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> not much energy is wasted There are two situations: 1. Current solar and wind generation that wastes energy (known as "curtailment"). In Texas, about 17% of
by billytetrud 6y ago
> not much energy is wasted
There are two situations:
1. Current solar and wind generation that wastes energy (known as "curtailment"). In Texas, about 17% of wind energy is curtailed. In California, about 25% of solar energy is curtailed. https://slate.com/business/2016/07/how-energy-waste-in-solar-and-wind-power-still-happens.html https://slate.com/business/2016/07/how-energy-waste-in-solar... https://www.caiso.com/documents/curtailmentfastfacts.pdf https://www.caiso.com/documents/curtailmentfastfacts.pdf
2. Potential renewable energy production that doesn't happen because of cost effectiveness in areas where curtailment would be high. In places that are poorly connected to agacent energy grids, curtailment might be quite a bit higher than existing production, especially if the goal is to power a larger fraction of an area's electricity with solar and wind. It wouldn't be unreasonable to imagine renewable power production with 50% curtailment.
Another example of wasted energy is natural gas flare offs. People are starting to utilize these for bitcoin mining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkeZVcGsva8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkeZVcGsva8
> I can't see use case where miner will be I am only making money for 2 hours a day
Well, it wouldn't be for just 2 hours a day. 25% curtailment simply mean that only 1/4th of the day has usable excess energy. It could mean 26% excess energy for 23 hours a day, or it could mean 85% excess energy for 1 hour a day. If you have a location with 25% excess energy, you could be running on excess energy for the majority of the day. Also, power storage could help a lot. There are types of power storage that do very well for short period of time, but poorly for long periods of time. So by storing some of that energy for an hour or two, you can use that energy to mine when there is 0% excess but no extra energy is needed by the grid. Electric generation isn't as simple as people think.