22 ms·

SolarBatteryBitcoin

130 points by simonpure 6y ago

randomhodler84 6y ago
This is incredible, and exactly what Square was getting at. If bitcoin is the incentive for decentralized power generation and battery provision, hash on!
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  delusional, this just continues to waste resources for peoole to speculate. resources wasted, lives ruined when they get the gambling wrong. everybody cut this crap out, please.
  - doomroot 6y ago
    What if you’re wrong?
    - capsulecorp 6y ago
      He isn't.
      - randomhodler84 6y ago
        And what if you are wrong too? It’s not too late to get out of the old game and into the new one.
        capsulecorp 6y ago
        I'm not.
        randomhodler84 6y ago
        My apologies, didn’t realize you were a bcasher. I’m sorry for your loss.
        capsulecorp 6y ago
        No worries, don't know what your talking about, but the loss is yours buddy, sorry to pop your crypto kiddie bubble.
        yunohn 6y ago
        > randomhodler84 Well, atleast your username checks out, and we all understand that you’re in the BTC Ponzi scheme for good.
  - jksmith 6y ago
    Well there's nothing wrong with considering a store of value to keep you from being under the thumb of fiat. So there's works of art, maybe some other metals, some really unusual one-off earth property. So what you have left is crypto or gold. So invest in gold and encourage more gold mining. Or just trust your government and hold cash. Either way, you're losing a shitload of value. Hedge a small piece of your opinion for a year, then re-evaluate in 2022. Then feel free to come back on HN in 2022 and share your opinions on the subject.
    - wespiser_2018 6y ago
      How's is bitcoin even a hedge against the dollar when it's correlated with the U.S. stock market? So many things just don't add up, like is btc a currency or an investment? Fiat currency is really the only spendable currency.
      - ur-whale 6y ago
        > when it's correlated with the U.S. stock market? Source?
      - swensel 6y ago
        I'm a Bitcoin fan and I actually do agree, some of the narratives conflict. From my perspective it is a new asset class and the world is still figuring out what it is. It does, so far, seem to be a risk on asset, as it didn't perform well in March 2020. It is already storing over $1 trillion of the world's wealth though, and in this case, money talks. Yes, it might have a correction, but the S&P 500 might as well. That said, Bitcoin's properties may change over time, and it may become more of a hedge. It does seem to have a lot of believers, and IMO, the technology is what makes it very interesting. It has been running successfully for a decade, and we'll be able to figure out more of what it is in 2, 3, or 5 years. I think, why not hold some, even just a little bit? IMO, people shouldn't put 100% in, and definitely don't take out any loans to do so (maybe unless you are a company, but I'm against individuals taking loans out for it). You never know, maybe some of the current narratives are correct.
        6y ago
  - space_rock 6y ago
    Is it only speculation or do people get utility out of Bitcoin? Can someone in Venezuela use it get their money out of the country?
    - swensel 6y ago
      Someone in Venezuela could put their money in Bitcoin to prevent against currency debasement of their native currency. They also could get their money out of the country using it.
capsulecorp 6y ago
Making open ponzi's green!
barathr 6y ago
I'd like to believe that something like this is possible, but I just don't get how this gets around the fact that every Joule that is used for bitcoin mining is a Joule that wasn't used somewhere else. Even if many Joules of renewable power get wasted during periods of overproduction (mid-day in the summer in California), other more worthwhile loads could be shifted to use that power, because today it's negative-priced during such periods. If bitcoin soaks up that power, it won't be negative-priced, and other loads won't be moved to use it, and they'll use power from non-renewable sources during some other time of day. There's all sorts of demand shifting that can be done. Most articles talk about washers and dryers, and certainly that's one smaller load, but also EV charging, pre-cooling of buildings during the summer (run the AC in houses full blast during the middle of the day so there's no need to run it in the early evening), etc.
- dnautics 6y ago
  "every Joule that is used for bitcoin mining is a Joule that wasn't used somewhere else" Not really? Batteries have limited capacity so at the point where the grid cannot buy any and your battery is topped up, you're mining bitcoin.
  - Blumfid 6y ago
    And who will invest in batteries or other direct useful power usage if burning it through asic's is just making more money? No one :(
    - scotty79 6y ago
      Bitcoin mining becomes less profitable the more people do it. At some point it gives you exactly as much as you pay for energy to mine. So if you can store electricity in the batteries for long enough to sell it for more than pruce of purchase then you are better off investing in the battery. But since batteries are expensive and inefficient, you might be better off investing in the wind turbine or solar panel and mine with it if you can't sell energy to the grid for more money. It's better than battery because when demand is high it gives energy, but it doesn't have to take energy when demand is low and it keeps itself financially afloat even when there's no high demand for a long time which might kill your battery energy storage enterprise. I know about at least one pumped storage facility that died because of that.
plantain 6y ago
The missing consideration here is the wasted capital of a miner sitting there idle.
- gruez 6y ago
  Have you checked the spreadsheet? cell C34 on the second sheet contains an input for the cost of the mining rig. Presumably that accounts for the capital cost of the miner.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
  So it's just a financial issue and has nothing to do with energy?
jude- 6y ago
This really is the right idea. Making it profitable for PoW to consume excess solar energy has the downstream effect of spinning up more demand for solar energy in general. You can hate Bitcoin and PoW all you want, but the genie is already out of the bottle. Even if you banned mining rigs (good luck with that), people would just mine it at home on their spare computers or use botnets. Either way, the only way we'll ever succeed in making PoW green is to make energy production itself green. And that's a problem we'd have to solve even if Bitcoin was never invented!
