Bitcoin mining, far from being unnecessary drivers of climate change, is the missing puzzle piece that stabilizes volatile green energy and makes electricity grids fit for the twenty-first century.
These arguments still seem like excuses for wasting energy on running the Bitcoin network, instead of investing in equipment that can instead produce hydrogen or other power-to-gas products, allowing for storing abundant renewable energy.
If it is merely an excuse, it should be easy for you to figure out how to do what you propose above and deploy your solution to someone in the market. I'm sure there would be a few operators that would be interested. Sounds like a great opportunity for you to make the world a better place.
I lack the funds for either (Bitcoin or hydrogen), but locally my local electricity company is building a hydrogen electrolyzer station for feeding both the natural gas network (used for heating homes, running gas stoves) as well as a hydrogen gas station for trucking.
Especially places that have an existing natural gas infrastructure are predestined for such a solution, as the infrastructure inherently can be used for storage in the pipes, and virtually all existing consumers are compatible with a mixture of up to 20-30% hydrogen and the rest being natural gas.
Obviously, if there is no consumer for power-to-gas output, it's better to run Bitcoin with renewables than not doing anything with the available energy.
So when the hydrogen fairytale is revealed for the fairytale it is......just like all this green energy shit fairytale we are being told every night before bedtime.......what's next, the fusion fairytale or pixy dust reactors?
If I wanted to make a fire, I could rub two sticks together or I could set off a nuke. Which do you think would he more efficient? I feel I need to ask. Since you have bought into the hydrogen fairytale, I am not sure you understand the reality of EROEI.
Don't worry, I'm fully aware of EROEI. The entire point of my arguments on this news snippet were about countering the "we have excess energy, let's waste it on Bitcoin", where EROEI is 0.0. Hydrogen at least gets to some EROEI of 0.5, which is still terrible compared to other forms of energy storage, e.g. hydro power where EROEI may approach 0.95 in the best case. Neither number includes energy needed for installing power.
If you want to argue fossil fuels, sure, EROEI is >4 on pumped oil, and somewhere between 1.5 and 2 on fracking oil. Just looking at that number isn't the whole story though, there's other negatives involved with it - pollution, emissions, etc, just as it is with mining lithium, copper or any other raw materials needed for building power generation of any kind.
The only reasonable solution is to allow for using local solutions to local needs, and a wide array of methods to generate and store power. Fossil fuels will be part of the equation, but less significant. As will hydrogen, nuclear, solar, wind, hydro electric power, batteries, power-to-X and so on.
This is true. But there are plenty of other uses for this power that are more productive - perhaps server farms and AI - that benefit MANY more people. The “stranded power” argument is old and stale
Are you sure that server farms and AI benefit MANY more people than a sound money that is incorruptible and open to everyone, where everyone plays by the same rules? Look to all the countries who have failing currencies (Lebanon, Egypt, Pakistan, Argentina +++) and how this wreaks havoc in their societies. I think there is a real need for a neutral money like bitcoin, and if you challenge the energy use of bitcoin have you ever spent time looking at the energy use, local pollution and human rights abuses of gold miners?
BTC. ........."supporting the grid".........by using a shit ton of energy.......until someone else needs it?
Just when you think you have heard the most stupid statement ever, in walks a shit coin disciple.
The entire "problem" described by the author is the result of tying all this inefficient wind and solar to the grid as a main source of electricity. Whatever you might imagine BTC adds to that clusterfk, it will never overcome the waste involved in the wind and solar industries.
Green energy is its own problem, BTC as a "silver lining" to that problem, only further compounds the problem.
Don't buy it, using power is using power. What are these miners doing to produce their power? coal plants. Not nuclear or other rainbow sources like solar, wind or hydro electric. Lets see who is left standing after the halving.
