Replying to Avatar Derek Ross

Bitcoin incentvizes renewable energy and energy innovation. Greenpeace is misguided by scammers.

https://youtu.be/b-7dMVcVWgc

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macrominutes 2y ago

It incentivizes energy innovation but I disagree that it incentivizes, “green” energy.

At the end of the day bitcoin wants the lowest cost, AND most reliable energy.

While the block subsidy is still high the second point is less important. When bitcoin miners make more from the fee market than the subsidy they will care a lot more about the reliability of their energy supply than they do right now because the fee market is less predictable.

The counter to this would be a sustained high fee environment but even still the miners would rather be on than not so the intermittent supply of wind and solar will eventually be out competed by things like hydro, nuclear, nat gas, and anything else that can be always on.

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Derek Ross 2y ago

As it stands now, green energy is cheaper in most cases. Miners move to the cheapest sources.

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macrominutes 2y ago

Yes but it’s important to look at why that’s a cheap source now. It’s largely due to failing policy/ subsidies/ onerous regulations on other sources.

On a long arc I think miners will consolidate around the most energy dense/ reliable sources of energy.

Energy density and reliability of supply are not taken into account right now as much as they will be because of the bad incentives caused by subsidy and demand response programs.

Once those have been saturated and miners have to chase the build out of non subsidized energy the real cost of the intermittent supply that wind and solar provide will have to be accounted for when miners are figuring out what energy supply they want to use.