Comment by Aloha

I also have the somewhat controversial opinion that things like bitcoin are useful because they create static but easy to shed demand.

So to explain what I mean by that in depth - the economic losses from shutdown are limited to production losses during the shutdown, and there is no loss of inventory, or other secondary losses like process startup and shutdown for a refinery, semiconductor fab, or other kinds of manufacturing which product a physical good.

This static load absorbs some of the excess generation from wind and solar, thereby keeping the spot price in the grid high enough that thermal generation is still cost effective to build and operate.

Now, that all said, I dont think we should be paying them to shut down, they should just be disconnected wholesale from the grid during periods of ultra high demand as a condition of their interconnection to it. That said, we have programs designed to offset economic losses from disconnection from the grid during high use periods, and the bitcoin plants are just using that existing mechanism - I have mixed feelings about it, but I dont think its all bad.