Bitcoin has a well known problem, even if many bitcoin fans would like to ignore it or pretend it isn’t real. The problem is that bitcoin mining uses an enormous amount of electricity. It’s not a large amount, and actually maybe it’s not even an enormous amount — it’s an absurd amount.
Naturally, people who like the concept are eager to brush it off by saying that bitcoin miners can just use renewable energy — solar and wind are cheapest now anyway for new power production, right? However, that misses a few points. There’s only so much solar PV and wind turbine production capacity, and increasing production capacity takes years, and needs clear signals. Production needs to increase rapidly and it has been increasing rapidly, but that increased production is needed to avoid or turn off fossil fuel power plants. Every single serious plan for reducing emissions an adequate amount by 2030 involves cutting energy use — cutting it a lot. We need to retire coal and fossil methane* power plants yesterday (*aka “natural gas,” but we’re starting to drop the use of this term here on CleanTechnica since it’s a greenwashing term). We need new solar and wind power plants to come online to do that. Even if bitcoin miners started gobbling up solar panels and wind turbines to power their mining, that would mean those cleantech power plants would be less available for other markets and those other markets would be powered by fossil fuels longer.
Sure, in 2050, go for it if you want! Go crypto crazy. But we need to shut down hundreds of fossil power plants in the 2020s, and we can’t be delaying that just because some people don’t want to trust the federal governments and organizations that manage monetary policy today.
But let’s get back to the story. It’s a fascinating one.
With their massive, massive energy needs**, bitcoin miners have been known to use enormous amounts of coal power, particularly in China (**and no, this is nothing like the energy needs of ATMs — which I don’t think I’ve used in ~10 years — or online banking; it is far more energy use on a per-transaction basis). As the bitcoin market grows, it needs to find more and more power around the world, and that means more and more dirty power. That brings us to the news. Recently, 200 bitcoin miners and oil & gas execs reportedly met in a private setting in Houston, Texas. CleanTechnica wasn’t invited, so we can’t say for sure if this was about getting more power supply for mining, if it was about investment opportunities of some sort, if it was about money-hiding tactics to avoid paying taxes, or if it was just a benevolent meeting to chat sports, weather, and pumpkin spice lattes. However, reporting from CNBC indicates it was primarily about the first thing — getting dirty electricity to power more bitcoin mining.
“On a residential back street of Houston, in a 150,000 square-foot warehouse safeguarding high-end vintage cars, 200 oil and gas execs and bitcoin miners mingled, drank beer, and talked shop on a recent Wednesday night in August,” CNBC reported last week. “One big topic of discussion: Using ‘stranded’ natural gas to power bitcoin mining rigs, which both reduces greenhouse gas emissions and makes money for the gas providers, as well as the miners.”
Let’s pick apart that last sentence, because it’s the critical one and the second half of it makes no sense. “Stranded assets” in this context are not power plants that are no longer competitive (though, some of them have been revived or kept alive to power bitcoin mining). Bitcoin mining is bringing economic viability back to a dying fossil-power-plant market in another way. What is being tapped, according to the article, is otherwise unused fossil methane at oil sites. Notably, using that “stranded methane” is making oil drilling more economical, and making it easier to keep selling deceptively cheap oil. There is nothing good about this. And that’s not the end of the environmental disaster. The way this stranded methane is being burned is also extremely inefficient and harmful for our climate.
Here are a few more choice quotes from the CNBC story:
Just take Hayden Griffin Haby III, an oilman turned bitcoiner. The Texas native and father of three has spent 14 years in oil and gas, and he epitomizes what this monthly meetup is all about.
Haby started as a surface landman where he brokered land contracts, and later, ran his own oil company. But for the last nine months, he’s exclusively been in the business of mining bitcoin. … [H]e co-founded Limpia Creek Technologies, which powers bitcoin mining rigs with flared, vented, and stranded natural gas assets.
Bitcoin miners care most about finding cheap sources of electricity, so Texas – with its crypto-friendly politicians, deregulated power grid, and crucially, abundance of inexpensive power sources – is a virtually perfect fit. The union becomes even more harmonious when miners connect their rigs to otherwise stranded energy, like natural gas going to waste on oil fields across Texas.
“I just knew Houston would be prime to explode because of the energy connection to mining – if we organized a good meetup,” [Parker] Lewis told CNBC. “It’s also key to Texas being the bitcoin capital of the world.”
Capturing excess and otherwise wasted natural gas from drilling sites and then using that energy to mine bitcoin is still firmly in the category of avant-garde tech.
The article noted that this meeting and the bitcoin miner rush to Texas were triggered in large part by China kicking bitcoin miners out. As noted previously, bitcoin miners have been using an enormous amount of coal power, mostly in China. The plan for many of them now seems clear: forget about Chinese coal, just switch to cheap fossil fuel power in Texas.
Anyone who thinks bitcoin isn’t an environmental and climate catastrophe isn’t paying attention or is putting on some seriously handicapping blinders. Switching to such an enormously energy intensive investment tool (because, come on, no one is spending bitcoin like it’s cash money) is not just a mistake. It’s essentially a crime against humanity. Human society is digging the graves of millions or billions of people because of catchphrases and fanciful idealistic thinking. No cryptocurrency is going to wipe out wealth inequality or solve the world’s problems. All I’m seeing so far is that it’s creating bigger problems. (Side note: the cult-like obsession with crypto is also a bit annoying on social media and various forums around the interwebs, and there is no doubt a ridiculous amount of bot activity and propaganda pumping.)
Oh, and I haven’t even gotten to what seems to be the worst part yet. The way that much of this fossil methane is being burned is about as inefficient as it gets. The “miners” are using generators. Here’s more:
“Chemistry is amazing,” explained Adam Ortolf, who heads up business development in the U.S. for Upstream Data, a company that manufactures and supplies portable mining solutions for oil and gas facilities.
“When CH4, or methane, combusts, the only exhaust is CO2 and H2O vapor. That’s literally the same thing that comes out of my mouth when I exhale,” continued Ortolf.
But Ortolf points out, flares are only 75 to 90% efficient. “Even with a flare, some of the methane is being vented without being combusted,” he said.
This is when on-site bitcoin mining can prove to be especially impactful.
When the methane is run into an engine or generator, 100% of the methane is combusted and none of it leaks or vents into the air, according to Ortolf.
“But nobody will run it through a generator unless they can make money, because generators cost money to acquire and maintain,” he said. “So unless it’s economically sustainable, producers won’t internally combust the gas.”
…
“This is the best gift the oil and gas industry could’ve gotten,” said Ortolf. “They were leaving a lot of hydrocarbons on the table, but now, they’re no longer limited by geography to sell energy.”
Somehow, the CNBC article tries to spin this as a good thing environmentally. I guess the reporter doesn’t know anything about the matter and just bought the bitcoin miners/oil & gas guys’ illogical talking points. Perhaps they even now think that the wonderful CO2 emissions we are flooding our atmosphere with will just lead to more trees and bushes.
Stark Future, the Spanish electric motorcycle maker that turned the off-road world on its head, just locked in a fresh round of funding, pushing its total capital raised past €100 million. And unlike the big, flashy VC rounds we usually see, this one came mostly from existing backers and a few hand-picked newcomers, including some heavy hitters from the MotoGP world.
In what has become classic Stark style, the round was closed quickly and quietly, underscoring just how confident investors are in the brand’s growth trajectory. CEO and founder Anton Wass says the company intentionally offered a “very attractive valuation” to those who already believed in the mission.
“We managed to close it within a couple of weeks,” said Wass. “It’s a strong testament to the results our team has created.”
And it’s not just hype. Stark has proven it can build bikes that not only compete with gas-powered motocross machines, but completely outclass them. Their flagship model, the all-electric Stark VARG, claims the title of most powerful motocross bike ever made. Riders have already racked up tens of millions of kilometers on the VARG, and the bike has helped convert thousands of motocross enthusiasts to battery power. The model even got e-motos banned from the X-Games when the organizers feared that gas-powered bikes couldn’t keep up.
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That kind of traction, paired with the company’s rapid expansion into over 70 countries, explains why investors are still lining up to get a piece of the action.
But what really makes Stark stand out in the electric motorcycle world is its quick path to profitability. That’s a rare word in the electric motorcycle space, especially for such a young company. Just two years after their first deliveries, and within six years of founding, Stark Future is profitable and thriving. With each passing year, they seem to be improving margins, growing revenues, and launching new platforms.
And speaking of new platforms, those are coming, too. The company teased “very exciting new products” on the way, though didn’t drop specifics just yet. From the rumor mill though, it sounds like the company is preparing street models that could give gas bikes a run for their money. And if they’re anything like the VARG, we can certainly expect bikes that push boundaries and continue proving Wass’s bold thesis: electric motorcycles can outperform internal combustion in just about every way.
