I can't speak for others but I'm definitely not blindly following group-think on this. There are countless uses for energy, and the idea that mining crypto is the best possible use for excess renewable power is a bold statement that requires a lot of explanation.
> Don't shun others on subjects you are unfamiliar with. Speak gently and listen.
For someone pointing an awful lot of fingers and making a lot of extremely condescending accusations throughout this thread, I'm surprised you're offering this advice.
I work in the renewable power industry, and my father was a biologist who spent his career trying to mitigate the ecological disasters caused by my state's hydroelectric dams.
The link you've provided suggests that miners and hydroelectric providers could establish mutually beneficial economic partnerships. That hardly needs to be written; it's obvious. But I think if you polled the public on whether creating additional revenue streams for hydroelectric is a higher priority than reducing our overall energy demand -- well, do I even need to suggest what the results would be?
As a realist, I think you understand the fault in this logic. If we can incentivize the production of renewable energy via 'crypto credits' during down time it will alleviate the hesitation of upfront investment.
This idea is the genesis of currency in Mesopotamia. Offsetting seasonal harvests via "tokens" that allow farmers to subsist all year. Storage alone won't solve everything.
Written by "Eric McErlain, Director of External Affairs for GRIID Infrastructure". GRIID "procure[s] low-cost, carbon-free energy to build, manage, and operate a growing portfolio of vertically-integrated bitcoin mining facilities."
Hmm, I wonder why a PR representative for a Cryptomining company would advocate for Cryptomining…
If there is really that much excess capacity, there is plenty of overhead to do something useful with it that actually offsets fossil sources. Like splitting water to create Hydrogen or CO2 capture. It's not a very efficient process, but it doesn't matter if you have that much energy to spare.
If it's really once in a while when it's exceptionally sunny that they do it, there's no point in doing this at all because the cost (and high depreciation) of the mining rigs makes no sense if you don't run them very often.
Either way it's a bad solution to invest energy into some made-up assets, considering how bad the climate crisis already is.
I'm not against crypto per se, but proof of work really needs to die. It's a relic from a bygone worry-free era that will never come back. It will only lead to ever more energy usage. And we will not be out of the woods for a century even if we do do everything possible.