Abstract
Following the footprints of Bitcoins, many other cryptocurrencies were developed mostly adopting the same or similar Proof-of-Work (PoW) approach. Since completing the PoW puzzle requires extremely high computing power, consuming a vast amount of electricity, PoW has been strongly criticised for its antithetic stand against the notion of green computing. Use of application-specific hardware, particularly application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) has further fuelled the debate, as these devices are of no use once they become “legacy” and hence obsolete to compete in the mining race, thus contributing to electronics waste. Therefore, this paper surveys the currently available alternative approaches to PoW and evaluates their applicability - especially their appropriateness in terms of greenness.
Highlights
Professional and societal life is greatly enriched by the usage of Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
One of the major downsides is the carbon footprint produced by the ICT sector, mainly due to exponentially increasing consumption of energy at different stages of the life-cycle
If we consider the demand of energy needed for manufacturing and powering the ICT devices, combined with their ubiquity in modern society, it is apparent that the ICT sector plays an important role in most of the categories mentioned above
Summary
Professional and societal life is greatly enriched by the usage of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). According to the U.S Environmental Protection Agency, production of electricity and the transportation sector contributed approximately 28% each to the total greenhouse gas emissions in 2016, while industry, residential & commercial and agricultural sectors contributed 22%, 11% and 9% respectively [1] It appears that ICT is not listed amongst the major contributors. According to Pickavet et al [2] the total global energy consumption of computers, networking equipment, data centres and other ICT devices (excluding smart devices) is projected to reach 14% by the year 2020. This does not consider the manufacturing contributions. By introducing the concept of Green Computing, this paper briefly explains how Proof-of-Work (PoW) operates, as used in blockchain ecosystems of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, and evaluates the greenness of the alternative approaches
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