Topic: Why green bitcoin mining has become a trend? (Read 785 times)

No matter. The main thing is that most of them set a goal to earn money, and not to save the environment.

Bitcoin can always overcome negative problems and issues, when there is a lot of negative news about bitcoin being used for illegal transactions but no one can prove it, it is anonymous but flows to the exchange can be easily traced and it has never been proven, and now they are attacking bitcoin with excuses make global warming and now it is available green bitcoin mining.

Many organizations are campaigning for energy saving. This is one of the factors why environmentally friendly bitcoin mining is increasingly being implemented. I think this will continue into the future if using environmentally friendly energy can be successful

Compared to other coins, Bitcoin demands more energy from the miners, the bitcoin's price increase, and so does the energy consumption.
Miners are competing to get some on the limited supply of bitcoin, and equipment needs to be updated and replaced.
It is preferred to have a cheaper option to get some profit.

Here it is not even a matter of energy saving, although this factor also plays an important role. However, first of all, we are forced to switch to renewable sources of green energy due to the sharp unfavorable climate change on our planet, which puts humanity on the brink of survival. We all already really feel on ourselves sudden temperature changes and massive environmental disasters, and this makes people think about the fact that it is necessary to influence the environment less in order for it to be able to renew itself. In recent centuries, mankind has severely disturbed the natural ecological balance, therefore, the primary task before us is to change the consumer attitude towards nature and learn to live in harmony with it.
The transition to clean energy allows solving both this issue and gaining access to an almost unlimited supply of energy and, most importantly, preserving life on the planet.

Right, electricity has always been the biggest cost factor, I once mined with 3 units of Ant Miner S5 around 2015, at that time it took about 10 months for RoI, after almost 2 years of mining I sold all the units because at that time mining was no longer profitable, instead the cost electricity is higher than mining results.

Same thing. it is global warming, some countries may experience sudden changes and extreme low temperatures as a result of a larger context, but it's global warming. The new "buzzword" was created for those unable to understand the concept of "average global temperature".

because it's still new that's why it's trending, bitcoin can be trusted and bitcoin is also a very safe investment, when many say bitcoin mining is damaging the environment, global warming, and wasteful of energy, bitcoin moves to find new ways of mining, maybe this is the way bitcoin to reply to posts of people who hate bitcoin..

There have been many companies posting negative things about bitcoin, and cornering bitcoin, and looking for ways to bring down bitcoin, with various reasons, such as bitcoin mining, making energy waste, and damaging the environment, so bitcoin is now doing other ways to do mining, like what the current trend, green mining that is environmentally clean, and energy efficient,,

That would be a disaster for the world, but, as you rightly said, Bitcoin would survive just fine. Moreover, all indications are that in the nearest future Bitcoin mining will be using renewable energies like no one else around. According to some sources, like the one cited in the OP, the energy BTC mining is using is over 50% renewable already, and the process of transition to renewable energy is at high speed currently.

No, they are not spreading what is beneficial to the state unless you live in Russia. In Russia it is true as the media is controlled by government, or let's say the vast majority of it. The media spreads the information that creates most drama and will be read by most people with interest. Talking against Bitcoin still is a good strategy to create catchy headlines. More readers, more revenue, but not necessarily more truth...

It has long been stupid to believe the media. They say only what is beneficial to the state. They want to cover up mining, because they understand how much this will affect the course and stability of Bitcoin. Of course, they do not want people to use it, when they find a way by which they can control our actions even more, they will do everything to convince us of the "usefulness" of Bitcoin.

To be honest I am certain neither argument would have calmed the anti-bitcoin party down. Whether you claim the energy is green or whether you claim it is not a lot, it doesn't fit the agenda of those against Bitcoin either way. Also, belittling an overall usage of 0.117% could be a dangerous strategy. If today you say that's not much and then it doubles within a year because Bitcoin prices go up and mining power goes up, the message in the media would be that electricity usage increased by a 100%. No matter what you say, they'll put it the way they want anyway.

