW) algorithm to a Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, which requires less computing power. Energy consumption dropped drastically after the switch, which is known as the Ethereum merge.
Nevertheless, the authors wrote, a rapid increase in recorded NFT transactions would translate into more validators operating on the network. By the end of this decade, the exponential growth in NFT transactions could consume the same amount of energy as 100,000 US homes.
So even with significantly lower energy consumption for individual NFT transactions, the cumulative effect of an increased number of validators operating on a fossil fuel-dominant grid will further increase the associated carbon debt.
“By the end of this decade,” you said, “the carbon produced by NFT transactions could be roughly equal to the carbon produced in a year by a 600 MW coal-fired power plant.”
The authors evaluated two hydroelectric energy carriers – green hydrogen and green ammonia (more energy-dese than hydrogen) – for their feasibility, noting that their cost savings would be affected by a number of factors, including transport distance and the level of use of available renewable energy. it occurs. Source.
Retrofitting these existing energy sources could be challenging, the authors said, but would still be good for the energy carrier and the planet.
You said, “NFT processing takes a lot of energy,” so this proves to be a good way to take advantage of these reductions.
He is a Senior Faculty Fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability and co-director of the Cornell University AI for Science Institute.
This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.