Topic: 2021-07-02 CNBC - Bitcoin mining consumed 56% green energy in June quarter (Read 245 times)

Everything that is done is done for the best. The fact that bitcoin miners are now leaving China, where they have used cheap coal energy, is very good for several reasons. This is good both from an environmental point of view and from the point of view of reducing threats to cryptocurrency security from the Chinese government. After all, most of the bitcoins have always been mined in China, and this has always had a certain risk of possible negative decisions regarding cryptocurrency by the Chinese government. It will be much better for me if this problem is solved once and for all.

That seems to be more a problem with your government than a problem with renewable energy. Most other Western nations are pushing ahead with the transition to renewable energy sources, many going further than Germany have gone, and yet have much lower fuel costs for the end consumer.

Probably wind. There are already bitcoin miners in Texas making use of the surplus of wind energy produced overnight which would otherwise be wasted since household and industrial usage is low and there is no means to store it:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/27/905626/how-texass-wind-boom-has-spawned-a-bitcoin-mining-rush/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-01/bitcoin-miner-is-scoring-700-profits-selling-energy-to-grid

The reality is that in Germany with all the subsidies paid from people's taxes you still pay 30cents kwh while China pays 7 cents/kwh, before the whole eco nonsense we were paying 6 eurocents now we've arrived at 14 and every single of those increases are cogeneration taxes.
That's the reality you can check in every household bill!
The rest is assumptions, assumptions that have promised us for a decade cheaper and cheaper energy in Europe, and look where we are!

We have become so eco-friendly that we have to cut up rags and t-shirts to make a face mask and beg China for everything and meanwhile, China builds coal plant after coal plants laughing in our faces while we pay more and more and more!


Because with 4 hours of peak sun I will be long dead before I would recover the cost of the panels and batteries. In reality, half of Europe has the same sun potential as Alaska but...who cares, right?


Nope, not building! They have announced plans! Huge difference!


I can't wait for their answer when they are asked where do they get the electricity with which they mine at night!

The reality is that even as subsidies are phased out, solar will remain the cheapest option for new energy development, and will continue to fall in price even without any ongoing subsidies. Not only will new solar be cheaper than new coal, but we are already reaching the stage where building new solar is cheaper than running already existing coal power plants. And we are also at the stage where coal power plants are looking for government subsidies because they are operating at a loss.

If you are paying so much for electricity in your country, then why not install a solar panel and generate your own?

Some, yes. Others are building vast new renewable infrastructure: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biggest-renewable-powered-crypto-mining-194626579.html

Yeah, that was the promise!
Now, we have to deal with reality:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/02/05/if-saving-the-climate-requires-making-energy-so-expensive-why-is-french-electricity-so-cheap/?sh=3b13a55f1bd9


Yeah, on paper. In reality:
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/bitcoin-miner-marathon-signs-coal-fired-electricity-montana/
Were have miners migrated? Kazakhstan! Why? Because of the 0.1% percentage of solar and wind energy generated there or because of the cheap electricity from coal and gas? Why are miners in Texas setting up farms in the former coal and aluminum smelters and not near huge solar panels farms?

Of course the 200 year old technology is cheaper. Show me any technology which hasn't either reduced in price, got significantly better for the same price, or some balance between the two, as time has gone on. Everything from computers to cars to phones to AC to engines to generators to solar panels to gene therapy to vaccines.

Yes, there are physical limits, but we haven't hit them yet and we are still making steady improvements in existing technologies as well as discovering new ones. See the graph on this page for a good example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_efficiency. Similarly, there are physical limits to coal, and the efficiency of coal power plants is generally below 40%.

There is no doubt that solar has benefited heavily from subsidies and other incentives towards research, development, and production, but all the reports and studies in to the future show that due to the rapidly declining price, even once all these subsidies are phased out, solar will remain significantly cheaper as a source of new energy production than coal.

I don't see why it's a bad thing. Even if you are insane and reject all the science which proves human led climate change, coal, oil, and gas will all run out. No one can dispute that. We need renewable sources of energy. And if bitcoin is around to use and even support the development of these renewable sources, all the better.

No, they are cheaper because coal is cheap and not because of 200 years or millennia of experience.
There are physical limits in it and you know very well that were reaching maximum efficiency, every tiny 1% is coming at increased costs.

