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A comment on Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables. Parent comment

Re:Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumpt... by bilekas on Friday March 26, 2021 @09:58AM (#26592208)
> But it's not necessarily going to be very profitable.

Not paying for electricity is profitable by default.. Having a reserve for the long term that's environmentally friendly, its a benefit.. Investing in infrastructure that doesn't depend on finite fossil fuels is profitable.. So I have no idea what you're talking about.

> For the same reason, it's not a good idea to have bitcoin mining equipment sitting around waiting for cheap electricity. The hardware becomes obsolete very quickly, so there's only limited time to earn back the investment.

Its really nothing like that at all..

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumpt... by adwn on Friday March 26, 2021 @10:02AM (#26592242)
> So I have no idea what you're talking about.

Then you should also read the sentence directly after the one you quoted, in which it's explained:

> > The equipment that sits around waiting for low or negative electricity prices represents locked up capital, and ongoing maintenance and depreciation costs.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumpt... by bilekas on Friday March 26, 2021 @10:18AM (#26592441)
> The equipment that sits around waiting for low or negative electricity prices represents locked up capital, and ongoing maintenance and depreciation costs

But the costs over time are negligible when current alternatives will eventually only go up due to scarcity. I might be missing something.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumpt... by adwn on Friday March 26, 2021 @10:49AM (#26592815)
> But the costs over time are negligible [...]

In heavy industry, they're very much not. Large machines often cost large amounts of money. You don't want large machines sitting around doing nothing when they could do useful work and earn money instead – so that you can, for example, pay off the loans you took out for them, or pay the operational staff that pulls the levers and turns the switches.

[ Parent | on HN ]