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Comment by iabacu | Hacker News Reader

So China is basically exporting energy for a hefty amount of foreign currency.

No, they are exporting cryptographic proof that they turned that energy into heat.

Not really exporting energy, the energy isn't being exported to another country. From an energy perspective, they are converting heterogeneous energy sources into homogeneous waste-heat.

I guess not in the traditional sense of the “export” word, but from the foreign trade balance perspective, it’s essentially an export product.

Okay, the bitcoins may be an export product but not the energy. Energy is no more exported here than it would be exported if use with non-metaphorical mining of iron ore. In real world mining you might say energy is converted into a physical comodity, e.g., the ore. In bitcoin, it's converted into a much more abstract financial instrument & transaction verification service.

Mining is the best way to export cheap energy without building high-power lines. I am surprised Germany doesn't have more dominance in the field, considering the headlines of their wind energy farms going into negative at certain hours of the day.

> I am surprised Germany doesn't have more dominance in the field

Germany's power grid is well-connected to its neighbours. During peak production of renewable energy, it is "exported" to France, Poland, Austria etc. These neighbours have a different mix of production and can easily scale down power production from fossil fuels.

[0]:in quotes, because trade within the EU isn't technically export/import

This is the first time I've heard "easily" in the same sentence as "scale down power production from fossil fuels". Usually it's everyone whinging about how coal plants can't be efficiently throttled and still burn 50% of their fuel or something at idle.

So it's easy to reduce production by 50% capacity or so and then it becomes problematic.

Coal takes a long time to throttle up and down. CCGT on the other hand can respond in minutes or tens of minutes depending on size.

I really don't understand this statement, the energy isn't being transferred between power grids or otherwise exchanged as energy. The energy consumed during mining no longer exists as grid-based energy, it is waste heat. You don't get it back at the other end of another transaction. From the point of view of energy transfer for use in a power grid, mining has a 100% loss rate.

> You don't get it back at the other end of another transaction.

Neither does the energy exporter. They get money.

Do you really not see the difference between money changing hands for a comodity that has a physical basis, and the nominal creation of value through a process where the computation involved results in waste heat?

One of them requires a smaller investment upfront and produces dividends quicker.

This sort of thinking represents all of the things wrong with the current hype-cycle of cryptocurrencies, damaging both their long-term credibility and short-term stability.

That's like claiming aluminum plants are the best way to export energy without high power lines. You aren't actually exporting energy, you're exporting something created with energy that can't be converted back into that energy.

People can exchange it for more energy, but you haven't reduced energy generation.

Aluminium can be turned back into energy. There have been proposals to ship blocks of aluminium from Iceland to Britain, oxidise it (capture the electricity) and send the oxide back.

http://evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=765

Looks like a bullshit marketing document. It's based on using their new magic experimental batteries that can do 10 times better than existing batteries.

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