The only way solar has become so cheap on paper is because every stupid government is taxing coal extraction and gas extraction, is taxing transportation, is taxing coal and gas plants while pouring billions in subsidies on solar panels. It's like the whole thing with the electric car, it's cheaper than gas...because 70% of the price of gas is taxes and we give you 10 000 euros discount on the electric car, discount which is, of course, paid from your taxes. !!!
In the real world, behind all those subsidies and eco propaganda Germany has spent billions to end up with the most expensive energy in the world and with the need to import energy when there is no sun, while miners in China enjoyed 2 cents/kwh all day long 24/7.

It's pretty easy to claim something is becoming cheaper than the rest, you just have to slap taxes over taxes on one and give the other billions in gifts to save the planet. I bet I could easily beat Usain Bolt in a 100 sprint if I could break his legs before the run, that's the same level of competition we have now in energy.


Yeah, wait till all the money from taxing one thing dries out, let's see where the subsidies will come from!

As far as I can tell, Elon's is having his own agenda to promote Tesla' renewable energy business by doing that. There's a good analysis on Twitter about it, but I don't have the link. In short, Elon's not really trying to 'kill' Bitcoin, he's just doing it to make sure he can get the most profit.

The problem is that we have a lot of ways to make green energy power sources but we lack the storage for the excess which ends up getting wasted which isn't the ideal thing because we end up wasting efforts in getting the energy when about half of it gets wasted. We need to upgrade or innovate on the energy storage sector this decade or we will succumb to the effects of our continuous use of fossil fuels and climate change.

Coal and gas are cheaper because they've been around longer. The first coal power plant was built in 1882. Commercial solar panels have been on the market for what? 20 years? Once solar panel technology is also 140 years old, many times more efficient than it is now, mass produced around the world, on top of every new building built, then it will be far, far cheaper than coal. The cost of a megawatt-hour of energy produces by a solar panel has fallen by >90% in the last 10 years alone. Yes, it remains cheaper to produce electricity from coal in a preexisting plant than it does to build new solar panels from scratch, but when you compare building a new coal power plant from scratch to building new solar panels form scratch, then solar panels are already winning. In another 20 years there will be absolutely no contest between the two.

It mirrors what people say about bitcoin and the traditional financial system. Bitcoin, like renewable energy, is brand new on the scene, challenging something which has existed for hundreds of years. It is better though, and in time, it will take over.

I do agree that blaming bitcoin for being dirty is completely hypocritical though, when you look at all the other incredibly wasteful and dirtier industries that go completely unexamined by the media since they have no ulterior motive to attacking them.

Not sure about it. From what I heard, the Chinese miners are relocating their mining farms to neighboring countries such as Kazakhstan and Mongolia. In these countries, the proportion of coal-fired electricity is even higher than the case within China. IMO, it has happened due to the restrictions in certain provinces within China. Mining farms have closed down in provinces such as Qinghai, Nei Mongol and Xinjiang, where there is a reliance on coal-fired electricity. On the other hand, the farms are still operating in Sichuan and Yunnan, where most of the electricity comes from hydro-electric plants.

Someone from the Bitcoin mining camp should Tweet out to Elon and ask him to make a new department to look at disposal of renewable energy things like Electric cars and solar panels. I support green energy but if we don't know how to dispose these things yet properly or don't know how to build them without exploiting children in mines in poor countries, we should not rush.

Elon, help.

The discussion is about quarter of a year. It's not clear what they meant by Q1 FY22, unless the journalist is from the future I guess that he wanted to say either Q1 FY21 (and January-March were full China), either Q2 FY21 (and China has started stopping only in June, so at least 2/3 is again full China).

But your point is interesting, especially as some of them move to Kazakhstan, hence, at least during the wet season, they'll use gas and coal in Kazakhstan instead of hydro power in China.

Percentage of mining from renewable energy only went up because mining from Chinese coal energy sources are presently down and relocating to different parts of the world. Before we begin to get excited let us give it  a months until the relocated miners new energy sources are known.

Great find stompix, I didn't know that. It's almost impossible to keep up with the news as there are too many things going on. Certainly, though, mining is a business like all others and in the end it's about P/L and margins, lots of margins. I wouldn't be surprised if miners would move to Australia for example (Australia's the largest coal finder and burner in the world).
Cheap electricity, bigger profits: this equation will always stand.