The fault lies with the Bitcoin users. As the OP has rightly pointed out, only 0.117% of the global energy use is devoted to Bitcoin mining. The arguments put forward by the critics don't have any face value, and they themselves know that. But at the same time, Bitcoin users have fallen in to the trap that the critics have set for us. Rather than pointing out that our energy usage is minimal, everyone here has been busy finding excuses such as "green energy" proportion in mining is increasing. Satoshi won't be happy with this. He designed Bitcoin as a decentralized currency, that can't be manipulated. And here we are getting manipulated by those people who hate BTC.

the biggest problem facing bitcoin today is the wasteful and unfriendly cost of electricity, this makes people think that bitcoin green mines are environmentally friendly mines and not waste electricity. in my opinion, this is bitcoin's biggest problem solver at the moment.

another point never addressed is the equipment that is quickly replaced and goes to trash. how "green" is this?

This is a repost, my message was previously deleted because the moderators don't like to have their beliefs contradicted. More and more this forum looks like a church. Many here just call things FUD (sacrilege) and refuse to look at them.

As previously mentioned when we hear about green energy and the consumption of energy of Bitcoin as a huge debate, i cannot understand why they are not worried when other industries are consuming much and trashing the nature in public view. I do accept that we can convert all the mining farms to renewable energy and majority of the farms are running using them and still the bad reputation of using huge energy is upon Bitcoin which is strange.

Exactly, the presence of green energy is a solution to make the environment healthy, now more and more people are aware of the importance of protecting nature and the simple thing that can be done is to reduce electricity consumption and then replace it with green energy.

right, they are looking for loopholes where it is widely reported that bitcoin mining wastes a lot of energy. With a project like that, of course, maintaining bitcoiner's concern to continue to care about the environment so that the development of this technology can synergize with nature without destroying it.

Renewable energies are much better for the environment compared to fossil fuel etc.. So it's better for miners to use them at a high rate.

By the way, few days ago, Elon Musk said that Tesla would start accepting Bitcoin as a payment method again if renewable energies are used in Bitcoin mining more than 50%. I don't know if he really cares about it but people in general really want to see mining activities being made with renewable energies.

this all started because of elon . he want the btc to be like his tesla but isnt it great if majority of the miners are now using natural sources of energy instead of the traditional which can cause harm for the people or for the environment .
 its nice to know that elon has a care too for the world and not only for himself .
 in the picture obviously btc energy consumption is lower compare to the world is using because bitcoin is not global and not all are mining a btc .

Equipment for a green energy is expensive right now but the pay off is that there's less expense when it comes to electricity since you get your source for free. I think that the bigger trend is the part where more people cares more about the environment than the past because they have seen calamities that's the result of climate change.

Yup, those ones you linked. They also hosted a presentation and Q&A regarding that report here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KbOXG0EMuY. If you don't want to watch the whole thing, the question as to how they came up with their final estimate is asked and answered at 22:23.

Then shut down all non-renewable energy production tomorrow, and see which industries are most affected. Most homes and businesses would cease to function almost immediately. Bitcoin would continue just fine, albeit with increased block times for a few weeks.

maybe this tends.to be a cheaper.price to get it and.can also be trendy very useful for novice.miners at a.relatively cheaper.price than usual, what green miners.do.can
.be trendy as well because this is.also very it's.good for us beginners.with a fairly.cheap price for the future, so.that's where green miners.are more trendy than bitcoin today

I downloaded the report and read it. Thank you for sharing the report.

Would you mind sharing the report from Bitcoin Mining Council, please.

I search and found two interesting reports from Bitcoin Mining Council
GLOBAL BITCOIN MINING DATA REVIEW Q2 2021
Bitcoin Mining Council Survey Confirms Sustainable Power Mix. Is this the report you mentioned?

There are myths about Bitcoin mining and its harmful effects on the planet. In fact, people, bitcoin protesters try to exaggerate it in order to make Bitcoin looks like to be much more harmful that what it is.

There are different methodologies which different reports have used. The CoinShares reports for example, (https://coinshares.com/research/bitcoin-mining-network-december-2019), estimated the hashrate present in each region of each country, and multiplied that by the green/dirty energy mix which was used on average in that region, to reach a figure of 74% renewables. The Bitcoin Mining Council, on the other hand, surveyed as many miners as would respond, and found 67% renewable usage among surveyed miners. When considering that miners with high renewable use may have self selected to respond to said survey, they reached an adjusted figure of 56% renewable.

No methodology will ever be exact, and numbers will vary, but the conclusions are always the same: On a global scale, bitcoin uses an insignificant amount of electricity, and significantly more than average of the electricity it does use is green.

The environmentally-friendly phenomenon we're living in has to do with human's greed. Essentially, Bitcoin uses that greed for the common good. The miners will always choose the cheapest resource to increase their profit. Thus, they'll either move to places where electricity is very cheap or use renewable energy sources instead. The fact that they're good for the environment doesn't have to do with their choice; mining's incentive was always to maximize your profit. (minimize the costs)

For Bitcoin? There's no way to calculate the “green hashes”. I doubt if you could somehow approach that number. Some studies show that the majority of them are green, but I have no idea how they calculated it.

As for Elon; professional fudster.

Exactly, but the media doesn't report that. They just come out with nonsense statements comparing the electricity consumption per transaction to that of Visa or comparing the bitcoin network to that of a country, which get clicks and views but are completely meaningless. Energy consumption is just an easy stick to hit bitcoin with, because it's easy for the average person to comprehend and most people will just believe whatever is written without looking at the actual data behind it.

Bitcoin mining is an easy target. They can't limit electricity to homes, or else people would get angry and the government's polling numbers would suffer. They can't limit electricity to businesses without affecting economic output, which is the last thing any government wants to do on the back of COVID. So they look for easy targets for reducing electricity consumption, and bitcoin mining happens to be one of those targets.

Because of our global warming, governments around the world are looking for ways to control the environment. Since mining requires energy, various media will report on the harmful environment of Bitcoin mining, which will cause some negative effects. So green energy mining reduces environmental pollution,

they abandoned heavier mining and switched to solar power systems, why haven't they complained about the shift until now? so when they switch and use solar power, then they already know what the results will be. may have been a calculation from the start. it's just that we can't find a transparent statement of the mining results that they have done so far.

The government doesn’t care whether the percentage of energy being used by cryptocurrency mining is less than the world usage, they don’t care, as long the energy is high to them,, then it’s high. A lot of people have come for bitcoin in that it consumes a lot of energy. That has always been one of their points to make whenever they want to get a lot of people to dislike bitcoin.

We have seen Elon Musk take that as excuse that he doesn’t support bitcoin because of the energy consumption is too high, and he keeps dropping that statement all the time. So, if renewable energy would be a better way to go, then it’s best that miners choose it, and that way they can reduce on the level of energy consumption.

I think the reason why more bitcoin mining is going green now is due to being more sustainable, efficient, affordable, and friendly in the environment. Utilizing the renewable source of power instead of the non-renewable will reduce the cost and the possible negative effects to the climate of our planet. Majority of the organizations are now advocating for more environmental-friendly ways to sustain the needs of the industry. Hence, it explains why more mining corporations are now switching to the alternative ways on generating energy and power to fuel their electricity in the mining sites. The non-renewable energy sources are also becoming more expensive and are becoming limited because of high demand and little supply. That is why it is really much better to go green, that way we can also help the reduction of carbon footprint that is one of the major reason of global warming.

Although, the first investment would surely cost a lot. But it will definitely be worth it after several years of usage. The invested capital will be gained back in just a matter of time.

right, Bitcoin green energy mining is becoming a trend to fight FUD which spread...

Bitcoin mining is the cause of great environmental damage is FUD which is always spread by China and several European countries to inhibit the growth of Bitcoin. when Bitcoin green energy mining becomes the majority then the FUD will no longer useful.

I agree. That, or manipulation of facts.

Yes, we should reduce CO2 emissions, but the goal has little to do with Bitcoin mining. Electricity is the source of only 25% of greenhouse gases, and global Bitcoin network currently consumes around 80 terawatt-hours(TWh) of electricity annually, while the world total electricity consumption is 22,315 TWh. You do the math.

Given that most of those farms were already using hydro power (which in China and most of the ex Soviet nations on Asian continent are) then yes,,, already most of them were using clean energy. But as pointed out above, hobby miners who try solar as an alternative have high costs, while companies get big subsidies from the state. So it makes sense to them to do so. The FUD against miners are just that, a useless and non-fact FUD.

