My electric grid provider buys power from Hydro Québec. I'm happy they're using a differential rate tariff for crytpo farms. Maybe it will slow the escalation in my bills, which outrun my attempts to conserve electricity.
That being said, crypto farms are an almost ideal workload for a smart grid, as long as they can shut off when other customers draw peak loads. They are a predictable base load, drawing power all the time. A grid with a smaller difference between peak design load and base load has a better return on capital.
That means a grid charging more to miners than other customers acts against its own narrow self-interest. But, grids do it anyway. My local grid pays to retrofit city street lights (another nice base load) from sodium vapor to LEDs to save power, for example.
If we (collectively) embrace crypto, we must also embrace nuclear power because it's great for base load and emits no carbon. Is that a bargain worth making?
My electric grid provider buys power from Hydro Québec. I'm happy they're using a differential rate tariff for crytpo farms. Maybe it will slow the escalation in my bills, which outrun my attempts to conserve electricity.
That being said, crypto farms are an almost ideal workload for a smart grid, as long as they can shut off when other customers draw peak loads. They are a predictable base load, drawing power all the time. A grid with a smaller difference between peak design load and base load has a better return on capital.
That means a grid charging more to miners than other customers acts against its own narrow self-interest. But, grids do it anyway. My local grid pays to retrofit city street lights (another nice base load) from sodium vapor to LEDs to save power, for example.
If we (collectively) embrace crypto, we must also embrace nuclear power because it's great for base load and emits no carbon. Is that a bargain worth making?