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Re:Proof-of-Work Defense for Onion Services by foota on Thursday August 24, 2023 @08:23PM (#37256288)
To the sibling, while I largely agree, I think there's some argument that building out additional manufacturing capacity for renewables even if it goes towards crypto mining has beneficial knock on effects for reducing the cost of the equipment provided that the learning curve effect and economies of scale outweigh the competition for resources, which to be fair isn't guaranteed.
Re:Proof-of-Work Defense for Onion Services by kevinak on Thursday August 24, 2023 @09:01PM (#37256569)
It's mainly the fact that Bitcoin mining sets a price floor on electricity prices. It's a buyer of last resort. Without it you'll get negative electricity prices and less investment in renewables.

See for example what Ercot has to say about Bitcoin mining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKnRfDeFgr0

Re:Proof-of-Work Defense for Onion Services by foota on Thursday August 24, 2023 @09:25PM (#37256732)
Who needs batteries when you have Bitcoin?
Re:Proof-of-Work Defense for Onion Services by kevinak on Friday August 25, 2023 @04:44AM (#37259500)
Until you can solve the climate crisis with batteries alone you need other solutions to step-in in the meantime.

Also, batteries don't help when the electricity is in the middle of nowhere and not connected to the grid.