If you compare the energy spend in the mining of Bitcoins to the number of resources wasted in the production of fiat money and further maintaining a banking sector to maintain, produce and distribute it, it is more environmentally friendly.

Further, a large number of miners are migrating to Iceland because of the low electricity prices the country has, the reason it gets it from renewable resources. As an alternative to paper currencies, bitcoin is advantageous. At the same time, we can't fully depend on cryptocurrency because the high inflation and deflation rates can make it a disaster for daily use.

My say is, since Bitcoin is the most popular choice, it should embrace the power of stake or other consensus mechanisms which uses less energy to make it more approachable for the environment-conscious people.

I think that most of the bitcoin mining farms, are using clean energy to power their equipment, and i mean the big companies that are constantly mining  24/7 and not the individuals that run a mining rig from their garage, because in the long term the power consumption cost is very high and makes the profit from the mining highly dependent on the price of the bitcoin, but if you invest in a solar power or wind power energy system, you can start making bitcoin for free as soon as you pay of the cost.

That's a superficial reason for the trend of green energy, yes it's cheap but I think that the reason for the trend is probably because people are getting more conscious with their impact on the environment so anything that promises a less impact is going to be attractive to the consumer and since advertisers take advantage of this that's why we see it trend.

Because electricity is relatively expensive, miners in many areas cannot afford to pay electricity bills for mining. Moreover, the government feels that Bitcoin mining is a waste of electricity because of environmental governance. China has banned China because of environmental governance Mining within the territory, so now everyone is beginning to advocate green mining. The green mining government also supports it.

This is not even something anyone can measure let alone come up with an estimated percentage!
Simply because no miner in their right mind is going to publicly announce that they are mining bitcoin specially if they have a rather larger operation because they may become a target for theft or worse.
Since we don't know who is mining and there is no directory where they register, we also don't know what type of electricity they are using.

These guestimates are always either FUDs or wrong numbers based on the small portion of the mining community that has revealed their operation like a couple of big mining farms (eg. 15% of the total hashrate) that went public.

And green and cheap is exactly this now,,, those expensive solar panels and wind turbines or whatever it is are almost free for companies to make because governments think it is so trendy now. Paying and giving grants and taxbreaks.

And guess what also,,, nobody cares that they do not know yet what to do with the turbines and solar panels when they degrade:) Solar panels was been around since 40 years and they did not get popular because they break down fast and then become toxic.

I love green too but this green energy trend for the sake of it is nonsense.

Yeah right...

So why are you not setting up panels ? If it's so cheap you would put all those stupid coal miners out of business and help the environment too..

Yes, it is. By the way, do you have the figures supporting that Bitcoin is not turning green? Because data coming from the link says the Bitcoin mining industry uses 56% green energy. A quarter prior to that, the figure was only 36.8%. But everyone is free to think otherwise so that they could remain avid fans of Elon Musk.

The sun is free. The panels are not. Setting it up needs money but it definitely pays off in the long run. That's why it's cheap.

No, it's not turning at all but everyone is free to think like that so they could sleep more comfortable at night.
Btw, so suddenly those renewables are not that cheap for everyone, are cheap only in some conditions, what happened to this?


Cheaper than 80% of the EU, dirty as it can get if we go by the numbers around 15% or so renewable.
But we still pay 1/3 of what German or Danes with their eco madness pay.

Yes, it could have an impact on the environment, but the miners aren't thinking about it. You're right, you won't have to pay for electricity because you have your own renewable energy, but keep in mind that making or setting up your renewable energy is expensive. In the case of solar energy, you must purchase panels and batteries, but this is a one-time payment, so your expenses after a month are only the maintenance of your panels and energy / equiments. I saw in Iceland, I believe, but I'm not sure where, that they're using geothermal energy to mine bitcoins, which is a very smart move.

People realize that Bitcoin mining will have some impact on the environment and may also cause waste of resources. However, choosing Bitcoin green mining is less costly, and sustainable Bitcoin green mining does not need to pay electricity fees, which means Will get higher profits. Renewable energy is safer for users and will not pollute the environment.

Would you not agree that Bitcoin mining is turning green?

I don't mean cheap as a burger. And it is probably cost beneficial to start all those renewable energy setups only if you are mining on a large scale basis.


