OPINION | Cryptocurrency mining could provide electricity demand when prices would otherwise dip to zero or negative, helping renewable energy sources remain pr
The peak of consumption and production match in time (not the rest of the curve though, there is a second peak at the end of the day, often at sunset) but not in value. If you match the value during a cloudy day, you probably outmatch it 3x on a sunny day.
The overproduction during peak hours IS because of renewables. If that’s a negative, should we just get rid of renewables?
The fact that you are even asking that question without realizing that renewables have a point besides running your fridge and mining crypto should tell you why you are downvoted here.
That’s a negative, we want to offset that without emitting CO2. Mining does not help with that and gives an incentive to make matters worse.
You don’t get it. Mining can react faster than any industry and can HELP to smoothen consumption.
You don’t get it. You don’t smoothen consumption when you give incentives to amplify peaks. You do the opposite.
You don’t get it: people here do not find crypto mining intrinsically valuable, so “I can’t run my fridge after sunset but at least I can power a mining rig during the day” is not an argument.
I’ll try one more time, but in my experience, explaining the same thing 3x never leads to constructive discussion.
Forget about peaks, apparently it confuses you. Just consider that: Renewables have intermittence: they will sometime produce more than we consume, and sometime not enough. “Smoothening” it means that you try to produce less when there is a surplus and more when there is a deficit. For instance, adding a battery to your system does that. Adding a mining rig that earns you money to reward you wasting energy creates incentives to waste even more. It raises the opportunity cost of smoothing the intermittence.
People here suggested that boiling water was a better use of energy than bitcoin mining. Maybe I can get one person to see how insanely narrow minded that attitude is.
Nice, a preacher!
Sending heat into space is a better use than giving values to bitcoins. High bitcoins value gives an incentive to sink energy into the BTC system. I was careful to talk about “crypto” in general as I think some blockchain applications are worthy, allow traceability, allow decentralization, but proof of work crypto needs to die.
My attitude is held by two types of people: those who don’t understand anything about crypto and people like me who have been into crypto long enough so that they remember mining BTC on CPUs and understand the underlying tech and its implications. You seem to be inbetween. I dont blame you, the scene is crowded with people who think they are geniuses because they understand a little bit what a hash is and a little bit what a currency is. But knowing enough CS to confuse an economist and enough economy to confuse a programmer is not enough to be either. And you are going to get some flak by attempting the same attitude in ecology.
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The peak of consumption and production match in time (not the rest of the curve though, there is a second peak at the end of the day, often at sunset) but not in value. If you match the value during a cloudy day, you probably outmatch it 3x on a sunny day.
The fact that you are even asking that question without realizing that renewables have a point besides running your fridge and mining crypto should tell you why you are downvoted here.
That’s a negative, we want to offset that without emitting CO2. Mining does not help with that and gives an incentive to make matters worse.
You don’t get it. You don’t smoothen consumption when you give incentives to amplify peaks. You do the opposite.
You don’t get it: people here do not find crypto mining intrinsically valuable, so “I can’t run my fridge after sunset but at least I can power a mining rig during the day” is not an argument.
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I’ll try one more time, but in my experience, explaining the same thing 3x never leads to constructive discussion.
Forget about peaks, apparently it confuses you. Just consider that: Renewables have intermittence: they will sometime produce more than we consume, and sometime not enough. “Smoothening” it means that you try to produce less when there is a surplus and more when there is a deficit. For instance, adding a battery to your system does that. Adding a mining rig that earns you money to reward you wasting energy creates incentives to waste even more. It raises the opportunity cost of smoothing the intermittence.
Nice, a preacher!
Sending heat into space is a better use than giving values to bitcoins. High bitcoins value gives an incentive to sink energy into the BTC system. I was careful to talk about “crypto” in general as I think some blockchain applications are worthy, allow traceability, allow decentralization, but proof of work crypto needs to die.
My attitude is held by two types of people: those who don’t understand anything about crypto and people like me who have been into crypto long enough so that they remember mining BTC on CPUs and understand the underlying tech and its implications. You seem to be inbetween. I dont blame you, the scene is crowded with people who think they are geniuses because they understand a little bit what a hash is and a little bit what a currency is. But knowing enough CS to confuse an economist and enough economy to confuse a programmer is not enough to be either. And you are going to get some flak by attempting the same attitude in ecology.
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Start by understanding your interlocutors statements, then you may have hope at having a shot understanding their opinions.
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