PETA Outraged After Learning Tesla Uses Cryptocurrency Mining To Power Electric Cars

PETA Outraged After Learning Tesla Uses Cryptocurrency Mining To Power Electric Cars

May 27, 2023 - Los Angeles, CA: The animal rights group PETA has filed an urgent complaint against Tesla after discovering that the company uses intensive cryptocurrency mining to generate electricity for their electric vehicles.

Tesla's "fully renewable" branding apparently comes at the cost of significant environmental harm, according to PETA. The organization obtained internal Tesla documents showing that they have partnered with multiple crypto mining companies to facilitate a "closed-loop energy system."

Miners provide Tesla with cheap renewable power generated through crypto mining operations, while Tesla supplies the miners steady electricity from vehicle batteries. Critics argue this just moves, rather than reduces, the huge carbon footprint of crypto and risks a dangerous amount of concentration of corporate power.

"Tesla is greenwashing by hiding crypto pollution with flashy EV promises," said PETA spokesperson Lisa Lethai. "Their 'innovation' is really just circumvention which puts profits over any real commitment to sustainability, human or otherwise."

Tesla CEO Elon Musk denied the allegations, claiming their approach "only hastens the world's transition to renewable energy in a resource-constrained manner." However, many regulators and environmental groups disagree and are pushing for policy restrictions or legal action against Tesla if they do not end the practice immediately.

The situation highlights the thorny trade-offs emerging between new technologies and sustainable progress. While cryptocurrency and electric vehicles aim to mitigate climate change, their massive energy demands also pose risks of exacerbating existing issues or creating worse unforeseen harms. There are uncomfortable questions with no easy answers here - only a mounting stack of hard truths still to face.

Regulation may not come soon enough, so the costs of unproven "innovation" continue mounting too fast to ignore. With each new coin mined or mile driven, there may be damages incurred rather than pollution reduced. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, after all. But if there's a moral to this story, it's that hell now seems our most likely destination, unless we finally look at where our precious technologies lead.