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Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

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Re: Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

#21

Post by wyager »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #17

It's interesting that now that there are proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies the "cryptocurrencies are polluting the planet" is now becoming "Bitcoin is polluting the planet" . What I'm wondering is if Bitcoin itself could one day switch to proof-of-stake? Is this something the Bitcoin community may consider if proof-of-stakes turns out to work and be secure? Is this something that is even remotely possible?

We already know proof of stake has weaker security properties than proof of work, such as its vulnerability to “grinding” attacks.

Re: Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

#23

Post by GavinMcG »

aazaa wrote: post #11

> In Upstate New York, where a quarter of US crypto mining takes place, the researchers find that electricity rates have gone up in response to rising demand. Their study demonstrates that because of bitcoin mining’s power usage, households paid an additional $165 million a year in energy costs, while businesses paid an extra $79 million. In China, where more than two-thirds of the world’s crypto mining took place ov…

Ironic that you identify (but don't evaluate) a possible flaw in mixing up correlation and causation, then turn around and refuse to even read something because of a bias that you simply assume.

Re: Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

#24

Post by ynniv »

"While the residential and small business rates are among the five most expensive in the country, the industrial rate is much lower, ranking right in the middle among the states."

There's an obvious solution here. Residential rates went up 10% because the local utility has a simplistic demand pricing program that allows cheap industrial demand to drive up expensive residential rates.

Re: Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

#26

Post by Hamuko »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #20
LurkingPenguin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that energy being used to mine crypto is generated in good part by those fossil fuels you care about, right? https://www.govtech.com/news/bitcoin-mining-in-upstate-new-y...

Apparently it's around 56% renewables-generated electricity. https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2021/07/06/bi...

Even if it's 56%, that's still 44% non-renewable sources for something that uses about as much electricity as the Netherlands.

Re: Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

#27

Post by Robotbeat »

Hamuko wrote: post #5

> Cheap electricity in places such as Texas is expected to make the US a leading refuge for crypto miners. It's a good thing I don't live in Texas, because otherwise I might be worried considering how shitty and unreliable ERCOT is already without widespread mining.

I think crypto mining is dumb, but it might actually help the ERCOT situation when combined with demand-response electricity pricing. Miners are gonna throttle back mining if electricity costs more than the mining output and they’ll mine when electricity cheap, supporting the price which helps the fiscal solvency of electricity producers.

Re: Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

#28

Post by paulgb »

Hamuko wrote: post #5

> Cheap electricity in places such as Texas is expected to make the US a leading refuge for crypto miners. It's a good thing I don't live in Texas, because otherwise I might be worried considering how shitty and unreliable ERCOT is already without widespread mining.

Bitcoin miners may actually make ERCOT more reliable, since they pre-buy a steady stream of electricity and can sell it back (or be paid to use less) during crises like their snow storm[1].

I still think the negative externalities of Bitcoin mining outweigh the positive ones, though. (Full disclosure, I'm short a company mentioned in that article)

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/07/08/bitcoin...

Re: Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

#29

Post by AlexandrB »

bamboozled wrote: post #2

I’m paying to subsidise the fossil fuel industry, I care more about that, I’m just not outages about this.

But to be fair fossil fuels are used to produce the food you eat, the computer you're typing on, and probably the electricity/gas you use to keep yourself cold/warm.

Meanwhile, bitcoin is used to produce... what? A speculative asset some people can invest/gamble on?

Re: Bitcoin mining has driven up energy bills for residents and businesses

#30

Post by hervature »

blackbear_ wrote: post #16
aazaa wrote: post #11

> In Upstate New York, where a quarter of US crypto mining takes place, the researchers find that electricity rates have gone up in response to rising demand. Their study demonstrates that because of bitcoin mining’s power usage, households paid an additional $165 million a year in energy costs, while businesses paid an extra $79 million. In China, where more than two-thirds of the world’s crypto mining took place ov…

> So correlation implies causation? Well, would you argue that people started mining bitcoins because energy became more expensive? The other direction looks more plausible, especially if you consider basic economic theory: as demand goes up, prices also go up.

Not knowing which direction of the causation what “correlation does not mean causation” means. It means there are possible confounders. A simple one here being a policy change at the federal level like reduced subsidies. So all the states that had cheap power (and hence attracted mining) had to raise prices. Of course, the supply-demand mechanism is a pretty strong argument though.
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