462
Honestly, why allow them to mine on the grid at all until it is upgraded? It’s just a big wasteful use of energy that uses public resources but doesn’t benefit the public at all. It just prints money for the guys doing it.
Also, $31 million could go towards better infrastructure that could allow this in the future.
Logic has no power here! —- said in Gandalf’s voice.
Sure, but I don't know how much that would matter. In the short-term, batteries might be a viable solution, but $31million would get you about a ~15MW storage system from my understanding, which is about 1 order of magnitude too small to be more than a rounding error and 2 orders of magnitude off from being a fix. Also, electric companies profit off of cryptominers (which theoretically could be used to improve the grid) and ERCOT sees them as a flexible demand that can be turned off in emergencies (at the cost of money).
load more comments
(2 replies)
Fixing the power grid works be socialism or something...
load more comments
(1 replies)
Because they are buying the power, which pays for grid upgrades. The grid won't be improved without demand, and miners provide a flexible, profitable demand for power.
ERCOT's incentives are a bit off, though. They should be offering power to miners at very low rates when they have excess supply available, then jacking up the rates to miners well beyond the point of profitability when they don't have it. Ideally, they would convince the miners to install their own solar and wind generation (and maybe pumped storage as well) and pay them more than they would earn mining to backfeed the grid during power shortages.
Paying miners not to use power is just fucking stupid.
It probably falls under a general policy where they compensate big industrial users if they shut down to save the grid, think like a factory shutting down for the day. It would make sense in those instances, but for crypto mining it's just wasteful.
That makes sense, but if that's the case, ERCOT needs to adjust its rates for that plan. They need to increase the cost of power and decrease the reward for discontinuing their use.
Miners should be pushed toward a plan with highly variable power costs. They should have the very lowest rates when power is plentiful, but the highest rates when it is scarce. They are ideal candidates for this kind of "demand shaping".
load more comments
(2 replies)
Agreed. This is a good solution for the wasteful energy usage of the miners. I don’t see how they arrived at paying them not to use the grid. Does literally any private citizen get paid not to use large amounts of electricity?
Certain large industrial customers might get paid to voluntarily shed loads as part of a service level agreement, but those agreements should include rates structured to make mining unprofitable.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Because it’s Texas land of the free.
Individuals can do whatever they want and the costs are set appropriately. Mining bitcoin is more profitable than the cost of electricity. They can either jack the prices up for everyone, or pay miners not to mine. It’s cheaper to pay.
Is it cheaper to ban mining or improve infrastructure? Sure, but there is no societal good, only individual. Banning mining would be an “infringement on the right to make money”.
Texas.
Women might have something to say about "the rights of the individual" in Texas...
load more comments
(1 replies)
Honestly, why allow them to mine on the grid at all ~~until it is upgraded~~?
There is absolutely no reason why anyone should be allowed to waste energy on that pyramid scheme shit in the first place.
load more comments
(13 replies)
Because its Texas: the state run by idiots that refuse to connect to the rest of the american grid because if they did, theyd have to actually get everything to code eventually.
They also built much of the solar in one region instead of diversifying. So even when other places are under fire-weather watch from high winds, we can have low wind energy because of low winds where they're built...
So capitalism?
load more comments
(2 replies)
So…move to Texas and start mining like crazy to get a better payday than what the crypto will be worth. Got it.
Die when you realize your AC exploded and it's actually cooler in your mining room than it is outside.
I don't think you actually have to gamble on crypto to pull this scam. Just say you are, and consume lots of power and get paid to lower consumption.
If this is their approach to public policy I have to wonder whether Texas is hoarding all the good drugs for themselves.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Who said mining wasn’t profitable!?
Holy fuck, if Texans could only read, they would be so pissed.
I can't quite see it, but I'm really guessing there's some sort of money laundering angle here.
It's not really laundering because the income was legal. It's more like a game of Russian roulette blackmail to allow a negotiable tax evasion rate.
There are a lot of figures left out of the article, but it sounds like a preemptive bailout to handle a company fully prepared to cause the rolling blackouts that would also damage themselves. Plus those credits can most likely be sold and bought like any other commodity, only a bit less regulated. Given a few years of climate change those credits will be extremely valuable. Then again, I'm just a speculative jerk on the worldwide web with an opinion. I could be wrong.
Then again, I’m just a speculative jerk on the worldwide web with an opinion. I could be wrong.
He is the Messiah
Company should be straight bankrupt already with its posted financials.
Riot, which is publicly traded, in 2022 reported a loss of more than $500 million on revenue of $259.2 million. In its most recent quarter, it had a loss of roughly $27 million on revenue of $76.7 million.
Money laundering
load more comments
(3 replies)
If they stopped killing their kids down there for five minutes they can figure out how awful this is and get their grid reconnected.
Lol they cant. The texas grid is separate because they dont follow federal regulations. They cant just reconnect it without bringing it to code lolololol
I think that's their point. Instead of weaponising "woke" and fighting culture wars, they could get their grid to code and connect it.
Increasing the price and giving people energy rebates would have worked, miners only run the machines because the BTC is worth more than the electricity + maintenance + equipment
load more comments
(1 replies)
Outside Houston there are homes on legacy cotton farmland, where the owners are paid to not grow cotton on their lawns.
What's wrong with cotton?
nothing, if you don't want to be paid!
a long time ago, the government paid farmers to keep fields fallow, to keep down production and keep prices up. you know... price fixing, like jesus intended when he invented capitalism. these subsidies are still around, because the only thing republicans hate worse then government spending is farmers not voting for them, so you can apply for, and get, subsidies on the land in now subdivisions, and the government will give you a check for not growing cotton on your lawn.
I'm not growing anything, at all, where is my fucking money?
You're growing angry...
load more comments
(1 replies)
A lot of people don't know how industrial scale power contracts work.
Your pissant $150 light bill isn't worth wiping their corporate asses with. If you are without power for a week they don't care. You can't cancel your subscription, you just have to choke on it.
But factories? They buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of power. They use an order of magnitude more electricity than your house. In fact, during a rolling black out they could keep every home in the city powered by shutting off just one factory. The problem is corporations have contracts that actually charge the power company by the hour if they lose power. my company charges over a million dollars an hour.
So buying some mine out of his contract for a little while is not unheard of. Tesla is on that grid so I promise it cost less to shut the miner off than to drop Tesla for a day.
For future reference, an order of magnitude is 10x.
Maybe user was referring to an Imperial order of magnitude 🤣
load more comments
(2 replies)
Imagine if Texas didn't hate it's residents enough that they allowed their state electricity grid finally connect to other states utility grids so this wasn't a problem and it reduced prices for the people in Texas (and even prevented deaths from recent strains during extreme weather)!
It's better to let people suffer than to harm that Lone-Star-Don't-Mess-With-Texas" pride.
It takes a real MANS man to let people die for the sake of your ego.
This is the state whose Lieutenant Governor said grandparents aren't afraid to die for the economy.
We shouldn't be surprised.
Isn't this the point of capitalism? Is there a single industry out there that wouldn't collapse without the welfare it receives from Uncle Sam?
load more comments
(1 replies)
So fucking ridiculous.
By the way, Texas has a huge “rainy day” fund they haven’t spent from in years. Any sane administration would be pouring some of that into upgrading the grid.
And miss out on all that sweet rate spike during high demand periods?? Do you really think keeping a few people from baking/freezing to death is worth giving that up???
subsidizing that stupid bullshit, but i'll bet they hate free school lunches because that's too much kindness for the kids
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
462 points (97.9% liked)
News
23406 readers
3279 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS