london tesla boss elon musk is a poster child of lowcarbon technology yet the electric carmakers backing of bitcoin this week could turbocharge global use of a currency thats estimated to cause more pollution than a small country every yeartesla inc revealed on monday it had bought 15 billion of bitcoin and would soon accept it as payment for cars sending the price of the cryptocurrency though the roofso whats the problem you may ask bitcoins virtual so its not like its made from paper or plastic or even metalthe digital currency is created when highpowered computers compete against other machines to solve complex mathematical puzzles an energyintensive process that currently often relies on fossil fuels particularly coal the dirtiest of them allat current rates such bitcoin mining devours about the same amount of energy annually as the netherlands did in 2019 the latest available data from the university of cambridge and the international energy agency showsbitcoin production is estimated to generate between 22 and 229 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year or between the levels produced by jordan and sri lanka according to a 2019 study in scientific journal joulethe landmark inclusion of the cryptocurrency in teslas investment portfolio could complicate the companys zeroemissions ethos according to some investors at a time when esg environmental social and governance considerations have become a major factor for global investorswe are of course very concerned about the level of carbon dioxide emissions generated from bitcoin mining said ben dear ceo of osmosis investment management a sustainable investor managing around 22 billion in assets that holds tesla stock in several portfolioswe hope that when teslas bitcoin ventures are over they will concentrate on measuring and disclosing to their market their full suite of environmental factors and if they continue to buy or indeed start mining bitcoin that they include the relevant energy consumption data in these disclosurestesla did not respond to a request for commentstill its not all ecodoom and gloom and teslas bet on bitcoin comes amid growing attempts in the cryptocurrency industry to mitigate the environmental harm of mining this movement could be advanced by billionaire entrepreneur musk who this week separately offered 100 million for inventions that could pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or oceansthe entrance of big corporations into the crypto market could also boost incentives to produce green bitcoin using renewable energy some sustainability experts say they add that companies could buy carbon credits to compensate tooyet in the shorter term teslas disclosure of its bitcoin investment made in a securities filing could indirectly serve to exacerbate the environmental costs of miningother companies are likely to follow its lead by buying into the currency investors and industry experts say greater demand and higher prices lead to more miners competing to solve puzzles in the fastest time to win coin using increasingly powerful computers that need more energyits bitcoin not a sustainable investment and its hard to make it sustainable with the kind