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> If bitcoin miners are chasing cheap power ... then it shouldn't be possible for miners to increase the price of power in a fixed area as they would immediatel

by jmyeet 5y ago

> If bitcoin miners are chasing cheap power ... then it shouldn't be possible for miners to increase the price of power in a fixed area as they would immediately migrate elsewhere where power is cheaper Um, no. That presumes there is somewhere cheaper to move, for one. If powers costs $0.08/kWh in one place and the next best option is $0.12/kWh then even if you assume no moving costs you've got all that headroom before it even makes sense to move. But consider the concrete example of Pittsburgh [1] (emphasis added): > A few years ago, miners “descended upon” the city of Plattsburgh, New York, about a hundred and fifty miles north of Albany, which gets much of its electricity from hydroelectric dams on the St. Lawrence River. The power is relatively inexpensive, but, once Plattsburgh uses up its allotment, it has to purchase more at higher rates. Bitcoin mining drove up the cost of electricity in the city so dramatically that, in 2018, Plattsburgh enacted a moratorium on new mining operations. [1]: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-bitcoin-is-bad-for-the-environment https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-bitcoin-is-...

datadata 5y ago
> Um, no. That presumes there is somewhere cheaper to move, for one. If you assume this isn't the case, then the original comment I was responding to would imply that bitcoin mining is raising the price of energy for the entire world. At 0.5% of global energy consumption, this seems pretty unrealistic. The overhead of moving is obviously not zero, but my point is mostly that bitcoin miners will in general tend to flow to where there is cheaper and less demand for electricity. This in general should cause less tension between where energy is needed. More modern regulated bitcoin miners will generally only exist where there are periods of excess power, eg from wind or solar. They will often sell to the grid operator the ability to interrupt their power when electricity becomes scarce. I completely agree that miners shouldn't be sucking up subsidized hydro power, but also that hydro power shouldn't be subsidized in the first place.

by jmyeet 5y ago

datadata 5y ago

> Um, no. That presumes there is somewhere cheaper to move, for one. If you assume this isn't the case, then the original comment I was responding to would imply that bitcoin mining is raising the price of energy for the entire world. At 0.5% of global energy consumption, this seems pretty unrealistic. The overhead of moving is obviously not zero, but my point is mostly that bitcoin miners will in general tend to flow to where there is cheaper and less demand for electricity. This in general should cause less tension between where energy is needed. More modern regulated bitcoin miners will generally only exist where there are periods of excess power, eg from wind or solar. They will often sell to the grid operator the ability to interrupt their power when electricity becomes scarce. I completely agree that miners shouldn't be sucking up subsidized hydro power, but also that hydro power shouldn't be subsidized in the first place.