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US Government Launches New Attempt to Gather Data on Electricity Usage of Bitcoin Mining
(insideclimatenews.org)
this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2024
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Drives up costs, causes brownouts, keeps fossil fuel plants open longer, etc.
It should be the opposite. Crypto mining only makes sense if you're getting a good deal on electricity, which means they're probably running on off-peak hours. What that does is encourage electricity generation to increase the base level supply, which should decrease brownouts.
Brownouts are caused by unexpected peak electricity demand or some kind of equipment malfunction (e.g. inclement weather). It's not caused by a consistent increase in base level demand, which is what crypto mining would do.
Keeping fossil fuel plant open longer is a valid concern though, but since solar and other green energies tend to be cheaper over time, I don't think that's a significant concern. I could absolutely be wrong though, I don't work in energy generation.
Crypto miners aren't generally turning themselves off to just get the off peak rates. The hardware is expensive and only has a short lifespan before the next hardware that's 5x better comes out rendering theirs obsolete as the hash rate spikes and they can't make ends meet anymore.
Generally speaking, it does drive them towards cheaper electricity, which is often renewable or finding places that have excess and getting good rates on it.
Sometimes, that turns out to be dirty electricity like coal, and in some places its kept some coal plants alive and stopped others from being shut down.
But it doesn't matter if they are 100% renewable because the people that hate crypto, don't understand it at all, think it's a scam with absolutely 0 use cases. So all those solar panels or windmills that they buy are resources being taken from other people and slowing down the adoption of renewables, because crypto is a waste.
Right, but they're not going to build out in a high electricity cost area, they'll build where energy is cheap, which is often where renewables are abundant.
But like you pointed out, the real issue isn't energy use, but perception of value. Any amount of energy used to do something with no value is wasted.
I see value in specific cryptocurrencies (esp. Monero XMR), but I don't know how to effectively communicate that.
Its hard enough to sell people on using VPNs to protect their internet privacy, trying to convince them to use this fancy thing 'only criminals' use to have financial privacy is definitely going to be harder.
Yup, but the most effective way to explain it is that it's just like cash. Criminals use cash, and criminals use Monero, and largely for the same reasons. For non-criminals like myself, the benefits are:
Or in other words, it works like cash, just digital. Like cash:
Monero is our best option for a digital, non-government issued currency. It's as close as we'll get to digital cash.
Datacenters pay less for electricity. Way less.
Sure, because they're predictable bulk customers, so it's a lot easier for energy companies to plan around.
No its because of government regulations that prohibit profit from electricity itself