Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey agree on bitcoin's environmental credentials.

 Despite experts' warnings, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has agreed with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who claims that bitcoin "incentivizes" renewable energy.

According to research, the carbon footprint of cryptocurrency is comparable to that of some of the world's largest towns.

But, according to Mr. Dorsey, this could change if bitcoin miners collaborated with renewable energy companies.

It was a "cynical attempt to greenwash" bitcoin, according to one expert.

Bitcoin has the potential to derail China's climate change goals.

Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, is worth more than BP, an oil business.

China, which generates more than two-thirds of its electricity from coal, is responsible for more than 75 percent of global bitcoin mining.The method of creating new bitcoins entails solving complex mathematical equations, which necessitates a significant amount of computing power.

Miners from all over the world add new sets of transactions to bitcoin's blockchain (the database that tracks the cryptocurrency's transactions) every 10 minutes.

"We agree that integrating miners with renewables and storage projects would boost project returns for investors and developers, bringing more solar and wind projects into profitable territory," it said.

The paper is a "cynical exercise in bitcoin greenwashing," according to author and bitcoin critic David Gerard.

He told the BBC, "The truth is: bitcoin runs on coal."

He used the example of a coal mine in Xinjiang that had to briefly close due to an accident, causing power outages in the region and crippling the potential to mine new bitcoins.

"This significantly delayed the blockchain... and correlated with the recent bitcoin price drop," he said.

On Wednesday, he said this in a tweet.

"Bitcoin mining is so heinous and heinous that the number one task of bitcoin promoters is to find some reason to justify it."