- mrow84 6y ago
  Doesn't this line of thinking incentivise any form of energy production that is above breakeven at whatever the current return on mining is? If so, then as the price of bitcoin goes up, increasing the returns to mining, we would expect to see people generating energy for mining in whatever ways they can, with no view to green credentials. It seems exciting because it could incentivise some beneficial behaviour given current market conditions, but it isn't obvious to me why it isn't just a transient phenomenon. Separately, aren't batteries still preferable, at least in principle, as a form of managing excess supply, because they do not throw the energy away? If so, then supporting the price of bitcoin on the basis that it provides the social good of allowing us to have expanded energy infrastructure only works until battery technology is sufficiently advanced, at which point the price would crash (to the level supported by whatever other components make bitcoin valuable), correct?
  - jude- 6y ago
    I didn't mean to suggest that PoW is sufficient to drive 100% green energy adoption. Your point about it driving any/all energy consumption is well taken. You'd need to have regulations that prohibit using non-green energy, but my point there was you'd need these regulations anyway even if Bitcoin was never invented.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
  >downstream effect of spinning up more demand for solar energy in general. But we don't just need more solar. We need less non-renewable energy to be consumed. Solar may replace it but adding tones of solar to retire polluting sources is not directly addressing the issue at stake but just want more solar.
zoshi 6y ago
The incessant snide comments expressing nothing but dislike for Bitcoin really don’t belong on HN. Not liking Bitcoin is fine, but if you don’t have anything to add just don’t comment. Every thread about Bitcoin on HN does not a dozen comments that it’s a waste of time and energy.
- pavlov 6y ago
  “When the Church of Scientology announces that they’ve been thinking about solar panels, why does everyone have to rush to mention that it’s a cult? Can’t we just give them credit for these good intentions and forget everything they’ve actually done?” (Celebrity endorsements, non-functional technology, libertarian fantasies of escaping the tax man — L. Ron Hubbard would have loved Bitcoin.)
- yourabstraction 6y ago
  It's really pretty ridiculous and frustrating. I come here for intelligent discussion, and I agree it's okay if people don't like Bitcoin, but at least take some time to learn about it if you're going to argue. It's straight up denial at this point, because Bitcoin, Ethereum, and DeFi are securing and transacting billions of dollars every single day. It's not a question of if it works at this point, it does work! An decentralized overlay financial system has successfully been bootstrapped on top of legacy infrastructure. If you don't understand how big of a moment this is for humanity you must have your head in the sand.
  - hparadiz 6y ago
    I'd like to also bring up the Helium Network which is an entirely novel use of blockchain technology where Proof-of-work is done by being a LongFi transmitter and having other transmitters check each other's signals as a way to verify that it's actually up and working. Miners literally make money by running LongFi cell towers from their house. It's currently bootstrapping a LongFi cell network world wide and is already prolific in every major american city. If this technology could be applied to power generation or even cell service we could have a real decentralized network with no companies in charge.
  - 6y ago
fny 6y ago
Can we please just invest more heavily in nuclear? My preference is thorium reactors given they are far, far less dangerous in all regards. Given ARKs time horizon, it would be a prescient investment. There's no way in hell were going to get stable power from solar and batteries alone. The bitcoin power problem is also solved.
- riffraff 6y ago
  I'm pro nuclear, but I'm afraid that ship has sailed. Renewable prices have been going down fast and are not stopping, and building a new plant is expensive. We should care about keeping the old ones operating as long as possible, but we've been hearing tales of new safer smaller easy to deploy nuclear plants designs for decades, I wouldn't hold my breath.
  - krobbn 6y ago
    Nuclear is dispatchable, wind and solar isn't. There is still a chance for a future of nuclear but its more a political game at this point. We currently use natural gas for this flexibility, which is better than coal, but still a big polluter.
- jhgb 6y ago
  > My preference is thorium reactors given they are far, far less dangerous in all regards. True, non-existent reactors are the least dangerous of all, just like components that aren't there are the most reliable.
yrral 6y ago
I had mentioned something like this on HN multiple times in the past but my thoughts never got much traction or upvotes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26811819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26811819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26094279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26094279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25444985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25444985 (among others) I'd like to solicit feedback on why this is, did I not explain some point clearly enough or is it just the legitimacy of it coming from ark vs a random commenter on HN?
- bArray 6y ago
  Probably because you posted a wall of text. Short and sweet comments are best, write a blog and link to it if you have lots to add :)
- AYBABTME 6y ago
  Wall of text with no catchy/eye-grabbing words section. Your idea is right.
- Hermio 6y ago
