MILANO – The International Monetary Fund is targeting the “hunger for energy” that characterizes the activity of creating Bitcoin (the so-called mining) and that of the big brains that fuel Artificial Intelligence. Going so far as to ask for a dedicated tax to address the issue, which in the case of Bitcoin miners should be expressed in a +85% of electricity costs: only in this way would it be possible to meet global emissions reduction targets and bring billions in benefits to public budgets.
The issue is relaunched in an August article by the IMF, and does not go unnoticed by crypto supporters who attack Washington’s position by pointing out that it is based on outdated studies that do not take into account the improvements in efficiency of the processes that are upstream of the exchange of digital currencies.
The Fund’s blog starts from some suggestive comparisons: a Bitcoin transaction drinks the same energy that a person in Ghana or Pakistan needs for three years. And a ChatGpt query consumes ten times more energy than a Google query. If in 2022 miners and data centers accounted for 2% of global energy demand, the IMF estimates that in three years it will rise to 3.5%: as much as Japan, the fifth largest energy user in the world. If we look at the issue more strictly on the environmental front, the combination of the two activities is seen to occupy 1.2% of global carbon emissions, again by 2027.
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How to tackle the issue head on? In Washington’s vision, the tax system must be calibrated in such a way as to lead economic operators to cut emissions. The IMF estimates that bringing the mining industry in line with global emissions targets would require a direct tax of $0.047 per kilowatt hour. If we also include the offsetting of local pollution impacts, it would rise to $0.089 or +85% of the average electricity price for miners. Obviously, it would be a blow for them, considering that they have already recently had to face the reduction of the “offset” for their mining activity and have relocated their powerful computers near cheap energy sources.
For governments, such a tax would instead mean increase global revenue by over $5 billionwith the benefit of reducing emissions by the equivalent of a country like Belgium.
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The IMF instead reports that incentive schemes for data centers and similar are now more frequent. And that it is not clear why these tax breaks exist, given that there are no appreciable impacts from the employment point of view and indeed the environmental bill is strong. Precisely for the maxi-server hubs, The Fund estimates that a targeted tax should be set at $0.032 per kilowatt houror $0.052 including the costs of air pollution. An $18 billion “booty” for the public coffers.
The utopia to truly address the climate issue is that of a globally coordinated carbon tax. The Fund also seems aware that this remains a dream book discussion. And so it proposes targeted interventions, recognizing that AI itself can be useful in spreading a more efficient use of energy, but that drastic measures are needed to “convince” these new large consumers to do more.
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