3 ms·

The idea of cheap, “excess” energy that keeps Bitcoin mining operations running 24/7 is a myth. Bitcoin is, and always will be, additive on top of the world’s

The idea of cheap, “excess” energy that keeps Bitcoin mining operations running 24/7 is a myth. Bitcoin is, and always will be, additive on top of the world’s energy consumption. Every Terawatt of energy that goes into Bitcoin is a Terawatt of energy that isn’t being put into the grid to send to homes or industries or other users. No one is choosing to build power plants in the middle of nowhere without a way to send that energy into the grid. The grid is not perfectly efficient, but it’s still better to transfer that energy through the grid than to keep a coal plant running somewhere else because Bitcoin is (hypothetically) consuming the new renewable energy sources coming online. The key is to remember that no one is waking up and wondering if they should run their Bitcoin miner or charge their Tesla. Both happen independently, and it’s not hard to see that miners run 24/7 regardless of energy demand fluctuations elsewhere. This idea of unused, surplus energy that somehow can’t be connected to the grid is a myth perpetuated to whitewash the absolutely massive (country-scale) energy consumption of Bitcoin. Not to mention, none of us can buy video cards right now because they’re all being consumed to mine other cryptocurrencies. Discussion forums are full of people swapping tips for mining with their GPUs to offset the cost. There is no angle on this in which we can ignore the 120,000 Gigawatt energy consumption of Bitcoin and the additional energy consumption of all the other crypto currencies popping up in its wake. Frankly, at this point it’s depressing to see this trope repeated so often on HN, where usually the users would have enough intellectual curiosity and engineering sense to read up on the basics of power transmission and marginal energy costs before repeating such an obviously flawed argument. I’m afraid everyone’s personal financial investment in cryptocurrency is clouding judgment on the topic when all of the facts are right in front of us.

gruez 6y ago
>Every Terawatt of energy that goes into Bitcoin is a Terawatt of energy that isn’t being put into the grid to send to homes or industries or other users. Not really. Electricity is tough to transport over distances and interconnects are expensive and have limited capacity. That's why new hampshire's retail cost for electricity is 17 cents/kWh[1] but quebec only pays 5.8 cent/kWh [1] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/ https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/ [2] https://www.energyhub.org/electricity-prices/ https://www.energyhub.org/electricity-prices/ (7.3¢/kWh converted to USD)
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  Transmission costs are not the only reason why people in different regions pay different prices for retail energy. Retail prices include far more than the pure generation and transmission costs. You can’t use those numbers to assume transmission is the primary driver of cost. The actual cost of sending power across the grid is relatively low. The Wikipedia page on power transmission is a good place to get an introduction: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission Specifically: > The cost of high voltage electricity transmission (as opposed to the costs of electric power distribution) is comparatively low, compared to all other costs arising in a consumer's electricity bill. In the UK, transmission costs are about 0.2 p per kWh compared to a delivered domestic price of around 10 p per kWh.
  - gruez 6y ago
    > Transmission costs are not the only reason why people in different regions pay different prices for retail energy. Retail prices include far more than the pure generation and transmission costs. You can’t use those numbers to assume transmission is the primary driver of cost. You're right, although an alternate source shows that the same difference exists for residential to large power (50,000 kW+) customers. Presumably for large power customers the cost of electricity becomes a bigger factor compared to other expenses. https://www.hydroquebec.com/data/documents-donnees/pdf/comparison-electricity-prices.pdf#page=24 https://www.hydroquebec.com/data/documents-donnees/pdf/compa... >> The cost of high voltage electricity transmission (as opposed to the costs of electric power distribution) is comparatively low, compared to all other costs arising in a consumer's electricity bill. In the UK, transmission costs are about 0.2 p per kWh compared to a delivered domestic price of around 10 p per kWh. There's selection bias going on here. Power is expensive to transmit over long distances, so power authorities opt to build local power plants, so that the expensive long transmission lines aren't built and therefore aren't being factored in.
- _Microft 6y ago
  China manages to transfer 10+GW of power over 3000km with losses of ~3%/1000km just fine. [0] It is the infrastructure we are going to need anyways to geographically balance varying supply and demand with increasing amounts of (intermittent) renewable energy on the grid. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

gruez 6y ago

>Every Terawatt of energy that goes into Bitcoin is a Terawatt of energy that isn’t being put into the grid to send to homes or industries or other users. Not really. Electricity is tough to transport over distances and interconnects are expensive and have limited capacity. That's why new hampshire's retail cost for electricity is 17 cents/kWh[1] but quebec only pays 5.8 cent/kWh [1] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/ https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/ [2] https://www.energyhub.org/electricity-prices/ https://www.energyhub.org/electricity-prices/ (7.3¢/kWh converted to USD)

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Transmission costs are not the only reason why people in different regions pay different prices for retail energy. Retail prices include far more than the pure generation and transmission costs. You can’t use those numbers to assume transmission is the primary driver of cost. The actual cost of sending power across the grid is relatively low. The Wikipedia page on power transmission is a good place to get an introduction: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission Specifically: > The cost of high voltage electricity transmission (as opposed to the costs of electric power distribution) is comparatively low, compared to all other costs arising in a consumer's electricity bill. In the UK, transmission costs are about 0.2 p per kWh compared to a delivered domestic price of around 10 p per kWh.
- gruez 6y ago
  > Transmission costs are not the only reason why people in different regions pay different prices for retail energy. Retail prices include far more than the pure generation and transmission costs. You can’t use those numbers to assume transmission is the primary driver of cost. You're right, although an alternate source shows that the same difference exists for residential to large power (50,000 kW+) customers. Presumably for large power customers the cost of electricity becomes a bigger factor compared to other expenses. https://www.hydroquebec.com/data/documents-donnees/pdf/comparison-electricity-prices.pdf#page=24 https://www.hydroquebec.com/data/documents-donnees/pdf/compa... >> The cost of high voltage electricity transmission (as opposed to the costs of electric power distribution) is comparatively low, compared to all other costs arising in a consumer's electricity bill. In the UK, transmission costs are about 0.2 p per kWh compared to a delivered domestic price of around 10 p per kWh. There's selection bias going on here. Power is expensive to transmit over long distances, so power authorities opt to build local power plants, so that the expensive long transmission lines aren't built and therefore aren't being factored in.
_Microft 6y ago
China manages to transfer 10+GW of power over 3000km with losses of ~3%/1000km just fine. [0] It is the infrastructure we are going to need anyways to geographically balance varying supply and demand with increasing amounts of (intermittent) renewable energy on the grid. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]