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Comment by imbusy111

2 years ago

The only positive perspective here is that at least Texas is disconnected from the rest of the country grid.

9 comments

imbusy111

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WillPostForFood  2 years ago

The actual positive is that Texas is the largest producer of wind and solar, by a pretty large margin. The problem is that it creates an excess of energy production from morning to mid afternoon. Having flexible users, like crypto miners, buy that energy offsets the occasional energy crunch where they are paid, with energy credits, to cut usage.

  • paulgb  2 years ago

    This works in theory, but the problem is, these miners are not actually a flexible user in practice. Every minute they’re not mining, they’re losing money in the sunk cost of (depreciating) hardware. For example, in Q2 2023, Riot (the biggest miner in Texas) recognized 66mm of depreciation on only 50mm in revenue.

    • wmf  2 years ago

      Every minute they’re not mining, they’re losing money in the sunk cost of (depreciating) hardware.

      Which is fine because they only shut off a few hours per day and the amount they get paid to shut off is more than they would have made from mining.

      Riot recognized 66mm of depreciation on only 50mm in revenue.

      That's because Riot is a scam to transfer money from investors to their executives.