[jdietrich]

Electricity isn't fungible. There are substantial costs and efficiency losses involved in transmission, so electricity is significantly cheaper to supply if the consumer is right next door to a giant hydroelectric plant.

Energy-intensive industries that form part of the productive economy are exactly the industries that we want to use that power. We want aluminium smelters and chemical manufacturers to be sucking up that cheap, clean energy. It's an efficient use of resources.

Churning out gigajoules of waste heat to process kilobytes worth of transactions is not an efficient use of resources. It's a colossal waste that has done nothing useful except enrich a bunch of speculators.

[jessriedel]

Electricity is highly fungible. Just include the cost of the transmission losses in the price, as is done everywhere that prices aren't being dictated by law. (And regardless, on the scale of 50 miles these are small.)

It is not the job of local municipalities to decide whether Bitcoin transactions are worth the cost of electricity. How could they possibly have the expertise to decide questions like that?

[darawk]

Charge more for the electricity. Take the profit and cut a check to the productive companies. Problem solved.

[jdietrich]

If you charge the Bitcoin miners more, they will just leave - they go wherever they can find the cheapest electricity. I have no objection to charging the miners more, but your proposal seems to be a needlessly complex administrative option.

[darawk]

Indeed they will. Sounds like a problem solved to me. Charge a market rate for your electricity, then subsidize what you want to subsidize.

[s73v3r_]

And what about the residents of the area? Do they now just have to suffer with higher bills, or are they going to get a rebate too?

[darawk]

They should sell their power at a market rate. If they want to subsidize people or companies ex-post, then they should feel free to do that.