Probably not? If coal and fuel are cheap, the wind must be cheaper? How's the price of electricity in your place? Is it from green sources or not?

It is no secret that states and their governments are not in the grip of the spread of cryptocurrency and will continue to try to tighten its regulation and circulation in the future. The issue of the high energy consumption of Bitcoin mining and the carbohydrate footprint of the energy it consumes has been raised and governments are happy to seize on it to denigrate not only Bitcoin, but the entire cryptocurrency.
On the other hand, this is very relevant, since we already really see abrupt climate changes as a result of unreasonable human activity. This was previously perceived with skepticism by many, but now the threat has become real. Therefore, this issue has become very serious.

Why would green mining not be a natural trend? Miners are in business to make money and in most countries fossil fuels are increasingly being highly taxed or banned outright due to the damaging pollution they cause to the wider society. Green energy has fairly predictable costs and outputs, as long as the means of production are able to cover their cost and any maintenance then all the extra energy produced is essentially free to the miner. If you scale it up big enough (like wind or solar farms, even hydroelectric dams) then theoretically Bitcoin can provide an outlet for energy that may otherwise be wasted if industrial or domestic demand is low for any reason.

Bitcoin mining, by its very nature of being able to be set up anywhere, can actually subsidize and promote green energy projects in remote locations which would otherwise be uneconomical. It can act as a "buyer of last resort" for electricity which would otherwise be wasted:
You think the environmental impact of recycling old solar panels or wind turbines is higher than the environmental impact of burning billions of tons of coal and oil? Never mind the environmental impact of recycling all the coal and oil mining, transport, and burning machinery and equipment?

First of all Green energy has become a trend of this century and is used by lots of people and even politicians to attract attention to their personalities or even manipulations with peoples decisions. In addition to this green energy is cheaper comparing with electricity for example that is got from stations and with high level of pollution. And Tesla with Elon Musk's tweets played not the last role in all this attention to the green energy among the cryptocurrency miners, hodlers and governmental institutions. So nowadays we see what we see in the crypto and businesses world.

green and cheap is for the utility companies.
all them juicy grants and taxbreaks to go green.. something residents dont get access to to be self sustainable

wow, you've really done a lot of juggling here to make the numbers look the way you want them.

but when I say SCALE I am referring to the people served. USERS. The focus is on people, not things or "value". Things should serve people, not the opposite.  

Cost per dollar makes absolutely no sense. What we need more, two transactions of 10 million usd or one million of 20 usd transactions? Can you see the mistake here?

so the best argument is to compare with other things that spend a lot? it's just an excuse. as bitcoin was the last stage of scientific progress. it's not how science works, it's how religion works.

The same propaganda on every side I'm really getting bored of this shit
Bitcoin consumes only green energy so it's not contributing to pollution, yeah right, what about those coal plants? Crickets!
Tesla cars run without producing gases and all that stuff! What happens with old batteries? Crickets!
Renewables are the future, cheap and not polluting! Why is China paying 3 cents and Germany 30? Crickets!

Marathon is expanding their facility in Montana from 30MW to 100MW and they talk about green energy. Tesla is raising forests to built assembly plants and they talk about being eco-friendly. Let's have concerts to celebrate earth day and burn more energy than if everyone there would have gone to work like on a normal day. Look at me, I've got on board on a $4 million yacht and I'm crossing the Atlantic with zero carbon emissions, you should do the same!


If everything is turning to be so green and cheap, why don't you all get some solar panels and start mining, making everything more decentralized?
Probably because miners receiving really cheap energy from real reliable sources that work 24/7 would put you out of business even before you make the draft for the investment?

If a leader of a government doesn't have a clue, it's okay, but if their advisors and counselors can't come up with anything better than repeating media FUD, that can be a problem.

