[cortic]

"Every watt of renewable power generated to power a crypto miner," IS investment in renewable energy.. which he would rather was not invested in renewable energy. I don't see any other way to interpret that, unless you think that paying monies for renewables is somehow not 'investing' in renewables.

[jhgb]

> "Every watt of renewable power generated to power a crypto miner," IS investment in renewable energy

Yes, that is true...

> which he would rather was not invested in renewable energy

...no, he would have used the generated electricity for something more useful, NOT make it so that it isn't generated in the first place.

[cortic]

So he is turning down real investment in renewables in the hopes that other more agreeable investment materializes out of thin air.. meanwhile his plan crashes the price of renewable energy endangering those industries and shrinking the market.. allowing established fossil fuel industries a bigger share. genius.

[avianlyric]

Please don’t overestimate the importance of crypto in this world. Crypto investments in renewables are, at best, a rounding error. The ROI from them certainly won’t offset the very real harm being done by all the additional fossil plants being brought online to deal with the increased demand they create.

[cortic]

Fossil fuels being used to fill demand of any sort is its own problem. We need global carbon taxes on a Montreal Protocol level to incentivize any excess demand (investment) to target renewables. -But with this, crypto would be a great boost to renewable technology, guaranteeing a minimum return for business investing in Research and Development.

[avianlyric]

Please defend this behaviour

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/09/old-coal-plant-i...

Its not unique either. There’s a company in the U.K. that bought an old coal plant, to convert to gas operators, to provide power solely for a crypto mining operation.

Simple fact of the matter is that it currently cheaper and easier for miners to use fossil fuels, then build renewables. Which is exactly what they’re doing.

[jhgb]

> So he is turning down real investment in renewables

No, he's not.

> meanwhile his plan crashes the price of renewable energy endangering those industries and shrinking the market.. allowing established fossil fuel industries a bigger share

It seems that you have completely missed the past four decades of renewable energy decreasing in price by a factor of 100x. The result of this decrease was not "endangering those industries", but rather making them viable in the first place and broadening the market massively. As per Jevons, the energy market doesn't shrink when prices get lower.

I'm puzzled as to how someone could make such a glaringly obvious mistake.

[cortic]

>It seems that you have completely missed the past four decades of renewable energy decreasing in price by a factor of 100x.

And it seems you have completely missed the fact that investment from crypto miners helped to bring this efficiency saving about, if there wasn't so much demand, there would be nothing to invest in R&D and infrastructure that inevitably lower prices.

Crypto, or specifically PoW acts like a guarantee of sale under a certain price per KwH. It used to be necessary for governments to guarantee power prices, and offer subsidies to encourage investment in their countries infrastructure. PoW in part replaces this necessity and encourages companies to invest in renewable, efficient, power production.