Nothing unusual. She's just another over-hyped brand, like everything today. She's trending now, but tomorrow it may be somebody else with the same or totally different topic
And yeah, what's in front of the camera is way too often very different from what's behind the curtains. It's all television show.



Mining is a business. Businesses care more about profit than environment and such. As long as dirty energy is allowed to be produced, somebody will consume it. As simple as that.
Blaming Bitcoin for it is just silly and with no relation with business reality. As I said, I feel like it's some sort of "smoke curtain" for other interests.

Couldn't put it any better than this. The so called environmentalists are a bunch of hypocrites. Take the case of the latest overhyped activist (Greta Thunberg). In front of cameras, she will yell "how dare you".. but behind the cameras it is business as usual. In order to make her well publicized "how dare you" speech, she had to travel from Europe to North America. She refused to board an aircraft claiming that it emits green house gases. So a “zero emission yacht” was arranged for her to travel.

Now comes the catch. The crew had to be changed for the return journey. 7 of the staff were flown from Europe to North America, just to bring the yacht back. Instead of emissions from a single passenger, her publicity stunt resulted in additional greenhouse gas emissions from another 7 travelers.

No need to go to Kazakhstan, you simply need to look at the same Bitcoin Mining Council and their green plan:
Who's part of BMC?

Marathon:
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/bitcoin-miner-marathon-signs-coal-fired-electricity-montana/
Atlas Holdings
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/bitcoin-mine-at-fossil-power-plant-set-to-expand/
At least those burn gas not coal
Where are the other two located? In Rockdale, at the former Alcoa smelter and coal mine?  

People need to realize, you need cheap energy to make profits, renewables are anything but cheap otherwise there won't be any damn coal and gas and nuclear power plants running as we speak. But they are cheap,  that's why more than 60% of the whole damn energy in this world is produced by coal and gas and not unicorn farts.  If people turn on coal miners it means there is an economical reason to do so, just like it's an economical reason to fuel your car, and if somebody is willing to pay how about you stay out of my garden and not count how much coal I put in my grill for my barbecue weekend party?

This whole thing about renewables is just chasing dreams, I can't stand any industry that claims we're eco-friendly, look we're zero-carbon all that crap. We planted 10 000 trees so we can run 10 000 FedEx trucks, we're neutral. My country is one of the dirtiest in Europe, we use close to 85% non-renewables, should I hang myself cause right now my computer is powered by coal? Does my beer in my fridge taste worse because of that?
Don't know where this obsession comes but it needs to stop, there is no human activity that is green, even when you fart you're heating the atmosphere and killing pandas, just deal with it. If half of the energy in the world is spent on people watching streaming porn that's the choice half of the world is making and it's their business alone.

He definitely knew the numbers. He first tweeted about bitcoin in 2018. He tweets Tesla will accept bitcoin, the price pumps, he admits he then sold some of his holdings, he tweets that Tesla will stop accepting bitcoin, the price falls, and then like 3 days later he tweets that they will accept bitcoin again when it is more renewable. So he wants us to believe that in the 3 years between him first tweeting about bitcoin and Tesla accepting it he had no idea about how mining worked, but in the 3 days after he tweeted that Tesla will stop accepting bitcoin, he learned everything he needs to know about bitcoin mining and discussed the future energy usage of mining with a bunch of mining pools (who up until 3 days ago he didn't even know existed) and then completely reversed his position. Right.

If anything, bitcoin incentivizes clean energy. Bitcoin mining acts as a buyer of last resort for renewable electricity which would otherwise go to waste during peak production times, pumping money back in to the renewable sector, and since mining operations are mobile and can uproot and change location (as we have just seen on a grand scale with China), they can move to places where building renewable energy production would otherwise be uneconomical and subsidize those projects.

There is another great article from CoinShares recently (on the back of their great reports regarding the statistics of bitcoin miners globally), but I would draw attention particularly to these paragraphs:

Interesting, good news. I guess that the dry season is also over in China now? (Not that it matters much any longer).


He most probably already knew the numbers, or knew something pretty close to reality, but simply had other interests.


They will always find something, if it's not the green energy, they'll turn to something else. You cannot please the trolls.


Some do produce their own, and that's 100% renewable, and most probably that's not present in the charts.
But you've got it right. It's those for produce and sell the dirty electricity to blame, not Bitcoin (miners). All this Bitcoin consumption drama is a diversion.