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Re:David Rosenthal on cryptocurrencies by gefhfffh on Saturday February 12, 2022 @02:29AM (#30310707)
We can use storage systems to smooth out supply/demand of electricity.

Mining is unsufficient, because it can't provide energy in the night when the sun is not shining. Storage systems can

Re:David Rosenthal on cryptocurrencies by yrral on Saturday February 12, 2022 @02:36AM (#30310732)
> We can use storage systems to smooth out supply/demand of electricity.

They have a max capacity. They cannot be steady consumers of electricity for the 95%+ of the time that there is enough electricity to go around.

> Mining is unsufficient, because it can't provide energy in the night when the sun is not shining. Storage systems can

I can use the same argument: Storage systems are insufficient, because they can't consume most of the excess generated power to make development of more renewables economically viable. Bitcoin miners can.

Re:David Rosenthal on cryptocurrencies by arrrg on Saturday February 12, 2022 @02:44AM (#30310765)
It would be much more useful to pour excess power into green hydrogen production.

There are industrial and chemical processes where electricity is not a viable replacement for the CO2 intensive approaches we are using now. Building up a hydrogen economy for those applications would be great. And much more useful than that cryptocurrency bullshit.

Re:David Rosenthal on cryptocurrencies by gefhfffh on Saturday February 12, 2022 @02:43AM (#30310761)
Are you going to copy your stuff to every post of mine now?

I have already answered that.

Excess power can be removed from the system removing valuable CO2 emissions damaging society for about 700 dollars a ton

Re:David Rosenthal on cryptocurrencies by inter_netuser on Saturday February 12, 2022 @02:34AM (#30310727)
or we can just finally admit renewables cannot supply the entire Earth, and something else needs to be in the mix too.
Re:David Rosenthal on cryptocurrencies by gefhfffh on Saturday February 12, 2022 @02:35AM (#30310731)
Like storage systems, yeah.

Bitcoin only makes it worse, because it uses/wastes energy of which we don't have enough clean one

Re:David Rosenthal on cryptocurrencies by inter_netuser on Saturday February 12, 2022 @03:06AM (#30310882)
Usually, when you don't have enough of something - you go and build it.

Bitcoin requires only as much power as a tiny country size of Portugal/Netherlands, less than 1% of electricity consumption globally.

Less than dishwashers, heated pools or computer games use. Perhaps we should ban these also?

If anything, we should be thankful Bitcoin exposed the inability of renewables to scale in practice.

Re:David Rosenthal on cryptocurrencies by dmitriid on Saturday February 12, 2022 @01:32PM (#30315026)
>Bitcoin requires only as much power as a tiny country size of Portugal/Netherlands

Riiight. "Tiny".

Netherlands is number 31 and Portugal is 52 by electricity consumption out of 216 countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...

To put it in context: you could power all of Argentina with the power bitcoin wastes. Big enough for you? Or Nigeria five times over (that's 200 million people times five).

Re:David Rosenthal on cryptocurrencies by inter_netuser on Saturday February 12, 2022 @05:59PM (#30317238)
The point is, global consumption is barely 1%.

We were told renewables are cheap and plentiful, but it turns it they cannot even power 1% of the demand?

Why do reneweables scale so poorly?

Re:David Rosenthal on cryptocurrencies by dmitriid on Sunday February 13, 2022 @12:37AM (#30319550)
You keep pushing the same false narrative pretending that this is the argument people make.

Stop.

Re:David Rosenthal on cryptocurrencies by inter_netuser on Sunday February 13, 2022 @12:44AM (#30319579)
false in what sense?

People make the argument "it will boil the ocean". Is this not the claim, roughly speaking?

..but why is it renewables cannot service reliably and inexpensively just 1% of demand?

I have no problems with renewables, but interplanetary civilizations subsisting on windmills is just fantasy.

Re:David Rosenthal on cryptocurrencies by dmitriid on Sunday February 13, 2022 @01:13AM (#30319706)
1. Resources are not infinite

2. Construction speed is not immediate

3. 1% of global consumption is still hell of a lot (more than 150 countries. Stop pretending that if you say 1% this makes it "tiny")

4. You are the only one talking about interplanetary civilizations and pretending your opponents are making arguments they are not making

Re:David Rosenthal on cryptocurrencies by gefhfffh on Saturday February 12, 2022 @04:21AM (#30311313)
So, coal, gas, nuclear and renewables don't see in practice? Solution?

Waste even more energy than we already do!