Bitcoin changes everything you thought you knew about energy 🧵below:
1) The energy industry has historically been a proximity and timing game. Find and exploit energy supply that can be transported economically to where/when the demand is needed. This is sounds simple but modern energy industry is staggering in its complexity and vastness
2) Bitcoin mining is the first time in human history that we have a large-scale & stable demand source of energy that can be located anywhere in the world. This doesn’t sound like a big deal at first, but the rabbit hole is deeper than you can imagine…
3) Bitcoin Miners are like Energy Pirates, they will seek and destroy any inefficiencies on the grid. We are rapidly moving towards a world without wasted energy, and that’s a beautiful thing. Soon our grid will be more efficient/robust than ever because of Bitcoin mining
4) Take for example @RiotBlockchain's Whinstone facility. This location was an old smelting plant that moved and left hundreds of megawatts of power stranded in the desert of West Texas. Riot stepped in as the buyer of last resort & purchased that wasted power for Bitcoin mining
5) When grid prices spike during weather related demand surges, Bitcoin miners can sell that power back to the grid (demand response) acting like a virtual powerplant stabilizing power pricing & also allowing for more intermittent power generation on the grid, more on that later
6) Now anywhere on the planet we have a highly economic source of energy demand that can not only stabilize the grid (like in the Riot example), Bitcoin mining can underpin new energy supply projects around the globe. The most obvious use case is Renewable (intermittent) Energy
7) Love it or hate it, Renewable Energy proliferation is only accelerating, & with Renewable Energy comes a much less reliable grid. Renewable energy doesn’t work when you need it to, it works when it works (sun shining or wind blowing)
8) The only feasible way to implement large scale Renewable power is to have more baseload power generation. Areas with high renewables penetration can use Bitcoin miners as the anchor tenants for new baseload power projects (preferably natural gas and Nuclear)
9) So not only is Bitcoin mining the energy buyer of last resort, but miners can also act as the energy buyer of first resort. The only path forward for humanity to continue to flourish is for us to generate and consume more energy. Bitcoin mining helps us get to that future
10) Bitcoin mining has the potential to solve energy poverty. Many impoverished countries have access to energy sources but don’t have an economic way to transport that power to all those who need it. Bitcoin mining allows for distributed power generation projects and micro grids
11) In countries with corrupt governments, local communities can use Bitcoin mining with their local energy resources. Bitcoin mining provides the needed economic incentive to generate power and also allows for financial independence from their local corrupt financial system
12) Bitcoin Mining will help clean up the environment. In US we have thousands of old uneconomic oil & gas wells that need to be plugged & the surface sites remediated. By using the natural gas for mining at these well sites we can make these wells profitable again
13) The old oil & gas wells that were once an economic and environmental liability can now be made into a profitable source of energy through Bitcoin Mining. We can then use those profits to plug the wells and clean up the surface site back to its original condition
14) These are just a few ways that Bitcoin will change the energy industry. For more Bitcoin and energy content you can subscribe to my podcast here:
youtube.com/c/TalkEnergyPo…
