[gruez]

I think you got cause and effect reversed. The correct chain of events is: coal miners slave away to produce coal, which is generally burned to produce heat. Part of that heat is used to run turbines to electric generators[1], and part of the generated electricity is used for bitcoin mining. Does this mean they're slaving away for bitcoin mining? I guess, but only partially. Saying they're slaving away for bitcoin mining is as correct as saying they're slaving away for steel smelting.

[1] there are other uses, like for cooking or for heating a house

[elefanten]

Without the bitcoin driven demand, there would be less pressure to mine faster than feasible and fewer accidents.

The pressure would still be there... but there are cost-related reasons the mining is colocated with the power generation.

Seems a reasonable guess that this virtuous cycle of coal-and-crypto mining synergy resulted in some soylent externalities.

[Thorrez]

I guess we should think about what percent of the power was used for bitcoin mining. If only 1% was used for bitcoin mining that it's pretty hard to say that bitcoin mining was the cause.

[delecti]

Bitcoin mining consumes about 0.6% of global electricity consumption [0]. According to TFA, global mining dropped by 50% from the issues above, so 0.3% of global electricity consumption is in China. China in total produced 5920 TWh in 2016 (last year I could easily get data [1]), out of a global total of 21877 TWh in that same year [2]. China's been growing faster than global trends, but that means that in 2016 they generated ~27% of global electricity (5920/21877). That means your ballpark of about 1% of China's power generation being used on bitcoin (0.3%/27%) is pretty spot on.

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/21/the-debate-about-cryptocur.... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/280704/world-power-consu...

[athrowaway3z]

If i had to model this i wouldn't say

> Without the bitcoin driven demand, there would be less pressure to mine faster than feasible and fewer accidents.

I don't buy that demand has suddenly exceeded the operators capacity, forcing them to trades safety for production. I would assume the pressure is constant and trading safety for production is done for profit.

So in effect:

Without the bitcoin driven demand, there would be less miners leading to less accidents.

[delecti]

I suppose inherent in my argument that they're slaving away for bitcoin is how lowly I view bitcoin.