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attends a press conference at government quarters Rosenbad after the trade talks between the U.S. and China concluded, in Stockholm, Sweden, July 29, 2025.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly told Reuters on Monday that there are “other authorities that can be used” to uphold the tariffs. One of them could be the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, Bessent said.
Since markets in the U.S. were closed for the Labor Day holiday on Monday, they didn’t have a chance to respond to both Bessent’s comment and the court’s ruling, which was announced after the bell on Friday.
For now, futures tied to U.S. stocks were little changed Monday night stateside. Investors could have gotten used to the volatile nature of Trump tariffs and are taking a wait-and-see approach.
No point, after all, to prepare for an outcome that might lead to the start of another legal battle. It’s never over till it’s over — it’s just another day inTrump’s America.
What you need to know today
Bessent expects the Supreme Court to uphold Trump tariffs. And if they are struck down by the court, “there are lots of other authorities that can be used,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday, Reuters reported.
Trump said India had offered to remove tariffs on U.S. However, he did not elaborate on the claim. Trump also said Monday that trade ties with India is “a totally one sided disaster!” His comments came after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited China for a security summit.
Takeaways from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. The two-day event was largely seen as a showcase of Beijing’s push for a new world order. Key developments include: thawing India-China relations, a Xi-Putin-Modi troika, AI partnership and a new development bank.
Asia-Pacific markets trade mixed Tuesday. South Korea’s Kospi index rose around 0.8% as the country’s inflation in August came in lower than expected. U.S. stock futures were mostly flat. On Monday, U.S. markets were closed for Labor Day.
[PRO] A Chinese property stock defying the slump. The company has “already returned more capital than they ever raised from capital markets,” wrote Barclays — and its stock has an implied upside of over 40% from the bank’s price target.
And finally…
Sports club Suzhou Shishan opened the Chinese city’s first pickleball court in January 2024, according to the company.
Online sales of pickleball paddles and related equipment in China have skyrocketed this year to an average of $1.2 million in monthly sales as of July — an increase of more than six-fold versus the year-ago period, according to data from WPIC Marketing + Technologies.
Pickleball’s recent growth in China has different business implications. In contrast to U.S. suburbs, big Asian cities don’t tend to have large neighborhood spaces, said Patrick Yan, founder of an agency representing Asian pickleball players. “All these courts have to be built by people running businesses. They’re operating for profit.”
Tesla has finally released its ‘Master Plan Part 4’ and it’s nothing more than a smorgasbord of AI promises about its humanoid robot, which can’t even serve popcorn.
For more than a year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been teasing the release of his ‘Master Plan Part 4’ for the company.
Since 2006, Musk has been releasing “secret master plans” for Tesla to explain the company’s broader mission and product roadmap.
Musk himself recently admitted that Master Plan Part 2, released in 2016, is not even completed yet. He believes that will happen “next year”, but we heard that one before.
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Master Plan Part 3 was released in 2023, and it was about scaling when, in fact, Tesla’s electric vehicle sales have been in decline since then. They peaked in 2023.
Now, ‘Master Plan Part 4’ was released on X, and it’s all about “sustainable abundance” through AI and robotics.
Here it is:
Introduction
Since Tesla’s founding, each iteration of our master plan has focused on our north star: to deliver unconstrained sustainability without compromise.
Humans are toolmakers. At Tesla, we make physical products at scale and at a low cost with the goal of making life better for everyone. As the influence and impact of artificial intelligence (AI) technology increases, the mission set forth in Master Plan Part IV should come as no surprise.
This next chapter in Tesla’s story will help create a world we’ve only just begun to imagine and will do so at a scale that we have yet to see. We are building the products and services that bring AI into the physical world.
We have been working tirelessly for nearly two decades to create the foundation for this technological renaissance through the development of electric vehicles, energy products and humanoid robots.
Now, we are combining our manufacturing capabilities with our autonomous prowess to deliver new products and services that will accelerate global prosperity and human thriving driven by economic growth shared by all. We are unifying our hardware and software at scale, and in doing so, we are creating a safer, cleaner and more enjoyable world.
This is sustainable abundance.
Guiding principles
Growth is infinite.
Growth in one area does not require decline in another. Shortages in resources can be remedied by improved technology, greater innovation and new ideas.
The technologies that gave us the ability to power machines led to industrial revolutions that have widened our economic landscape, creating more opportunities for all. Groundbreaking inventions like the semiconductor and the internet have expanded—not diminished—social and economic opportunities across all aspects of the human experience, from creating more jobs to providing greater access to information to enabling deeper interpersonal connections.
