What I found interesting is the part about the advantages bitcoin mining has over other electricity consumers in terms of flexibility to pursue low cost power.

What I found interesting is the part about the advantages bitcoin mining has over other electricity consumers in terms of flexibility to pursue low cost power. These were 1) The vast majority of the cost of mining (80-90%) is the electricity cost. This contrasts with other hypothetical uses of excess electricity, such as desalination or hydrogen electrolysis, which have much higher capital costs. 2) The mining equipment can be fairly easily relocated, so it can go to where the power is. An example given was how miners would relocate to Sichuan province in China during the wet season each year in order to take advantage of excess hydro power there. 3) Unlike many electricity consumers, such as data centers, which might have the first two advantages, Bitcoin mining does not need reliable uptime. If it is compensated by lower cost of electricity during the up time, nothing stops miners from shutting down for periods of time when power is too expensive, or unavailable. For these reasons, mining ends up being very well suited to use excess power that currently goes to waste, such as byproduct natural gas produced from oil drilling, excess hydro production, and especially, excess solar and wind production. This last is important, because in order to do a decent job of providing for regular demand, renewables need to be significantly overbuilt, due to their variable output. That means that if a load is supplied by largely renewable sources, the majority of the time it will necessarily have significant excess capacity. Bitcoin mining can profitably take advantage of this excess capacity, and as a result, can make building such renewables more financially viable. This was just one part of the article, and the whole thing is worth a read. Not to say that I agree with everything in it, but I certainly found it all - and especially this section - thought provoking.