  What is our problem? The problem is creating/producing co2 is a problem for our planet. Can we agree on this? If we agree on the co2 production problem, lets take a look at what bitcoin is doing: It converts a lot of energy/resources of our planet into co2. It does that by the asic's someone has to create, and by far the direct energy consumption. What does bitcoin produce? It produces transaction security right? 1. That value bitcoin is creating, is basically necessary to allow bitcoin to function. Without energy consumption, no transaction. Right now, we have a system which is able to create secure transactions, its called our current financial system. Our financial system is optimized for cost, speed and trust. Trust by regulations on different levels (state, world etc.). We have a global financial system. That financial system is not perfect but bitcoin is also not perfect right? Okay so what is the advantage of bitcoin? People say its open, i can invest in bitcoins without regulations and i can send money to people like who are in a regime (in theory). Is that true? Is Bitcoin making sure that if your country decides to stop money transactions to North Korea for good reasons, that bitcoins stop working there? No it doesn't. All those mechanism, which are there to protect the normal people more than the tax fraud people are gone in the bitcoin system. Therefore, the big advantge Bitcoin actually delivers (unregulated financial system) will be regulated as hard as our current system as soon as it hits a relevant size. And its not even hard as long as Bitcoin doesn't have any value. It doesn't has any real value as it is not a currency, its only a crypto currency. It doesn't has a country behind it. That it works as it works right now is just due to speculations/gambling. We have to make sure that investing in batteries, other storage options, dump load with usefullness (pre heating water, using an EV, producing hydrogen, smelting more metals on high demand time, enabling technology to flip on and off devices like washing machines) is actually more reasonable INSTEAD of having to fight the Bitcoin gambling market. Googles Datacenter are using 10times LESS energy than bitcoin https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-power-consumption-of-bitcoin-mining/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-power-consu... and every single server/service on a Google Datacenter adds more value to our society than any bitcoin transaction ever will. All of our datacenters are only using 80twh more energy than bitcion and all those datacenters give us as a society values like entertainment, banking, building, simulating stuff, doing research like cancer research etc. etc. BITCOIN is the worst invention in our society so far as it is the only invention i'm aware of which has such a high impact on resource consumption with no real value to our planet :(
christiansakai 6y ago
So the premise of the article is that the difficulty and inefficiency of Bitcoin is the fundamental feature that makes all this possible. What are we waiting for then? Lets double the computation difficulty of Bitcoin's network. This will shoot up the price even further and will accelerate solar-battery-bitcoin-green combo. We just save the Earth and a lot of people become rich. Win win situation if you ask me. /s
AYBABTME 6y ago
A real aside and sorry for it, but it'd be great if we had a way to execute spreadsheet computation in a generalized manner/without opening a GUI. XLSX isn't (immediately) text based but I feel there should be a way to extract XLSX into a neat package that can be executed on different runtime implementations.
hyko 6y ago
Increasing bitcoin mining capacity allows the energy provider to “overbuild” solar without wasting energy. Nope. “Free” PoW undermines the whole system. Mining has to be a sacrifice, otherwise it won’t work anymore. There is no “and I can use the resulting infrastructure for X”. Every joule of energy that goes into proof of work is a joule wasted by design. There is no free lunch. I’m starting to think that maybe cryptocurrency is the great filter. It’s actually pretty terrifying. Edit: we should probably have termed it proof of valueless work to make that clear. There is also nothing to stop a speculative bubble crowding out all other energy uses. Our low-growth world is very vulnerable to these schemes.
- sfvisser 6y ago
  > I’m starting to think that maybe cryptocurrency is the great filter. It’s actually pretty terrifying. Either cryptocurrency is extremely useful and the energy spent will turn out not to be wasted at all or it is a big useless energy draining scam and the whole thing will soon collapse. I really don't see a scenario were it will still be useless or only moderately useful and consuming so much energy that the human species will slowly die off.
  - Hermio 6y ago
    Oversaturated financial markets perhaps? Who the fuck invests in bitcoin? People with too much money and the habit of gambling. No one can tell me that there is a logical argument without flaw and a ton of assumptions that the bitcoin market is in its current state anything than gambling. Because bitcoin is so active and new makes it so interesting for gambling :(
- oleganza 6y ago
  It could be the opposite: a way out through the great filter. Due to imperfection of gold or any resource-based money (symmetrical security), people can never stop fighting for it and build wasteful political hierarchies with ever-escalating arms race. Bitcoin being cheaper to secure than to steal (asymmetrical security) solves two problems: de-escalates arms race and flattens the hierarchies because now savings can be more organically spread in society. This allows redirecting a lot of energy from wars onto cooperative multi-planetary infrastructure or whatever.
bitcoinmonger 6y ago
Why is Bitcoin still allowed to exist? It's clear from the conversations over recent weeks that it's a waste of energy.
jillesvangurp 6y ago
The premise is that there no more worthier causes than bitcoin beyond the grid needs. That premise is simply false. You can use excess grid capacity for lots of useful things including water desalination, charging cars at off peak hours, producing hydrogen. These are all applications that can flexibly use clean/cheap power when it is available instead of putting a constant load on the grid. This solution would compete with all of that. Excess grid energy is a resource that we need to use more effectively. Wasting it on bitcoin is pointless. Nobody really needs bitcoin except those living on hoarding it; which is pretty much the only thing you can do with it. In the same way a lot carbon capture schemes use clean energy to slightly reduce (but not completely solve) the amount of CO2 added to our atmosphere. A better use of that clean energy is to completely remove the need for adding more CO2 to our energy (rather than just partially) through alternatives that make better/more efficient use of the clean energy that these capture schemes take.
- dmurray 6y ago
