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Comment by jimmysong | Hacker News Reader

This is a common misconception. Bitcoin mining is taking electricity generation that would otherwise be wasted. In non-peak demand times the energy is generated anyway and would simply be wasted. Bitcoin mining takes that energy and does something productive with it.

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The law of conservation of energy disagrees. Sure, a miner might not noticeably increase the load on a power plant. It may only require a teeny bit more gas to flow to the turbine. But it’s not free energy.

I'm not sure about Texas, but lots of regions end up selling or even giving away excess power overnight that's not utilized by the grid. Not all generators can be flipped on and off like a light switch. Nuclear is a prime example.

Now, if they're still running during peak periods, that's an issue and miners should pay through the nose for it. Treat them like aluminum smelters and force them to cozy up next to hydroelectric dams to siphon off electricity before it even hits the grid.

If you were talking about an energy grid 100% powered by wind and solar, and it was a sunny and windy day to the point of oversupply, that would be true. Even then you could direct the energy to batteries for non windy days so it's marginal.

Maybe if energy consumption was way lower than expected, the baseload generation like geothermal and nuclear might need to dump free power. That would be an event though not a normal condition.

Otherwise you are really, really wrong.

That's not how electricity works.

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