March 23 – Financial Times (June Yoon):
“As the price of bitcoin has surged, the hidden costs of the cryptocurrency boom are becoming clearer. Awareness of the environmental consequences of using a vast array of computer equipment to produce bitcoins has been rising… Much less discussed, and yet perhaps more immediate, is mining’s impact on costs of chips — which go into everything from smartphones and TVs to cars. Bitcoin is created by bitcoin miners, who are issued with the cryptocurrency in return for completing massive volumes of computations to verify transactions. This requires a high energy input. But miners also require increasingly powerful computer equipment, or rigs, for the process.”
March 21 – Reuters (Jill Gralow and Renju Jose): “Australia was set… to evacuate thousands more people from suburbs in Sydney’s west, battered by the worst flooding in 60 years, with torrential rains expected to continue for another day or two.”
March 24 – Reuters (Ben Blanchard and Yimou Lee): “Taiwan will from next month ration water for more than one million households in the centre of the island because of a drought but the technology hub of Hsinchu will not be affected, Economy Minister Wang Mei-hua said… Sub-tropical Taiwan is experiencing its worst drought in half a century, after rain-soaking typhoons failed to make landfall last year… Wang told reporters that from April 4, water supplies in parts of Taichung and Miaoli would be cut for two days every week, with water tankers being sent out to supply residents as needed.”