[vog]

If I remember correctly, mining farms (and data centers in general) are usually colocated to an energy source, i.e. a plant.

Some of those plants are not fully stretched, because there's almost no civilization nearby, so delivering to the next city comes with a huge loss in the energy network.

So miners can get cheap energy from those plants - energy that would otherwise be unused or lost anyway.

Not sure how much this saves in the end, but this shows that you can't simply convert energy to CO2 emission without considering which types of plants are used and where these are located.

[matt4077]

That's a very convenient myth.

It misses the fact that China didn't build power plants out where it's too far away from civilisation to be useful.

Transmission losses are also nowhere near the suggested values. 1.5% per 200 miles is today's standard. Meaning you could cross all of China with a loss of:

    east-west axis: 2200 miles
    0.985^(2200 miles / 200miles) = 0.846 = 15.4% loss

(and that's from the farthest desert to the east coast. Go south instead, or note that there actually are a billion people living in inland China, and actual losses are <5%)

[vog]

Thanks for making this clear.

[falcolas]

Unused or lost power is instead never produced in the first place. Unless it’s hydro or wind (and even these are not producing at full power all the time). This argument is effectively bogus, unfortunately.