Our desire to push beyond what is considered achievable will foster the growth needed for truly sustainable abundance.
Innovation removes constraints.
For centuries, humanity’s primary mode of transportation was the horse. Then, over the last fifty-plus years, cars with internal combustion engines powered by fossil fuels became the standard and expected transportation method. The idea that batteries could be produced affordably and at a scale large enough to pivot the transportation industry away from fossil fuels seemed a fool’s errand—until Tesla led the way forward.
Through continued innovation, we have overcome the technological constraints of battery development and built an industry powered by renewable resources.
Technology solves tangible problems.
The products and services born out of the acceleration toward sustainable abundance will advance humanity by solving real-world problems. To further accelerate our innovation, we build each product more efficiently and more sustainably than the last.
Solar energy generation and large-scale battery storage are increasing the availability and reliability of clean electricity in our communities—and are doing so more affordably and more sustainably.
Autonomous vehicles have the capacity to dramatically improve the affordability, availability and safety of transportation while reducing pollution, particularly in our increasingly dense global cities.
Optimus—our autonomous humanoid robot—is changing not only the perception of labor itself but its availability and capability. Jobs and tasks that are particularly monotonous or dangerous can now be accomplished by other means. In this way, Optimus’s mission is to give people back more time to do what they love.
Autonomy must benefit all of humanity.
The tools we make at Tesla help us build the products that advance human prosperity.
How we develop and use autonomy—and the new capabilities it makes available to us—should be informed by its ability to enhance the human condition. Making daily life better—and safer—for all people through our autonomous technology has always been, and continues to be, our focus.
Greater access drives greater growth.
Making technologically advanced products that are affordable and available at scale is required to build a flourishing and unconstrained society. It serves to further democratize society while raising everyone’s quality of life in the process. The hallmark of meritocracy is creating opportunities that enable each person to use their skills to accomplish whatever they imagine.
Everyone deserves access to these opportunities, and technological growth can help ensure that each of us is able to maximize our most limited resource: time.
We’re accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable abundance.
We must make one thing clear: this challenge will be extremely difficult to overcome. The elimination of scarcity will require tireless and exquisite execution. Some will perceive it as impossible. And plenty of others will laud every obstacle and setback we inevitably encounter along the way. But once we overcome this challenge, our critics will come to see that what they once thought was impossible is indeed possible. And that will be fine with us, because what matters most is that, together, we create a sustainable and truly abundant future for generations to come.
All worthwhile journeys are long. And they all begin with a first step.
Our first step was to make an exciting sports car—Roadster. Then we leveraged those profits to fund the development and production of more affordable, yet still exciting products—Model S and Model X. Then we repeated the process, bringing us to Model 3 and Model Y and onward.
This process required us to take many steps, some of them small and others large. But ultimately each win led to another win, and even with our failures, we were able to keep building momentum. Our momentum allowed us to build out a fully integrated ecosystem of sustainable products, from transport to energy generation, battery storage and robotics.
Today we are on the cusp of a revolutionary period primed for unprecedented growth. And this time it will not be a single step but a leap forward for Tesla and humanity as a whole. The tools we are going to develop will help us build the kind of world that we’ve always dreamed of—a world of sustainable abundance—by redefining the fundamental building blocks of labor, mobility and energy at scale and for all.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla is lost as a company. This is a bunch of utopic nonsense, complete with AI “abundance” buzzwords that Grok could have easily written.
Elon’s first two master plans were straightforward, featuring clear, actionable steps and a well-defined product roadmap.
In comparison, this is opium meant for Tesla shareholders to get their fix of potential “infinite growth” as an AI stock. It’s not real.
Everyone can see the value in an affordable humanoid robot capable of autonomously performing useful tasks. You don’t need to sell people on a weird utopic future around it. Start by demonstrating that you can create such a robot.
We have seen no evidence of that yet.
All of Tesla’s Optimus robot demonstrations have been supported by humans remotely controlling them. Most recently, Tesla had Optimus serving popcorn to guests at its diner in Los Angeles. It worked for a few hours on the first day, and the robot has reportedly been offline for a month since the restaurant’s launch.
I know I might sound like a hater, but I don’t care. Tesla is not a company that is about to deliver a future of “sustainable abundance”.
Tesla is a company that did the impossible and significantly accelerated the world’s transition to electric transportation. Then, its CEO went nuts. Sales started to go down, earnings began to drop, and to maintain a nonsensical stock price, the CEO decided to ride the AI bubble. That’s about it.