  > You can use excess grid capacity for lots of useful things including water desalination, charging cars at off peak hours, producing hydrogen. Ideally you need something where the cost of electricity would normally dominate the capital costs of setting up the operation. Otherwise, you're better off running the process all the time, and it's not a useful grid battery. Alternatively, something where you need to overbuild the infrastructure, perhaps to serve peak demand or for emergency availability. Water desalination plants and hydrogen factories are expensive to build, so they don't work well here. Bitcoin mining rigs aren't free either. Charging cars is a great application even though cars are expensive to build: they meet the second criterion as, for logistic reasons, we build way more cars than are on the road at any point in time.
  - jillesvangurp 6y ago
    Water desalination and green hydrogen production using clean energy are already real applications and growing markets. The cost of the water is a function of electricity cost, investment needed to build the plants. So, being able to use cheap clean energy for that would reduce cost and make that more attractive. With water, you tend to use the cheapest option. If you are in the middle east on the coast, far from rivers or other sources of drinking water, desalinating is pretty much the only option. Which is why that has been common for decades. With green hydrogen, what matters is the cost relative to hydrogen produced from natural gas. Both are dominated by the variable cost of the energy rather than construction cost. Bitcoin as a green, or rather less hopelessly planet destroying thing, does not make sense because it removes energy that could be used for actually doing something more worthwhile.
rcxdude 6y ago
I think all this model says is the it's currently profitable for bitcoin miners to build their own power stations to run their miners. But if they're doing that, why would they contribute to the grid? From looking at the model it just assumes the power will go to the grid first and bitcoin miners second, even though it would always be more profitable to run the miners (by 2x to 3x). I don't see this happening without government intervention. And from the point of view of the human race even this approach involves a huge amount of extra resources going into the mining hardware, an extra cost which only really benefits the miners (extra mining doesn't even benefit bitcoin at this point). I find it extremely worrying that 'bitcoin price' is not an input to this model: it's buried in the assumptions that it basically remains as it is. Bitcoin price going up means even less incentive to contribute to the grid, bitcoin price going down means the benefits it can bring under the broken assumption miners are altruistic go down. The only way I see this actually having a positive impact through market mechanisms is if there's a railroad fever and massive buildout of solar capacity for mining, followed shortly by a bitcoin crash which actually makes that energy available for the rest of us to use. (Also, solar is not a great source for mining to use at the moment: mining hardware still costs an appreciable sum relative to the energy cost of running it, especially considering it depreciates quickly. So if at all possible the miners will run them constantly, not adjust to grid supply vs demand)
- NullPrefix 6y ago
  Crypto mining will pave the way for a nuclear return. Mark my words.
  - rcxdude 6y ago
    I'm not sure even crypto mining is profitable enough to make the cost of nuclear worthwhile (to say nothing of the risk taken on on the crypto markets between starting construction and actually getting power).
sashimi-houdini 6y ago
I couldn't help but chuckle at the text "size of bubble = bitcoin mining power" at the top of the charts... one wonders if it is intentional
ideamotor 6y ago
A sucker is born every minute. I tell you what, I’ll go write an article showing it would have made sense to use money from selling solar power to the grid on buying a house in Austin before prices went up 30% in the past year. Why not spend all the money? Try to get this logic past a financier. This is truly laughable. I can’t wait for the update that includes February “snowvid” $9k/MWh prices. The author will think they are a genius. LOL. GTFO.
christkv 6y ago
The amount of energy spent on this is breathtaking and it really has to stop. A single bitcoin transaction has a carbon footprint of 359.04 kgCO2 – equivalent to the carbon footprint of 795,752 VISA transactions or 59,840 hours of watching YouTube. https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/bitcoin-shocker-cryptos-rise-may-soon-leave-carbon-footprint-equivalent-to-size-of-londons-emissions/2215513/ https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/bitcoin-shocker-cr...
- swensel 6y ago
  In all fairness I think we should consider the amount of energy spent to mine gold every year too (as well as the environmental impact), and that's just to mine it, not to mention refining, auditing, transporting, securing, etc. The energy spent on Bitcoin includes mining, auditing, transporting, securing, etc. It is interesting, at least, to consider that mining Bitcoin is all inclusive. All the energy spent supports the global network. I think it's worth looking into if Bitcoin actually has some benefits. I don't think this is a clear cut issue and outright statements like, "it really has to stop", IMO, isn't going to help at this time.
  - wmf 6y ago
    This is more a case for banning gold speculation and Bitcoin.
- rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
  The amount of energy spent on complaining about how others use energy is breathtaking and it really has to stop. What you are saying is that people are doing things with energy that you don't understand, and can't make sense of why they do it. The people that do, do understand, and think it is very sensible to do this. There are many things in this life I do not like, however, I strongly believe that I have no place to condemn the actions of others provided they do no harm. The argument then becomes if non-green generation of bitcoin is harmful -- I would say, yes it possibly is! That is why projects like SolarBatteryBitcoin are so important, to provide an incentive green-energy production behavior; which appears to be the main reason you don't like this technology. I implore you to open your eyes to what is going on here. You can sit on the sidelines throwing rocks, or you can take part in the biggest change in your lifetime.
hannob 6y ago
The main problem with this "model" is that it assumes a world where only solar power, batteries and bitcoin exist. But we live in a more complicated world where coal power plants, other possible uses of excess electricity and many other things exist.
- swensel 6y ago
  True. One solution could be to incentivize miners to use cleaner energy.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

