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A comment on Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US. Parent comment

Re:Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and... by capableweb on Thursday March 04, 2021 @08:58AM (#26342453)
No, without those miners, the energy supply wouldn't have increased in the first place. In the energy market, demand drives supply, not the other way around. It's very uncommon to spend money on converting energy supply from coal/gas to other sources, as it doesn't make sense in terms of money for the companies. Instead they focus on creating new supply with renewables.
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Re:Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and... by h4kor on Thursday March 04, 2021 @09:06AM (#26342584)
So we built hydro plants and disrupted the local ecosystems to run bitcoin miners?
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Re:Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and... by capableweb on Thursday March 04, 2021 @09:14AM (#26342698)
No, organizations built hydro plants for whatever reason in places where supply ended up higher than demand, driving down the prices. With that move, Bitcoin miners saw the opportunity and placed themselves within that ecosystem.

Bitcoin miners don't put their operations in the middle of nowhere and then ask someone to build hydro plants...

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Re:Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and... by danShumway on Thursday March 04, 2021 @10:05AM (#26343276)
> without those miners, the energy supply wouldn't have increased in the first place.

> So we built hydro plants [...] to run bitcoin miners?

> No, organizations built hydro plants for whatever reason in places where supply ended up higher than demand

So... by that logic, it seems that Bitcoin didn't increase the energy supply then.

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Re:Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and... by h4kor on Thursday March 04, 2021 @10:18AM (#26343455)
> In the energy market, demand drives supply

> Bitcoin miners don't put their operations in the middle of nowhere and then ask someone to build hydro plants...

So now the demand follows the supply?

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Re:Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and... by ric2b on Thursday March 04, 2021 @10:46AM (#26343839)
Bitcoin mining demand is a small subset of energy demand.
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