The estimation of Bitcoin contribution in the global warming(which is very small) is one thing. But what is more important is that Bitcoin mining can go green, and it will eventually, for the most part.

certain stat sites estimate that US 'spends' $10.7trill a year
bitcoin does about $1.05b a day $383b a year

so the scale of value is ~28x

16,500,000,000,000kwh for the us to 'spend' its money
16.5pwh a year
16,500twh a year
1,884gwh per hour(1.88twh per hour)

110exahash /110thash= 1mill s19pro asics at 3.25kwh per 110thash
3,250,000kwh per hour
3.25gwh per hour

so lets see the difference
  dollar        vs      btc
US 1884gw       btc 3.25gw
US $10.7trill     btc $383bill (10.7t is 28x more then $383b)
____________________ (divide the 1884 and 10.7 by 28 to get fiat equivalent to btc value moved cost)
US 67gw          btc 3.25gw
US $383b        btc $383b

so yea a direct comparison for fiat $1 per kw and btc value $1 per kw
the btc is actually ~20x BETTER than fiat

..
as for 'global warming'.. not all countries will get 'warming' .. thats why climate change is a better buzzword. because some countries will see a cooling effect.
as for the inner debates of causes.. yes humans caused it.. but its not only/majorly carbon as the weapon. its actually the alteration of nature to effect the water cycle thats the main factor

(less fresh water naturally flowing on land = less evaporation=less clouds= less cooling and less snow to replenish the poles
- due to (dams)reservoir hoarding. pipes, plumbing, sewers = water unable to be evaporated if its trapped out of the sun)
and yes have 5 litres in a pool(reservoir) vs 5 litres spread out as a thin puddles/streams.. the puddle/stream evaporates more then the pooled reservoir. so yes dam reservoirs actually damage the water cycle compared to just letting the streams and rivers flow over natural unpiped land

Because bitcoin threatens those in power. They don't care if industries such as video games or online pornography are orders of magnitude more wasteful than bitcoin. In fact, all the better! These are products we can tax and make a profit from, and so their environmental impact is irrelevant. But bitcoin comes along and is a direct threat to their monetary monopoly, so it gets disparaged with any little morsel of criticism blown way out of proportion.

Ahh yes, Elon Musk, that great environmental campaigner who launched a car in to space on a rocket just for the lulz.

Fiat is a few several hundred times worse according to this analysis, which is well worth a read: https://www.coindesk.com/whats-the-carbon-footprint-of-fiat-money. If bitcoin can become widespread enough to reduce the chances of the next global recession even a little bit, reduce its magnitude, or delay it, then bitcoin would become net carbon negative.

Not true. A few years ago, it became cheaper to build new renewables than it did to build new fossil fuel plants: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesellsmoor/2019/06/15/renewable-energy-is-now-the-cheapest-option-even-without-subsidies/
And a report from last month shows that it is starting to become cheaper to build new renewables from scratch than it is to even continue to operate already existing fossil fuel plants: https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/solar/report-its-now-cheaper-to-build-new-solar-than-to-run-existing-coal-plants-in-china-india-and-most-of-europe/

There is a reason why Bitcoin Mining Consortium was formed. Elon Musk wouldn't stop harping on Bitcoin's energy consumption and as you know, the price dropped rapidly. Given the FUD being spread by one of the more influential personalities, miners definitely want to appease him to try to push the price up again.

It doesn't help that the one thing that is hailed as the currency of the future is facing an issue that is perceived to exacerbate climate change.

It isn't a reason to use renewable energy but it is a reason to tell everyone they're using renewable energy.

Selling it at any price does not mean that it is the cheapest at all, and electricity is not the only factor in mining, there is temperature, location, customs duties, .... etc. Electricity production licenses will encourage miners to change the place if accompanied by more measures, but what happens is that miners build the infrastructure for renewable energies and not exploit the surplus.


Who will bear the cost of recycling? Renewable energies have many negative aspects that have not yet been addressed, and the life span of many mining farms is the next havling.


This may be a convincing reason, so the news that talks about the use of solar energy are the result of these press reports?



Is this reason enough to use renewable energies? What will it benefit them if the media attacks them or stops it?

Not just for mining but for everything. Now I see even websites are saying they are proud to host on zero carbon servers and all that. Very trendy indeed.

I think the idea of green is quite nonsense when it is just green for the sake of green. Not every country is privilege enough to have renewable resources. Think about that.

If everyone is forced to use clean and green, then not everyone is able to enjoy.

Sorry to say that but renewable energy is still more expensive than conventional energy.Solar panels are very expensive.Wind turbines are still expensive.
The problem with solar and wind energy is that it cannot be sunny and windy 365 days in the year.
The days,when there's no wind and sun,the miners simply won't be working.
I think that many of the crypto miners are running during the night.How can you get solar energy during the night.

