Texas paid bitcoin miner Riot $31.7 million to shut down during heat wave in August

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[–]cunninglingus 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

/u/Musky

wtf?

[–]Musky 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Yeah this is because they didn't fix our power grid, some people would say because of green energy too.

[–]iamonlyoneman 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

wrong. this is how you fix the grid. if the miners weren't using it, the extra capacity wouldn't be online and hot. a voluntary reduction frees up power instead of causing blackouts from everyone using too much.

[–]Musky 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

This was a tremendous boon for the bitcoin mining company, they were losing money mining Bitcoin and took advantage of the energy credits to make a buck off taxpayers. I don't see how that fixes anything. Texas should ramp up their capacity instead.

[–]iamonlyoneman 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

They were losing money . . . when they weren't mining? Yeah, that's how mining works.

[–]Musky 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They only made money shutting down their operations and taking energy credits. Mining BTC hadn't been profitable for them. I think our energy costs too much plus the drop in BTC price caused that.

Kind of a huge flaw with crypto, it can only be mined/governed profitably in places with dirt cheap electricity.

[–]MilanorSwolf 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's about being pragmatic.

[–]binaryblob 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

In Washington they are trying to get nuclear fusion to work and in Texas they are still trying to get their grid to work. Is there too much Pb in the ground in Texas or something?

[–]iamonlyoneman 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

How is this not working? It worked great. Companies with agreements to do it, and even some of the miners who don't have agreements, cut back on consumption when there was a possibility of literally record high electric use being more than available supply.

Record high energy use and the grid held up fine, obviously it doesn't work

that's you right now

[–]binaryblob 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Compare the variance of the cost of energy to that of other states. I define "working" as something that has low variance.

Since Texas' grid made repeated headlines, it's not working, because things that are boring and just work do not make headlines. When was the last time you heard issues with the grid in Norway? Never, exactly.

[–]iamonlyoneman 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You're a communist? Everyone is starving to death but at least we all are equal!

California's grid makes headlines too, do you also dunk on them?

Relevant image

[–]binaryblob 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

California's grid makes headlines too, do you also dunk on them?

Obviously, because I picked Norway.

[–]Musky 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Texas primarily has lead water pipes.

[–]IkeConn 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I'm moving my operation to Texas.

[–]iamonlyoneman 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Holy biased reporting, Batman!

...the company is losing so much money that it’s counting on energy credits from selling power back to the Texas grid to keep its costs under control.

...it earned $31.7 million in energy credits last month from Texas power grid operator ERCOT. The company generated the credits by voluntarily curtailing its energy consumption during a record-breaking heatwave. ...

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas... has a relatively simple and mutually beneficial relationship with bitcoin miners. The agency, through established “demand response” programs, pays miners to reduce their power so as not to overstress the grid when air conditioners need to run at full blast. In addition to summer difficulties, ERCOT also failed during the fatal winter storm of early 2021.

So which is it? Are they keeping costs under control or are they helping to ensure the grid doesn't fall down because they're good citizens?

For years, Riot has been powering down operations at its Rockdale mine... to help ease the burden on the state’s grid.

So which is it? are they relying on this to keep costs under control this year, or have they been playing friendly ball games with ERCOT for years?

If the grid operators pay the miners a penny more than they would have made from mining in any given hour, then they’ll gladly power down.

Wait, so maybe there was not a need to make the company look bad, and this whole thing is just business-as-usual for them?

Even bitcoin miners that haven’t cut a deal with ERCOT sometimes choose to power down at times of peak consumption when prices shoot higher.

And then . . . the companies that don't profit from it, also shut down? WTF I love mining companies now?

MSNBC, ladies and gentlemen. ::crumpling paper noises::

[–]Canbot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Should have raised rates instead. That would have caused people to voluntarily reduce consumption.

[–]iamonlyoneman 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/22/970074424/why-some-texas-residents-now-face-huge-electricity-bills

or it would cause enormous bills, one