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What do you mean you can't sell it? Bhutan exports 70% of their energy to India (https://www.sasec.asia/index.php?page=news&nid=1178&url=bhu-hydro-export-aug202

What do you mean you can't sell it? Bhutan exports 70% of their energy to India (https://www.sasec.asia/index.php?page=news&nid=1178&url=bhu-hydro-export-aug2020 https://www.sasec.asia/index.php?page=news&nid=1178&url=bhu-...). India needs lots of energy to do normal energy things that improve people's lives, like lighting and cooling homes and running irrigation systems.

shrubble 3y ago
If they are gapped out on transmission capacity, then they can produce it but can't send it to India, in which case doing something locally with it woukd be useful.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  Two options: They can build the transmission lines themselves, or lend money to India to build them.
  - whitesilhouette 3y ago
    Lend money to India.... that they earned from Bitcoins‽ That's kind of a circular logic, isn't it?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - lordlimecat 3y ago
      The article (and Bhutan) are strangely cagey about whether this process has actually generated a return. Spoiler: it hasn't.
      - RestlessMind 3y ago
        https://thebhutanese.bt/dhi-confirms-that-it-is-mining-digital-assets/ https://thebhutanese.bt/dhi-confirms-that-it-is-mining-digit... Per a Bhutanese source, it has been mining BTC since it was 5000$. Also, the electricity is free so it hasn't lost any serious money given the low expenditure. Last time BTC was 5000 was in Mar 2020 so given that they are still doing it, I don't see why this is unprofitable for them. If it was, they would have stopped by now.
Zetice 3y ago
So my understanding is that this particular power plant is hard to connect to their grid. Such things tend to be true, for example Kazakstan’s mountainous coal deposits. Lots of things could prevent the sale of some energy, though. Someone else mentioned the idea that their market is saturated.
- incomethax 3y ago
  So I work in the energy sector, and you are correct. The method we use for pricing power at a grid level is "local marginal pricing" - this is a price that is based on the location, the demand for power, and the ability for us to get the power across constraints (that is across a power gradient). It is often uneconomical to transmit power great distances, and loss factors are not insignificant. Not sure about Bhutan's grid, or who they can interchange to, but there are frequently wind farms in TX that have to take a loss to generate power simply because they are forced to generate power, and there is no demand for power in the region, and the buses (power lines) are congested. Also stranded hydropower is common the world over - it's easy to generate that power but difficult to build grid and interconnects to transmit that power - the line losses would be too high. For other types of generators - typically nuclear, often times ramp times for them are in the months, so turning up and turning down power is often difficult which is why an application that is passive, droppable, and can withstand latency is ideal to consume such power.
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    > ... so turning up and turning down power is often difficult which is why an application that is passive, droppable, and can withstand latency is ideal to consume such power. Sure, so investing in smart load management is an optimal solution. With EVs and chargers coming online that's a huge load you can send a signal to in order to adjust demand. A country like Bhutan is very well suited to this kind of approach. Or change the energy mix so you have a balance of baseload and variable load generation. Or do something with it that isn't guessing random numbers on machines 99.7% of which will never successfully guess a single block and go from factory to space heater to landfill. Can't remember which miner, but one of the majors, made more money in credits for pausing their waste than they did from the bitcoins that came out the other end last year. It's just extorting the public. > Not sure about Bhutan's grid, or who they can interchange to, but there are frequently wind farms in TX that have to take a loss to generate power simply because they are forced to generate power, and there is no demand for power in the region, and the buses (power lines) are congested. So invest in building more power lines. The myth of stranded energy is toxic. Wasting it on bitcoin mining is an incentive not to connect it to the grid the way it should be connected. Either don't build it, or build it and connect it. The worst case outcome is to build and then waste it. Transmission losses are only 2-3% per 1000km.

shrubble 3y ago

If they are gapped out on transmission capacity, then they can produce it but can't send it to India, in which case doing something locally with it woukd be useful.

throwaway2037 3y ago
Two options: They can build the transmission lines themselves, or lend money to India to build them.
- whitesilhouette 3y ago
  Lend money to India.... that they earned from Bitcoins‽ That's kind of a circular logic, isn't it?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - lordlimecat 3y ago
    The article (and Bhutan) are strangely cagey about whether this process has actually generated a return. Spoiler: it hasn't.
    - RestlessMind 3y ago
      https://thebhutanese.bt/dhi-confirms-that-it-is-mining-digital-assets/ https://thebhutanese.bt/dhi-confirms-that-it-is-mining-digit... Per a Bhutanese source, it has been mining BTC since it was 5000$. Also, the electricity is free so it hasn't lost any serious money given the low expenditure. Last time BTC was 5000 was in Mar 2020 so given that they are still doing it, I don't see why this is unprofitable for them. If it was, they would have stopped by now.

Zetice 3y ago

So my understanding is that this particular power plant is hard to connect to their grid. Such things tend to be true, for example Kazakstan’s mountainous coal deposits. Lots of things could prevent the sale of some energy, though. Someone else mentioned the idea that their market is saturated.

incomethax 3y ago
So I work in the energy sector, and you are correct. The method we use for pricing power at a grid level is "local marginal pricing" - this is a price that is based on the location, the demand for power, and the ability for us to get the power across constraints (that is across a power gradient). It is often uneconomical to transmit power great distances, and loss factors are not insignificant. Not sure about Bhutan's grid, or who they can interchange to, but there are frequently wind farms in TX that have to take a loss to generate power simply because they are forced to generate power, and there is no demand for power in the region, and the buses (power lines) are congested. Also stranded hydropower is common the world over - it's easy to generate that power but difficult to build grid and interconnects to transmit that power - the line losses would be too high. For other types of generators - typically nuclear, often times ramp times for them are in the months, so turning up and turning down power is often difficult which is why an application that is passive, droppable, and can withstand latency is ideal to consume such power.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  > ... so turning up and turning down power is often difficult which is why an application that is passive, droppable, and can withstand latency is ideal to consume such power. Sure, so investing in smart load management is an optimal solution. With EVs and chargers coming online that's a huge load you can send a signal to in order to adjust demand. A country like Bhutan is very well suited to this kind of approach. Or change the energy mix so you have a balance of baseload and variable load generation. Or do something with it that isn't guessing random numbers on machines 99.7% of which will never successfully guess a single block and go from factory to space heater to landfill. Can't remember which miner, but one of the majors, made more money in credits for pausing their waste than they did from the bitcoins that came out the other end last year. It's just extorting the public. > Not sure about Bhutan's grid, or who they can interchange to, but there are frequently wind farms in TX that have to take a loss to generate power simply because they are forced to generate power, and there is no demand for power in the region, and the buses (power lines) are congested. So invest in building more power lines. The myth of stranded energy is toxic. Wasting it on bitcoin mining is an incentive not to connect it to the grid the way it should be connected. Either don't build it, or build it and connect it. The worst case outcome is to build and then waste it. Transmission losses are only 2-3% per 1000km.