To ease load on aging grid, state program offers energy credits to bitcoin miners to curtail their power consumption.

  • Bobert@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Was in the thread yesterday saying the same thing. What you describe is exactly what TVA does in essence.

    Ideally, they would convince the miners to install their own solar and wind generation (and maybe pumped storage as well)

    Texas has a ‘problem’ that prevents them from being able to incentivize this well. At least from what I overheard during my stint at a mine. Texas’s big draw are all of the abandoned oil wells. You can simply go purchase a plot of land with a capped well, uncap it and install a Natural Gas generator that captures and burns the NG often released when drilling for oil. This gives you a one time fee for the generator costs and then after that you are in the clear with ‘free’ (relatively, minus initial costs) energy. This isn’t exclusive to Texas, but obviously it can be done at a higher rate in the state compared to others.