This article entirely misses the point. Bitcoin mining is being used by utilities to balance the demand curve. If you need 40gw at peak and 20gw in the middle o

This article entirely misses the point. Bitcoin mining is being used by utilities to balance the demand curve. If you need 40gw at peak and 20gw in the middle of the night you have to do some juggling to make it work. If you guess wrong you get fined. Bitcoin serves as the emergency dump for power. They spin up and down as requested by the utility. That way the utility buys a steady stream and bounces the Bitcoin utility up and down making sure demand perfectly matches supply. It’s dumb but it works. And it makes power outages less likely because it allows for oversupply. It would be far more ecologically sensible to build a grid scale battery, but that costs money up front. Whereas the Bitcoin miners front all the hardware capital for the miners and it’s cash flow positive from day one. A more Texas solution would be grid tied battery packs in homes. If the homeowner and the utility split the cost both sides could benefit. Homeowner gets reliable power. Utility gets a flat demand curve and a more resilient grid. Add rooftop solar and the grid is even more resilient. Again, not saying Bitcoin is the right move, just suggesting that we consider the problem it is solving.