It has become a trend, because Elon Musk tweeted that Bitcoin is using too much electricity that are generated from fossil fuels. Now his agenda for that is simple, because his company produce "Clean energy" solutions ...so by doing that, he is hoping Bitcoin miners might invest some capital into buying some of these solutions. 

The thing is... "clean energy" has been used for many years in the Bitcoin community and large mining farms was strategically placed near renewable energy sources, like large hydro electric power plants. 

Because people are becoming aware of their impact on the environment  and they want to make some impact in the environment by taking care of it in any way that they can. Although this trend is being hindered by big company since a green environment is going to be bad for their businesses so they do anything that they can to make sure that the trend won't be fruitful.

It is not because of Tesla, Musk just used an old FUD about bitcoin and spread it which started the spark of new FUD about the same old topic (energy consumption of bitcoin mining). As the FUD grew and people including some government stated blaming bitcoin miners they had to do something. Going green or claiming to be green seems to be that decision for some of the miners.

Useless? I really doubt you can justify any lifestyle product as being "practically useless". If it is really useless, then there is no reason why anyone would be spending thousands of dollars on them. The electrical usage by those products are often quite negligible as compared to Bitcoin. There is a problem with Bitcoiners; they seem to draw irrelevant examples to justify the huge and frivolous usage of electricity on Bitcoin mining. Common examples includes: Carbon footprint on consumer products, electrical usage by banks, Carbon footprint on transport. Unfortunately, the utility provided by those products far outweigh those using Bitcoin.

The transaction volume and the practical usage of Bitcoin is fairly small, far smaller than your competing payment processors. In this regard, then your marginal utility is already smaller than major payment processors and they are obliged to put an effort into environmental conservation as well. Let's face it, Bitcoin has a great concept behind it but you can't justify the current electrical usage because the adoption of Bitcoin is so low!

---

It's green washing. Miners feel that they have to explicitly state that they are using renewable or green energy because the media focuses on that too much. However, this isn't a one dimensional issue. What is the opportunity costs of something like this; are people in those regions more reliant on fossil fuels because Bitcoin miners are taking a large proportion of the "green" energy? What is the percentage of the energy being produced being truly "green"? Are they carbon neutral and do they have zero environmental impact? How much E-waste arises from Bitcoin mining alone?

This is not all about the Tesla fuss. This has already been an issue long before Tesla somehow joined the Bitcoin community by accepting Bitcoin and eventually removing it. 

Green mining is much better and cheaper. So it would be beneficial for miners to choose them over other nonrenewable energy sources like coal or fossil fuels.

If you use the sun as your energy source, do you have to pay for it? Of course not. So it should be an additional advantage to your operation. If you use the wind, do you still have to pay for your electricity? Of course not. So that should mean bigger profit.

It is FUD because you can't compare centralized to decentralized first of all. Centralization requires only a central entity as the main power, while Bitcoin requires everyone to contribute if they want to earn and keep the system up and running while also decentralizing it more and making it more secure at the same time. Comparing decentralized Bitcoin power consumption with what banks consume is useless because if banks were decentralized and each bank had to store their own ledger from zero and each philiale had to verify each and every detail themselves, they'd have to use way more electricity.

This is as useless as comparing BTC power consumption vs how much power is used to mine gold.. we're all going more and more digital generally, like imagine how much consumption has been lately added in the past few years only by "smart scales", " smart watches" etc which are practically useless vs Bitcoin which truly brings something new, innovative and.. ultimately useful!

it's not FUD, it's a real problem. I think those who deny this are the same people who deny global warming. Bitcoin protocol has an infinite demand for more and more energy. People like to say that banks spend more energy, but what's the difference in scale? Any honest analysis must consider the scale.

hashpower and reward for mining has ZERO connection with number of transactions in a block
miners that empty mine or full block mine get the same length hash and pass that has to asics
transaction count per block is MEANINGLESS to mining cost and reward.
they all get the same hash length and same 6.25btc reward no matter what
the 'fee total' is not about transaction count either. its about selection and bidding and arbitrary min fee rules set in software

now thats explained
media are not just saying "bitcoin uses country X amount of energy" but also propagandising that "each transaction costs X houses daily energy bill"

this narrative is done by certain groups that want to portray bitcoin as useless and expensive to transactions to sway people into using altnets for their transactions instead.

