Go Green Go Digital (GGGD): An applied research perspective toward creating synergy of crypto-mining and sustainable energy production in the UK

Despite announcing a climate emergency and the subsequent promise to go carbon neutral by 2050, UK targets for climate change are insufficient to effect the radical changes necessary to reverse the imbalance in the environment caused by human activity. This is due in large part to the high cost to profit ratio of sustainable energy production; profitability of solar, wind, geothermal, wave and other green energies is only realised after significant capital investment and a long gap period to breakeven (up to 10+ years). This means that only a few players will have both the capital and time to make a profit, leaving unsustainable energy as the cheaper (and more feasible) option. Ergo, without a short-term profit incentive, the sustainable energy industry is unlikely to grow quickly enough to counter the climate emergency that the world now faces. As the UK government has decided not to subsidise green energy until 2025, radical ideas which incentivise commercial activity toward investment in sustainable energy production must be explored. This paper suggests a specific implementation of the digital economy with a strong profit motive for green investors. Utilising a multidisciplinary method of research, this paper argues from an applied computer science perspective that green crypto-mining can provide essential funding from the early stages of sustainable energy planning all the way to the deployment of a full crypto-mining operation scalable to the investment capabilities of the organisation. This solution works on two levels: 1. Convert sustainable energy production directly to capital through crypto-mining and 2. Grow the digital industry, in particular crypto-mining, in the UK to increase demand for sustainable energy, and as a result reduce the costs of going green for all energy consumers. The aim, therefore, is that renewable energy outcompetes unsustainable energy on a free market basis in the UK, thereby accelerating the green revolution.