130 points by simonpure 6y ago

This is incredible, and exactly what Square was getting at. If bitcoin is the incentive for decentralized power generation and battery provision, hash on!

gameswithgo 6y ago
delusional, this just continues to waste resources for peoole to speculate. resources wasted, lives ruined when they get the gambling wrong. everybody cut this crap out, please.
- doomroot 6y ago
  What if you’re wrong?
  - capsulecorp 6y ago
    He isn't.
    - randomhodler84 6y ago
      And what if you are wrong too? It’s not too late to get out of the old game and into the new one.
      - capsulecorp 6y ago
        I'm not.
        randomhodler84 6y ago
        My apologies, didn’t realize you were a bcasher. I’m sorry for your loss.
        capsulecorp 6y ago
        No worries, don't know what your talking about, but the loss is yours buddy, sorry to pop your crypto kiddie bubble.
      - yunohn 6y ago
        > randomhodler84 Well, atleast your username checks out, and we all understand that you’re in the BTC Ponzi scheme for good.
- jksmith 6y ago
  Well there's nothing wrong with considering a store of value to keep you from being under the thumb of fiat. So there's works of art, maybe some other metals, some really unusual one-off earth property. So what you have left is crypto or gold. So invest in gold and encourage more gold mining. Or just trust your government and hold cash. Either way, you're losing a shitload of value. Hedge a small piece of your opinion for a year, then re-evaluate in 2022. Then feel free to come back on HN in 2022 and share your opinions on the subject.
  - wespiser_2018 6y ago
    How's is bitcoin even a hedge against the dollar when it's correlated with the U.S. stock market? So many things just don't add up, like is btc a currency or an investment? Fiat currency is really the only spendable currency.
    - ur-whale 6y ago
      > when it's correlated with the U.S. stock market? Source?
    - swensel 6y ago
      I'm a Bitcoin fan and I actually do agree, some of the narratives conflict. From my perspective it is a new asset class and the world is still figuring out what it is. It does, so far, seem to be a risk on asset, as it didn't perform well in March 2020. It is already storing over $1 trillion of the world's wealth though, and in this case, money talks. Yes, it might have a correction, but the S&P 500 might as well. That said, Bitcoin's properties may change over time, and it may become more of a hedge. It does seem to have a lot of believers, and IMO, the technology is what makes it very interesting. It has been running successfully for a decade, and we'll be able to figure out more of what it is in 2, 3, or 5 years. I think, why not hold some, even just a little bit? IMO, people shouldn't put 100% in, and definitely don't take out any loans to do so (maybe unless you are a company, but I'm against individuals taking loans out for it). You never know, maybe some of the current narratives are correct.
      - 6y ago
- space_rock 6y ago
  Is it only speculation or do people get utility out of Bitcoin? Can someone in Venezuela use it get their money out of the country?
  - swensel 6y ago
    Someone in Venezuela could put their money in Bitcoin to prevent against currency debasement of their native currency. They also could get their money out of the country using it.

capsulecorp 6y ago

Making open ponzi's green!

barathr 6y ago

I'd like to believe that something like this is possible, but I just don't get how this gets around the fact that every Joule that is used for bitcoin mining is a Joule that wasn't used somewhere else. Even if many Joules of renewable power get wasted during periods of overproduction (mid-day in the summer in California), other more worthwhile loads could be shifted to use that power, because today it's negative-priced during such periods. If bitcoin soaks up that power, it won't be negative-priced, and other loads won't be moved to use it, and they'll use power from non-renewable sources during some other time of day. There's all sorts of demand shifting that can be done. Most articles talk about washers and dryers, and certainly that's one smaller load, but also EV charging, pre-cooling of buildings during the summer (run the AC in houses full blast during the middle of the day so there's no need to run it in the early evening), etc.

dnautics 6y ago
"every Joule that is used for bitcoin mining is a Joule that wasn't used somewhere else" Not really? Batteries have limited capacity so at the point where the grid cannot buy any and your battery is topped up, you're mining bitcoin.
- Blumfid 6y ago
  And who will invest in batteries or other direct useful power usage if burning it through asic's is just making more money? No one :(
  - scotty79 6y ago
    Bitcoin mining becomes less profitable the more people do it. At some point it gives you exactly as much as you pay for energy to mine. So if you can store electricity in the batteries for long enough to sell it for more than pruce of purchase then you are better off investing in the battery. But since batteries are expensive and inefficient, you might be better off investing in the wind turbine or solar panel and mine with it if you can't sell energy to the grid for more money. It's better than battery because when demand is high it gives energy, but it doesn't have to take energy when demand is low and it keeps itself financially afloat even when there's no high demand for a long time which might kill your battery energy storage enterprise. I know about at least one pumped storage facility that died because of that.

plantain 6y ago

The missing consideration here is the wasted capital of a miner sitting there idle.

gruez 6y ago
Have you checked the spreadsheet? cell C34 on the second sheet contains an input for the cost of the mining rig. Presumably that accounts for the capital cost of the miner.
rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
So it's just a financial issue and has nothing to do with energy?

