Re There Is Nothing Virtual About Bitcoin's Energy Appetite

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Roger Bohn <Rbohn () ucsd edu>
Date: Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 4:09 PM
Subject: Re: [IP] Re There Is Nothing Virtual About Bitcoin's Energy
Appetite
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>


In addition to John Levine’s comment about it,
the following statement violates laws of both economics and electricity:

“have surplus generating capacity that would substantially result in
generator and transmission
losses if not fully matched to load capacity”

I am not sure what this is supposed to mean. Transmission losses might
refer to power lost when electricity is consumed far away from where it is
generated. But consuming more power close to a generator does not *reduce*
losses anywhere.

The idea of “generator losses” might refer to the economic concept of
opportunity costs. Again though it’s very hard to construct a case where
costs go up if BC power demand is less.

There are occasional situations where spot prices go negative (e.g. late at
night in Texas recently). But the only way for higher demand to help in
this situation is when the demand is highly responsive. Bitcoin mining
seems to be the opposite - its economics depend on a high load factor, even
if not quite 8760 hours per year.

Roger

On 23 Jan 2018, at 14:02, Dave Farber wrote:


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: John Levine <johnl () iecc com>
Date: Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 4:52 PM
Subject: Re: [IP] Re There Is Nothing Virtual About Bitcoin's Energy
Appetite
To: <dave () farber net>


In article <
CAKx4tri9rd0gz-nYGF9d5QHW+KNxSW2urajJohcAErvjcYHEDA () mail gmail com> you
write:
> From: Limber, Jim <uic.edu1 () gmail com>
> Date: Mon, Jan 22, 2018 at 2:45 PM
> Subject: Fwd: [IP] There Is Nothing Virtual About Bitcoin's Energy Appetite
> To: George Yanos <george () yanos com>
>
> The main locations - Russia, China, Canada, etc., have surplus generating
> capacity that would substantially result in generator and transmission
> losses if not fully matched to load capacity....

Dunno about Russia, but Canada's surplus generating capacity is mostly
hydropower which they have no trouble selling to the U.S.  And if they
didn't, using spillways and depowering a few turbines isn't exactly
beyond the state of the art.  In China it's mostly coal.  Ugh.

What I've found most impressive about this discussion is how desperate the
bitcoin crowd is to excuse its absurd power wastage.  It's not for nothing
people call it a Dunning-Krugerrand.

R's,
John

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Prof. Roger Bohn, UC San Diego
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