Comment by sneak
2 years ago
There are externalities of power consumption for which regulation (in the case of a single monopoly power grid, as is the case here) makes sense.
Large scale usage affects grid stability at specific occasional times. If it were just individual homes doing small scale mining across the grid, it would be different, but one can make a good argument that large scale crypto miner operations should be prioritized for unilateral load shedding in times of grid instability.
The power grid as currently designed and deployed in Texas is a shared resource and needs to be centrally managed to avoid tragedy of the commons situations.
If crypto miners don't like the shared rules for the shared resources, there's nothing stopping them from deploying their own wind, solar, and optionally storage.
Being connected to the public grid comes with benefits, and those benefits come with conditions of use, ideally set by consensus of everyone who benefits from and funds the grid.
I’m in agreement for that. But a total ban on crypto mining is absurd to me. It’s such a singling out of an industry, when so much IMO has no societal utility, that the only reason it could be banned is elite obsession.
Personally, the externalities of fossil fuel use likely necessitate approaching any unnecessary use of grid power at present as an imminent physical attack on all humankind.
Where the unnecessary line is drawn is up to individual opinion, but I think we should probably be banning nearly all large scale industrial consumption of power until the grid is net zero. It's not far off now, we just need to collectively decide that we are willing to spend for storage.
I also think we should immediately ban all personal IC engines (and HEAVILY tax all use of diesel (with regular automatic scheduled tax increases without limit), without which our civilization at present cannot function), but that is separate (but parallel) to grid disincentives.
Crypto mining 24/7 while the grid still uses petrochemicals for generation should probably be criminal today (as well as driving your F350 to Costco). I'm fine singling out any/all industry that is even remotely questionable so long as the grid is still dumping gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Crypto miners stabilize the grid; they don't hurt it. They're compliant with the current regulations.