What a GREAT IDEA! Let's build out incredible amounts of fantastically expensive "renewable" power generation so that various members of the .0001% can "produce" an "IOU Nothing Squared" (a "product" with NO inherent utility whatsoever). GENIUS! (for the Deep State)
The issue at hand that no one seems to think about is the fact the while it is true that facilities like data center & miner can complement a grid it can not make the grid. The sources of generation being added to the grid are invertor-meaning solar and wind are DC-while around grid and machines are design for AC-inertia derived from heat. In fact the inertia is a key factor in keeping the grid operating at 60hz as it overcomes drag, friction, and lag, which invertor generation can not do and smoothing out the deficits and surplus does not replace AC. Another factor is that given the transformers
we use are design to cool down at low demand-at night. Running invertors generation will put a 24hr strain on them and speeding up replacement time and we can't get transformers now.
Excellent article and one that provides food for thought. Until today every article I've read about bitcoin mining has been critical of how energy intensive and wasteful it is, and how ultimately that is why bitcoin mining at some point will become too expensive. With about 19 million bitcoins already mined there are 2 million left out there in the great wild yonder cloud. I've read all 21 million will be mined sometime in the next four years, at which point I believe the price of existing bitcoin will explode even moreso than it has in the past 15 years. The big question is, will Satoshi Nakamoto be around to enjoy it?
Approximately 93.6% of all bitcoins have already been mined, with the remaining 6.4% scheduled for issuance at an exponentially decreasing rate. This gradual distribution is set to continue until the final fraction of bitcoin is released around the year 2140.
But you’re right, seems like demand for a safe store of value continues while supply is halving (from 900/day to 450) when the network reaches block 840000 in 40 days.
Nice to see another rational article instead of pipe dreams centered around producing and storing
uneconomic hydrogen which could only happen under a Gov't subsidized boondoggle, i.e., money-pit. Could it be that the people who believe in the climate-change hoax also believe in Santa Claus,
the tooth fairy, and "I'm from the Gov't and here to help you" (R. Reagan). Too bad the level of scientific knowledge and expertise needed to understand real data has fallen so far, but that correlates with denial of reality.
These arguments still seem like excuses for wasting energy on running the Bitcoin network, instead of investing in equipment that can instead produce hydrogen or other power-to-gas products, allowing for storing abundant renewable energy.
If it is merely an excuse, it should be easy for you to figure out how to do what you propose above and deploy your solution to someone in the market. I'm sure there would be a few operators that would be interested. Sounds like a great opportunity for you to make the world a better place.
I lack the funds for either (Bitcoin or hydrogen), but locally my local electricity company is building a hydrogen electrolyzer station for feeding both the natural gas network (used for heating homes, running gas stoves) as well as a hydrogen gas station for trucking.
Especially places that have an existing natural gas infrastructure are predestined for such a solution, as the infrastructure inherently can be used for storage in the pipes, and virtually all existing consumers are compatible with a mixture of up to 20-30% hydrogen and the rest being natural gas.
Obviously, if there is no consumer for power-to-gas output, it's better to run Bitcoin with renewables than not doing anything with the available energy.
So when the hydrogen fairytale is revealed for the fairytale it is......just like all this green energy shit fairytale we are being told every night before bedtime.......what's next, the fusion fairytale or pixy dust reactors?
If I wanted to make a fire, I could rub two sticks together or I could set off a nuke. Which do you think would he more efficient? I feel I need to ask. Since you have bought into the hydrogen fairytale, I am not sure you understand the reality of EROEI.
Don't worry, I'm fully aware of EROEI. The entire point of my arguments on this news snippet were about countering the "we have excess energy, let's waste it on Bitcoin", where EROEI is 0.0. Hydrogen at least gets to some EROEI of 0.5, which is still terrible compared to other forms of energy storage, e.g. hydro power where EROEI may approach 0.95 in the best case. Neither number includes energy needed for installing power.
If you want to argue fossil fuels, sure, EROEI is >4 on pumped oil, and somewhere between 1.5 and 2 on fracking oil. Just looking at that number isn't the whole story though, there's other negatives involved with it - pollution, emissions, etc, just as it is with mining lithium, copper or any other raw materials needed for building power generation of any kind.
