Bitcoin U-turn recharges Tesla governance concerns

Bitcoin U-turn recharges Tesla governance concerns

(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.) MELBOURNE - Bitcoin has just lost one of its most high-profile cheerleaders. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk on Wednesday tweeted that the electric-car maker is suspending taking the cryptocurrency as payment for its vehicles, citing the “rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels, especially coal” to mine it and pay with it. Musk is right. But his decision reveals more about his company than it does about bitcoin. Anyone slightly familiar with the industry could have told Musk that bitcoin generation sucks up a massive amount of dirty energy. The latest figures from the Centre for Alternative Finance at Cambridge University study shows miners currently use 147 terawatt-hours on an annualised basis - roughly half the United Kingdom’s annual power consumption. Renewable energy sources, mostly hydropower, account for only 39% of their total usage. Yet the self-anointed “Technoking” of a company that aspires to accelerate the adoption of zero-emission energy was either ignorant or dismissive of these facts when he decided to accept bitcoin payments three months ago. Finance officer-cum-“Master of Coin” Zachary Kirkhorn also signed on. On Tesla’s first-quarter earnings call he explained the company had converted