Because Elon brought it out to the attention of world and it reactive which showed how serous the matter is and for the best interests of mother earth, going green is the only way for a sustainable environment.
Once cryptocurrency mining is all green, big money will start flowing back in  and if this is trending then it's good to see miners are going this direction.

This is true, the media is over exaggerating things here. Considering that there are many other human activities that are only wasting energy or much more intensive energy users. As bitcoin is relatively new to their grasp, they are finding loopholes on how to find faults on this new technology. This is why miners are now aggressive also in announcing their use of renewable energy sources, for them to stop the FUD surrounding the use of too much energy.

But it actually is cheaper to use renewable sources, with it being more sustainable. Solar was declared to be the cheapest form of electricity last year and these renewable sources are constantly improving as you mentioned and could get cheaper in the future.
To make it even cheaper, Bitcoin miners can get it for a discount as some make use of excess power which would normally have gone to waste.

Because the enviromental FUD became quite strong recently, ever since journalists started making headlines like "Bitcoin uses more energy than country X", public perception has started shifting to negative. When I saw people on reddit mention Bitcoin in unrelated conversations, the most common sentiment was "what is Bitcoin, what is it useful for?", today it's "Bitcoin is really bad for environment". So some miners want to publicly announce that they are swithing to green to combat this FUD, hopefully increasing the price of BTC.

majority of chinese mining FARMS have been 'green' since 2014(set up in hydro areas from the start)
majority of chinese and other countries residential hobby home miners have been fossil

the fun facts is most altcoins of small hashpower are home hobby miners wasting fossil

moderate to majority of western FARMS are fossil

asic farms have not ever tried to set up in solar area's due to.. obviously night.
asic farms have not ever tried to set up in windfarm area's. due to.. obviously still-air
asics farms have preferred hydro due to.. obviously. constant water-flow

the sudden press news about Green mining is not some new idea
its about 50% propaganda anti china/hate messaging
50% blame the home hobby miners. and attempt to remove home hobby for more industrial elite groups via raising investment to set up industrial farms in the west in regions of renewable hydro

Its the way the world is going because of political pressure to have everything as clean and friendly to the environment as possible. I think its a way of trying to profit of the fear of global warming. Bitcoin is no different and while it can be cheaper and it is probably better for miners to use not many are currently using it but the reason its trending so much right now is because Elon Musk & Tesla put out a statement that they would be dropping support of Bitcoin because of the issues with Bitcoin Miners using too much energy and not investing in green energy.

It is much more sustainable, although of course not as cheap as mining using non-renewable energy sources. The issue with its cost is not permanent however as the more people and institutions that are into renewable energy resources, the more will people they implement them as part of their everyday lives and in turn, this upstart in usage will drop the price down, possibly cheaper than non-renewable variations. And of course most importantly, the renewable energy sources are much more safer for its users and are not polluting the environment. So there's a big plus on that.

Because renewable energy can be cheaper.

Electricity is expensive to store. Imagine a giant wind farm. During the day, it churns out electricity which homes and business use to power lighting, AC, computers, TVs, kitchen appliances, etc. During the night, it churns out just as much electricity, but the demand is now tiny. They spend lots of money to build batteries to store some of this excess, but it's not enough. A lot goes to waste. Along comes a bitcoin miner and says "I'll move a bunch of my mining equipment here if you sell me your excess electricity cheaply." This is electricity which is being wasted and earning the renewable energy company nothing, so selling it at any price is good for them.

Because it is very easy to run your own solar panels. Buy some panels, hook them up to your mining equipment, off you go. No ongoing raw material requirement, no moving parts, very little maintenance or upkeep, very little ongoing costs.

According to what I know, bitcoin mining needs energy, whether that energy is from the sun, coal, fossil fuels and others, mining needs energy, so using renewable energies will not give you an additional advantage or more profits. Why do some miners leave or use solar energy?
Does anyone have statistics or percentages of the extent of solar energy use, and is all this fuss because of Tesla, or is it media reports trying to gain more views?