The only reasonable solution is to allow for using local solutions to local needs, and a wide array of methods to generate and store power. Fossil fuels will be part of the equation, but less significant. As will hydrogen, nuclear, solar, wind, hydro electric power, batteries, power-to-X and so on.
Miners are in a global competition and only those who can source power and hardware at competitive prices survive in the long run. If other industries bid up the price for electricity, miners would pack up and move elsewhere. This is a relevant article from Alex Gladstein of the Human Rights Foundation: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/check-your-financial-privilege/stranded-bitcoin-saving-wasted-energy-in-africa
This is true. But there are plenty of other uses for this power that are more productive - perhaps server farms and AI - that benefit MANY more people. The “stranded power” argument is old and stale
Are you sure that server farms and AI benefit MANY more people than a sound money that is incorruptible and open to everyone, where everyone plays by the same rules? Look to all the countries who have failing currencies (Lebanon, Egypt, Pakistan, Argentina +++) and how this wreaks havoc in their societies. I think there is a real need for a neutral money like bitcoin, and if you challenge the energy use of bitcoin have you ever spent time looking at the energy use, local pollution and human rights abuses of gold miners?
"Some people say gold is a barbarous relic. I prefer gold, but something about crypto has them uncomfortable." - Unknown
https://inverttheinversion.substack.com/p/ch-114-crypto
BTC. ........."supporting the grid".........by using a shit ton of energy.......until someone else needs it?
Just when you think you have heard the most stupid statement ever, in walks a shit coin disciple.
The entire "problem" described by the author is the result of tying all this inefficient wind and solar to the grid as a main source of electricity. Whatever you might imagine BTC adds to that clusterfk, it will never overcome the waste involved in the wind and solar industries.
Green energy is its own problem, BTC as a "silver lining" to that problem, only further compounds the problem.
Don't buy it, using power is using power. What are these miners doing to produce their power? coal plants. Not nuclear or other rainbow sources like solar, wind or hydro electric. Lets see who is left standing after the halving.
What a GREAT IDEA! Let's build out incredible amounts of fantastically expensive "renewable" power generation so that various members of the .0001% can "produce" an "IOU Nothing Squared" (a "product" with NO inherent utility whatsoever). GENIUS! (for the Deep State)
The issue at hand that no one seems to think about is the fact the while it is true that facilities like data center & miner can complement a grid it can not make the grid. The sources of generation being added to the grid are invertor-meaning solar and wind are DC-while around grid and machines are design for AC-inertia derived from heat. In fact the inertia is a key factor in keeping the grid operating at 60hz as it overcomes drag, friction, and lag, which invertor generation can not do and smoothing out the deficits and surplus does not replace AC. Another factor is that given the transformers
we use are design to cool down at low demand-at night. Running invertors generation will put a 24hr strain on them and speeding up replacement time and we can't get transformers now.
Excellent article and one that provides food for thought. Until today every article I've read about bitcoin mining has been critical of how energy intensive and wasteful it is, and how ultimately that is why bitcoin mining at some point will become too expensive. With about 19 million bitcoins already mined there are 2 million left out there in the great wild yonder cloud. I've read all 21 million will be mined sometime in the next four years, at which point I believe the price of existing bitcoin will explode even moreso than it has in the past 15 years. The big question is, will Satoshi Nakamoto be around to enjoy it?
Approximately 93.6% of all bitcoins have already been mined, with the remaining 6.4% scheduled for issuance at an exponentially decreasing rate. This gradual distribution is set to continue until the final fraction of bitcoin is released around the year 2140.
But you’re right, seems like demand for a safe store of value continues while supply is halving (from 900/day to 450) when the network reaches block 840000 in 40 days.
Nice to see another rational article instead of pipe dreams centered around producing and storing
uneconomic hydrogen which could only happen under a Gov't subsidized boondoggle, i.e., money-pit. Could it be that the people who believe in the climate-change hoax also believe in Santa Claus,
the tooth fairy, and "I'm from the Gov't and here to help you" (R. Reagan). Too bad the level of scientific knowledge and expertise needed to understand real data has fallen so far, but that correlates with denial of reality.