“what do you mean environmental impact, if people paid for the gasoline then what’s the problem?”
Comment on US Government Launches New Attempt to Gather Data on Electricity Usage of Bitcoin Mining
Tire@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Why? If people paid for the electricity then what’s the problem?
FiskFisk33@startrek.website 2 months ago
Tire@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Why police how people use electricity? That’s not the problem, the people burning coal and natural gas are the problem.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 2 months ago
Drives up costs, causes brownouts, keeps fossil fuel plants open longer, etc.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
It should be the opposite. Crypto mining only makes sense if you’re getting a good deal on electricity, which means they’re probably running on off-peak hours. What that does is encourage electricity generation to increase the base level supply, which should decrease brownouts.
Brownouts are caused by unexpected peak electricity demand or some kind of equipment malfunction (e.g. inclement weather). It’s not caused by a consistent increase in base level demand, which is what crypto mining would do.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Crypto miners aren’t generally turning themselves off to just get the off peak rates. The hardware is expensive and only has a short lifespan before the next hardware that’s 5x better comes out rendering theirs obsolete as the hash rate spikes and they can’t make ends meet anymore.
Generally speaking, it does drive them towards cheaper electricity, which is often renewable or finding places that have excess and getting good rates on it.
Sometimes, that turns out to be dirty electricity like coal, and in some places its kept some coal plants alive and stopped others from being shut down.
But it doesn’t matter if they are 100% renewable because the people that hate crypto, don’t understand it at all, think it’s a scam with absolutely 0 use cases. So all those solar panels or windmills that they buy are resources being taken from other people and slowing down the adoption of renewables, because crypto is a waste.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Right, but they’re not going to build out in a high electricity cost area, they’ll build where energy is cheap, which is often where renewables are abundant.
But like you pointed out, the real issue isn’t energy use, but perception of value. Any amount of energy used to do something with no value is wasted.
I see value in specific cryptocurrencies (esp. Monero XMR), but I don’t know how to effectively communicate that.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 2 months ago
Datacenters pay less for electricity.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Sure, because they’re predictable bulk customers, so it’s a lot easier for energy companies to plan around.