this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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Yeah, its not like we could store that energy in say a battery and then use it another time when demand is higher for actually useful things instead of jerking off techbros/cryptobros.
I would love if this were an option, but it's not. The current battery technologies don't have the scale for grid level storage capacity. The only grid scale storage solution that is really being done is to build very expensive infrastructure that moves water between two dams of different heights, and building more of those doesn't seem politically likely at the moment
The reality is that there is much a whole bunch of excess energy supply that is produced because power plants can't cycle up and down with demand. So they have to keep producing at peak demand 24/7 (there is some nuances based on the type of power plant, NatGas is faster to turn on/off, but this is broadly true)
I have my qualms with Bitcoin. As a currency it has significant transaction speed problems, and potential security ones after a couple more halvenings. But I don't see a problem if Bitcoin miners want to pay energy producers to use energy that would be produced anyway and earn the producers nothing.
There are plenty of projects that use spare computational power for useful things. Like folding@home, which models protein structures to come up with potential drugs. Why not use the excess electricity for one of those?
That would be great! And I'm sure there are people doing it. And if 2.3% of the US Power grid were dedicated to that I'm sure some people would be upset about it too
My basic point is I don't think there is anything morally wrong with Bitcoin miners using energy, even though this is a narrative that is very popular now. There are plenty of other valid criticisms of Bitcoin, but I don't think this one stands up to scrutiny.