jude- 6y ago

This really is the right idea. Making it profitable for PoW to consume excess solar energy has the downstream effect of spinning up more demand for solar energy in general. You can hate Bitcoin and PoW all you want, but the genie is already out of the bottle. Even if you banned mining rigs (good luck with that), people would just mine it at home on their spare computers or use botnets. Either way, the only way we'll ever succeed in making PoW green is to make energy production itself green. And that's a problem we'd have to solve even if Bitcoin was never invented!

mrow84 6y ago
Doesn't this line of thinking incentivise any form of energy production that is above breakeven at whatever the current return on mining is? If so, then as the price of bitcoin goes up, increasing the returns to mining, we would expect to see people generating energy for mining in whatever ways they can, with no view to green credentials. It seems exciting because it could incentivise some beneficial behaviour given current market conditions, but it isn't obvious to me why it isn't just a transient phenomenon. Separately, aren't batteries still preferable, at least in principle, as a form of managing excess supply, because they do not throw the energy away? If so, then supporting the price of bitcoin on the basis that it provides the social good of allowing us to have expanded energy infrastructure only works until battery technology is sufficiently advanced, at which point the price would crash (to the level supported by whatever other components make bitcoin valuable), correct?
- jude- 6y ago
  I didn't mean to suggest that PoW is sufficient to drive 100% green energy adoption. Your point about it driving any/all energy consumption is well taken. You'd need to have regulations that prohibit using non-green energy, but my point there was you'd need these regulations anyway even if Bitcoin was never invented.
rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
>downstream effect of spinning up more demand for solar energy in general. But we don't just need more solar. We need less non-renewable energy to be consumed. Solar may replace it but adding tones of solar to retire polluting sources is not directly addressing the issue at stake but just want more solar.

zoshi 6y ago

The incessant snide comments expressing nothing but dislike for Bitcoin really don’t belong on HN. Not liking Bitcoin is fine, but if you don’t have anything to add just don’t comment. Every thread about Bitcoin on HN does not a dozen comments that it’s a waste of time and energy.

pavlov 6y ago
“When the Church of Scientology announces that they’ve been thinking about solar panels, why does everyone have to rush to mention that it’s a cult? Can’t we just give them credit for these good intentions and forget everything they’ve actually done?” (Celebrity endorsements, non-functional technology, libertarian fantasies of escaping the tax man — L. Ron Hubbard would have loved Bitcoin.)
yourabstraction 6y ago
It's really pretty ridiculous and frustrating. I come here for intelligent discussion, and I agree it's okay if people don't like Bitcoin, but at least take some time to learn about it if you're going to argue. It's straight up denial at this point, because Bitcoin, Ethereum, and DeFi are securing and transacting billions of dollars every single day. It's not a question of if it works at this point, it does work! An decentralized overlay financial system has successfully been bootstrapped on top of legacy infrastructure. If you don't understand how big of a moment this is for humanity you must have your head in the sand.
- hparadiz 6y ago
  I'd like to also bring up the Helium Network which is an entirely novel use of blockchain technology where Proof-of-work is done by being a LongFi transmitter and having other transmitters check each other's signals as a way to verify that it's actually up and working. Miners literally make money by running LongFi cell towers from their house. It's currently bootstrapping a LongFi cell network world wide and is already prolific in every major american city. If this technology could be applied to power generation or even cell service we could have a real decentralized network with no companies in charge.
- 6y ago

fny 6y ago

Can we please just invest more heavily in nuclear? My preference is thorium reactors given they are far, far less dangerous in all regards. Given ARKs time horizon, it would be a prescient investment. There's no way in hell were going to get stable power from solar and batteries alone. The bitcoin power problem is also solved.

riffraff 6y ago
I'm pro nuclear, but I'm afraid that ship has sailed. Renewable prices have been going down fast and are not stopping, and building a new plant is expensive. We should care about keeping the old ones operating as long as possible, but we've been hearing tales of new safer smaller easy to deploy nuclear plants designs for decades, I wouldn't hold my breath.
- krobbn 6y ago
  Nuclear is dispatchable, wind and solar isn't. There is still a chance for a future of nuclear but its more a political game at this point. We currently use natural gas for this flexibility, which is better than coal, but still a big polluter.
jhgb 6y ago
> My preference is thorium reactors given they are far, far less dangerous in all regards. True, non-existent reactors are the least dangerous of all, just like components that aren't there are the most reliable.

yrral 6y ago

I had mentioned something like this on HN multiple times in the past but my thoughts never got much traction or upvotes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26811819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26811819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26094279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26094279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25444985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25444985 (among others) I'd like to solicit feedback on why this is, did I not explain some point clearly enough or is it just the legitimacy of it coming from ark vs a random commenter on HN?

