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Industry and researchers urge EIA to broaden approach, stress confidentiality and research-led options
Summary
Industry groups and academic researchers told EIA the agency should account for mining's grid-flexibility and renewable integration potential, address industry concerns over prior 'emergency' survey steps and data confidentiality, and consider a university-led or broader data‑center approach.
Several industry representatives and a university researcher told the Energy Information Administration on the webinar that any EIA effort to measure proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining energy use should balance confidentiality concerns, data needs and context.
Tom Mapes of the Digital Energy Council said the industry’s main worry was the earlier, hastened OMB approach and the prospect that collected data could be misused, asking EIA to explain why its prior process had differed. "The main concern from the industry side of things was ... the way of which kind of the rushed ... om process ... declaring an emergency" and "how all this data ultimately will be kept within within um not not weaponized," Mapes said.
Michael Poshek of the Blockchain Association urged EIA to take a holistic view that recognizes proof-of-work’s role in securing blockchains and said mining can help incentivize renewable generation and grid balancing because miners can be flexible. "Proof of work is crucial for ensuring robust security ... it is the expenditure of energy that helps to secure proof of work blockchains," Poshek said.
Margo Pi, a PhD student at Georgia Tech and research fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute, said bottom-up device-level metrics (machine efficiency, cooling, PUE) and protocol-level factors (difficulty adjustment and the market for computational power) are necessary to understand energy use. She also cautioned that the industry is wary of mandatory surveys—EIA was sued over a prior attempt—and argued EIA should consider supporting a university-led research initiative to secure industry buy-in and protect company confidentiality.
Trade group representatives including Lee Bratcher (Texas Blockchain Council) and Jason Browder (Marathon Digital Holdings) urged EIA to avoid singling out Bitcoin mining if possible and suggested surveying data centers broadly while distinguishing flexible from non‑flexible operations. "The industry will be skeptical if traditional data centers are left out in a survey and the eia specifically carves out digital asset data centers," Browder said.
Commenters and EIA staff also discussed operational questions important to survey design: how often miners have been curtailed for demand response, whether utilities have price signals or contracts that would make miners curtail, and whether response behavior differs between miners and traditional data centers.
EIA said it will consider these suggestions as it develops a proposed survey instrument and that the formal Federal Register comment process will be the place to submit detailed proposals.
