> Renewable power generation from wind and solar has a much higher ratio of wasted power because they have such high variability in output. Because of this, in cases where the power generally can't be cost effectively stored or supplemented (by dynamic increase of dirtier energy), wind and solar simply won't be built in favor of coal plants. Bitcoin mining can use this wasted energy, which increases the revenue that can be generated by renewable sources, thus making it more likely that areas will choose renewable over coal.

So you think that cities will just put up with the increasing power outages, until the miners will give up in that region? That the normal public won't form a mob asking for more power in the night, which will attract more miners, thus making the whole point moot?

That looks like a weird gamble to make

> Bitcoin mining is a fixed quantity: so the more mining done using renewable energy, the less will be done with coal power (so when SamBam mocked this paper by saying "If we double the amount of electricity used on the planet, people will need to spend more on solar panels!" He completely didn't understand the zero sum aspect of bitcoin mining).

no, bitcoin has a fixed max of coin, but we already are at the point where the only limit is how to get the hardware to mine. There is no limit on mining.

Sure, it will shift more towards cheap power. But that needs to be also continuous. So bitcoin will drive the adoption of more continuous power, because if you do not do it, cities power will be a collateral damage more and more often.

> In fact, this has a more pronounced effect because players in the market who aren't as efficient can see their margins decrease below the point of profitablity. Since otherwise wasted electricity is cheapest, more and more bitcoin mining will be done using it, which means less and less will be done using usable electricity.

All this talk about using "waste" electricity is only relevant if your system never goes above max usage, thus causing power outages. That is already not true, and it's not like the power companies allocate only the "waste" electricity to bitcoin. Nobody stops mining when the power plant is near capacity. You just generate more pressure to add more power plants that give continuous power (so: not solar).

We have "waste" electricity because the system is designed to handle peaks and other plants going down.

Mining is eating away all the safety margin on the system. the more there is, the more it will eat