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I would argue that it's still a waste, because that energy could be put to an otherwise better use. Now that energy has to be replaced by a non-green counterpar
by Byxxi 2y ago
I would argue that it's still a waste, because that energy could be put to an otherwise better use. Now that energy has to be replaced by a non-green counterpart since it's been spent.
- throwawaymaths 2y agoWhat if you're using that energy in your hot tub, or to heat your house during the winter?
- Byxxi 2y agoAre you arguing staying alive through winter as something less beneficial to bitcoin mining?
- fecal_henge 2y agoDepends if they are wintering inside or in the hot tub.
- thinkmassive 2y agoIf electricity is being used to generate heat (for a house, hot tub, etc), and that heat happens to be generated by a bitcoin miner, is it more or less wasteful than only using the electricity to generate heat?
- BenjiWiebe 2y agoThat's fine, provided you weren't going to heat it with a heat pump before you decided to use a Bitcoin miner. I suppose there's also a slight environmental cost in producing a Bitcoin miner vs producing a heating coil but I'm going to assume that's negligible.
- Mountain_Skies 2y agoSince energy isn't easily transported, wouldn't that really depend on where the energy was produced?
- qwertox 2y agoI'd argue that no other thing, apart from information, is transported as easily as electricity, once the grid exists. Sure, there are capacity limits, but I doubt that shutting down crypto mining would cause problems to the grid. I recently read that some are thinking about connecting the US with Europe via DC cabling. Here's a related, old article: "Submarine power cable between Europe and North America: A techno-economic analysis" (2018) • Developed a 2030 power dispatch model of Europe and North America (NA). • Identified socio-economic benefits of European-NA electricity trading through a HVDC cable. • A 4000 MW cable increases social welfare by 177 M€ on an annual basis. • This benefit for society is sufficient to cover the investment costs. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652618307522 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095965261...
- grues-dinner 2y agoI did not expect the the energy would flow so heavily to North America (24.1:3.3 TWh ratio over a year).
- keyringlight 2y agoAnd adding green energy to the grid would let you displace/turn off non-green generation if the load wasn't increasing (as much).