bArray 6y ago
Probably because you posted a wall of text. Short and sweet comments are best, write a blog and link to it if you have lots to add :)
AYBABTME 6y ago
Wall of text with no catchy/eye-grabbing words section. Your idea is right.
Hermio 6y ago
What is our problem? The problem is creating/producing co2 is a problem for our planet. Can we agree on this? If we agree on the co2 production problem, lets take a look at what bitcoin is doing: It converts a lot of energy/resources of our planet into co2. It does that by the asic's someone has to create, and by far the direct energy consumption. What does bitcoin produce? It produces transaction security right? 1. That value bitcoin is creating, is basically necessary to allow bitcoin to function. Without energy consumption, no transaction. Right now, we have a system which is able to create secure transactions, its called our current financial system. Our financial system is optimized for cost, speed and trust. Trust by regulations on different levels (state, world etc.). We have a global financial system. That financial system is not perfect but bitcoin is also not perfect right? Okay so what is the advantage of bitcoin? People say its open, i can invest in bitcoins without regulations and i can send money to people like who are in a regime (in theory). Is that true? Is Bitcoin making sure that if your country decides to stop money transactions to North Korea for good reasons, that bitcoins stop working there? No it doesn't. All those mechanism, which are there to protect the normal people more than the tax fraud people are gone in the bitcoin system. Therefore, the big advantge Bitcoin actually delivers (unregulated financial system) will be regulated as hard as our current system as soon as it hits a relevant size. And its not even hard as long as Bitcoin doesn't have any value. It doesn't has any real value as it is not a currency, its only a crypto currency. It doesn't has a country behind it. That it works as it works right now is just due to speculations/gambling. We have to make sure that investing in batteries, other storage options, dump load with usefullness (pre heating water, using an EV, producing hydrogen, smelting more metals on high demand time, enabling technology to flip on and off devices like washing machines) is actually more reasonable INSTEAD of having to fight the Bitcoin gambling market. Googles Datacenter are using 10times LESS energy than bitcoin https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-power-consumption-of-bitcoin-mining/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-power-consu... and every single server/service on a Google Datacenter adds more value to our society than any bitcoin transaction ever will. All of our datacenters are only using 80twh more energy than bitcion and all those datacenters give us as a society values like entertainment, banking, building, simulating stuff, doing research like cancer research etc. etc. BITCOIN is the worst invention in our society so far as it is the only invention i'm aware of which has such a high impact on resource consumption with no real value to our planet :(

christiansakai 6y ago

So the premise of the article is that the difficulty and inefficiency of Bitcoin is the fundamental feature that makes all this possible. What are we waiting for then? Lets double the computation difficulty of Bitcoin's network. This will shoot up the price even further and will accelerate solar-battery-bitcoin-green combo. We just save the Earth and a lot of people become rich. Win win situation if you ask me. /s

AYBABTME 6y ago

A real aside and sorry for it, but it'd be great if we had a way to execute spreadsheet computation in a generalized manner/without opening a GUI. XLSX isn't (immediately) text based but I feel there should be a way to extract XLSX into a neat package that can be executed on different runtime implementations.

hyko 6y ago

Increasing bitcoin mining capacity allows the energy provider to “overbuild” solar without wasting energy. Nope. “Free” PoW undermines the whole system. Mining has to be a sacrifice, otherwise it won’t work anymore. There is no “and I can use the resulting infrastructure for X”. Every joule of energy that goes into proof of work is a joule wasted by design. There is no free lunch. I’m starting to think that maybe cryptocurrency is the great filter. It’s actually pretty terrifying. Edit: we should probably have termed it proof of valueless work to make that clear. There is also nothing to stop a speculative bubble crowding out all other energy uses. Our low-growth world is very vulnerable to these schemes.

sfvisser 6y ago
> I’m starting to think that maybe cryptocurrency is the great filter. It’s actually pretty terrifying. Either cryptocurrency is extremely useful and the energy spent will turn out not to be wasted at all or it is a big useless energy draining scam and the whole thing will soon collapse. I really don't see a scenario were it will still be useless or only moderately useful and consuming so much energy that the human species will slowly die off.
- Hermio 6y ago
  Oversaturated financial markets perhaps? Who the fuck invests in bitcoin? People with too much money and the habit of gambling. No one can tell me that there is a logical argument without flaw and a ton of assumptions that the bitcoin market is in its current state anything than gambling. Because bitcoin is so active and new makes it so interesting for gambling :(
oleganza 6y ago
It could be the opposite: a way out through the great filter. Due to imperfection of gold or any resource-based money (symmetrical security), people can never stop fighting for it and build wasteful political hierarchies with ever-escalating arms race. Bitcoin being cheaper to secure than to steal (asymmetrical security) solves two problems: de-escalates arms race and flattens the hierarchies because now savings can be more organically spread in society. This allows redirecting a lot of energy from wars onto cooperative multi-planetary infrastructure or whatever.

bitcoinmonger 6y ago

Why is Bitcoin still allowed to exist? It's clear from the conversations over recent weeks that it's a waste of energy.

jillesvangurp 6y ago

The premise is that there no more worthier causes than bitcoin beyond the grid needs. That premise is simply false. You can use excess grid capacity for lots of useful things including water desalination, charging cars at off peak hours, producing hydrogen. These are all applications that can flexibly use clean/cheap power when it is available instead of putting a constant load on the grid. This solution would compete with all of that. Excess grid energy is a resource that we need to use more effectively. Wasting it on bitcoin is pointless. Nobody really needs bitcoin except those living on hoarding it; which is pretty much the only thing you can do with it. In the same way a lot carbon capture schemes use clean energy to slightly reduce (but not completely solve) the amount of CO2 added to our atmosphere. A better use of that clean energy is to completely remove the need for adding more CO2 to our energy (rather than just partially) through alternatives that make better/more efficient use of the clean energy that these capture schemes take.

dmurray 6y ago
> You can use excess grid capacity for lots of useful things including water desalination, charging cars at off peak hours, producing hydrogen. Ideally you need something where the cost of electricity would normally dominate the capital costs of setting up the operation. Otherwise, you're better off running the process all the time, and it's not a useful grid battery. Alternatively, something where you need to overbuild the infrastructure, perhaps to serve peak demand or for emergency availability. Water desalination plants and hydrogen factories are expensive to build, so they don't work well here. Bitcoin mining rigs aren't free either. Charging cars is a great application even though cars are expensive to build: they meet the second criterion as, for logistic reasons, we build way more cars than are on the road at any point in time.
- jillesvangurp 6y ago
  Water desalination and green hydrogen production using clean energy are already real applications and growing markets. The cost of the water is a function of electricity cost, investment needed to build the plants. So, being able to use cheap clean energy for that would reduce cost and make that more attractive. With water, you tend to use the cheapest option. If you are in the middle east on the coast, far from rivers or other sources of drinking water, desalinating is pretty much the only option. Which is why that has been common for decades. With green hydrogen, what matters is the cost relative to hydrogen produced from natural gas. Both are dominated by the variable cost of the energy rather than construction cost. Bitcoin as a green, or rather less hopelessly planet destroying thing, does not make sense because it removes energy that could be used for actually doing something more worthwhile.

rcxdude 6y ago

I think all this model says is the it's currently profitable for bitcoin miners to build their own power stations to run their miners. But if they're doing that, why would they contribute to the grid? From looking at the model it just assumes the power will go to the grid first and bitcoin miners second, even though it would always be more profitable to run the miners (by 2x to 3x). I don't see this happening without government intervention. And from the point of view of the human race even this approach involves a huge amount of extra resources going into the mining hardware, an extra cost which only really benefits the miners (extra mining doesn't even benefit bitcoin at this point). I find it extremely worrying that 'bitcoin price' is not an input to this model: it's buried in the assumptions that it basically remains as it is. Bitcoin price going up means even less incentive to contribute to the grid, bitcoin price going down means the benefits it can bring under the broken assumption miners are altruistic go down. The only way I see this actually having a positive impact through market mechanisms is if there's a railroad fever and massive buildout of solar capacity for mining, followed shortly by a bitcoin crash which actually makes that energy available for the rest of us to use. (Also, solar is not a great source for mining to use at the moment: mining hardware still costs an appreciable sum relative to the energy cost of running it, especially considering it depreciates quickly. So if at all possible the miners will run them constantly, not adjust to grid supply vs demand)

NullPrefix 6y ago
Crypto mining will pave the way for a nuclear return. Mark my words.
- rcxdude 6y ago
  I'm not sure even crypto mining is profitable enough to make the cost of nuclear worthwhile (to say nothing of the risk taken on on the crypto markets between starting construction and actually getting power).

sashimi-houdini 6y ago

I couldn't help but chuckle at the text "size of bubble = bitcoin mining power" at the top of the charts... one wonders if it is intentional

ideamotor 6y ago

A sucker is born every minute. I tell you what, I’ll go write an article showing it would have made sense to use money from selling solar power to the grid on buying a house in Austin before prices went up 30% in the past year. Why not spend all the money? Try to get this logic past a financier. This is truly laughable. I can’t wait for the update that includes February “snowvid” $9k/MWh prices. The author will think they are a genius. LOL. GTFO.

christkv 6y ago

The amount of energy spent on this is breathtaking and it really has to stop. A single bitcoin transaction has a carbon footprint of 359.04 kgCO2 – equivalent to the carbon footprint of 795,752 VISA transactions or 59,840 hours of watching YouTube. https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/bitcoin-shocker-cryptos-rise-may-soon-leave-carbon-footprint-equivalent-to-size-of-londons-emissions/2215513/ https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/bitcoin-shocker-cr...

swensel 6y ago
In all fairness I think we should consider the amount of energy spent to mine gold every year too (as well as the environmental impact), and that's just to mine it, not to mention refining, auditing, transporting, securing, etc. The energy spent on Bitcoin includes mining, auditing, transporting, securing, etc. It is interesting, at least, to consider that mining Bitcoin is all inclusive. All the energy spent supports the global network. I think it's worth looking into if Bitcoin actually has some benefits. I don't think this is a clear cut issue and outright statements like, "it really has to stop", IMO, isn't going to help at this time.
- wmf 6y ago
  This is more a case for banning gold speculation and Bitcoin.
rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
The amount of energy spent on complaining about how others use energy is breathtaking and it really has to stop. What you are saying is that people are doing things with energy that you don't understand, and can't make sense of why they do it. The people that do, do understand, and think it is very sensible to do this. There are many things in this life I do not like, however, I strongly believe that I have no place to condemn the actions of others provided they do no harm. The argument then becomes if non-green generation of bitcoin is harmful -- I would say, yes it possibly is! That is why projects like SolarBatteryBitcoin are so important, to provide an incentive green-energy production behavior; which appears to be the main reason you don't like this technology. I implore you to open your eyes to what is going on here. You can sit on the sidelines throwing rocks, or you can take part in the biggest change in your lifetime.

hannob 6y ago

The main problem with this "model" is that it assumes a world where only solar power, batteries and bitcoin exist. But we live in a more complicated world where coal power plants, other possible uses of excess electricity and many other things exist.

swensel 6y ago
True. One solution could be to incentivize miners to use cleaner energy.

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