I understand your experience in this field, but you miss understand the argument of how it can help the grid, not how it is helping it now. Just like battery storage systems can help balance out the load, btc can help with that. Many in this field are yet to see this benefit and adopt it.
You surely agree the grid would be more efficient if the demand was a flat line rather than the low and high peaks we see now? Energy companies are actively incentivising people to use more energy at the low periods over the peak periods by offering cheaper rates during the low periods.
To add the the argument:
If you were to invest in a new 1 GW solar farm with a return to break even with in say 10 years, but can increase that time to break even by using any excess energy to mine btc, would you? Of course you would. This helps increase renewable adoption at a faster rate.
I may not have your experience but i am a control systems engineer (electrical engineer and software engineer). Just so you understand my level of understanding. Although i donât claim to be an expert in power grid systems, so iâm happy to hear your views on this topic.
Its not name-calling, its an honest description which you find uncomfortable and hence lash out as above.
Deal with your dishonesty and a decent debate can take place.
Its nothing like battery storage. That like hydro storage systems return the power back to the grid. And unless the BTC miners are returning the power back to the grid that they used on off-peak then sorry you have been lied to if someone told you they are anything similar in benefit.
If it could cause the peaks to be greatly reduced then yes. But all it does is take the power usage over the daily cycle and add the BTC mining usage to that. The peaks and dips are all still there just higher in value.
Now you are conflating the energy grid of the local energy supplier with future of over 10 years away, doesnât work because we donât know peopleâs energy requirements in the future (EVs etc). If you read what i said I did mention that BTC would require new designs/planning and construction to be done.
I also am an electrical engineer with a lot of experience in a few areas from doing contract work.
The fallacy is in thinking BTC is using excess energy, this is just not the case unless its a extremely poorly designed power grid/generation system. In fact they finely tune these systems because when they donât then you see massive over voltage and blackout/loadsheding at differing times.
The basic truth is that BTC simply adds base loads to the grid, it does absolutely nothing for the peaks and dips that occur. It doesnât use âexcessâ energy but rather causes extra generating plant to be used 24/7
Its really very simple.
Now if in 10-20 years we may have the situation where âgreenâ energy is generating more power than can be typically used and then yes it would use excess energy and theyâll be happy to sell that energy to the miners. But in the current situation there is very few places, if any, that have an excess of energy being generated 24/7. The only times with excess is the preparation times for morning and evening peak loads, but that is minimal and useless for BTC mining which is a steady 24/7 base load.
Now another consideration is that in the planning stages they consider the load they expect in 20 years and almost no government or private energy supplier is considering BTC mining to be around in 20 years. So in fact if BTC mining is still at the current levels then the miners will be moving to places with âgreenâ energy in over abundance where they would welcome BTC miners so they can sell the excess energy.
FWIW some years ago I was involved in the design of small discrete low-cost tidal turbine units that placed in a tidal stream of average 0.5m/s would produce useable power 20 out of 24hrs/day. These would lie near offshore at between 50-1000m offshore âToo deep for paddling, too shallow for trawlingâ
Around the coast, the time of âslack waterâ varies from location to location so we had an average smooth power output and by connecting to the grid in many many places we smoothed out the both the fluctuations and the direction of the power flow.
Of course a factor was the cost of the transmission lines. We looked at BTC mining on the units themselves, ethernet cables being cheaper then 1-2 cm copper.
We could get a subsidy to provide useable power and increase the efficiency of the grid but nobody was going to help us develop a system that only benefited a select few.
And BTW tidalpower is NOT renewable⌠Every joule extracted from the tidal system is a joule slowing down the rotation of the earth and hastening the day the moon will crash into the earth. Its a far-off problem but still a problem.
However the main point is as @neo explains is you are not really smoothing much of the curve, you are simply moving the curve upwards and expecting the rest of the grid users to subsidise your speculatory activities.
If you really want to deal with the âexcess powerâ problem, build pumped storage, increase battery efficiency, pump heat into gravel or molten salt for later extraction and other methods, not pander to the needs of the abomination that is PoW.
Someone with a different opinion isnât necessarily being dishonest. Your âtruthâ isnât always another persons âtruthâ. I donât consider my response a lash out. Yours on the other hand i do.
Even if Bitcoin mining used 100% renewable energy it would still be terrible for the environment because that renewable energy could be used for other things to replace non renewable energy.
Bitcoin mining is definitely wasteful. Forgive me if Iâm going over something everyone knows already but this is how Bitcoin mining works. Itâs not âdoing complex calculationsâ or âsolving mathematical puzzlesâ as it is often described in news reports but doing something fairly simple until it gets the desired result and ignoring all the undesired results. What happens is a random number is generated. That number is then hashed, then that hash is itself hashed. Then if the resulting number is in the range of numbers it has been decided will be the basis of the next block that miner gets the right to produce the next block.
All the hashes produced by all the CPUs, GPUs and ASICs on the network that arenât the one that was needed are WASTE. An unneeded by-product of something is the very definition of waste. Work done and discarded is another good definition.
It might be considered a useful process because the energy it uses and the compute resources needed to do the work is supposed to prevent any one entity gaining a significant control over the production of new blocks but it is still wasteful. Ideally you would have something that did the same job without all the waste. If only someone could come up with something like that⌠Oh wait, this is the forum for a project that does that! Why are we sitting here discussing the wasteful nature of something that will soon be last weekâs milk?
To be fair it was never intended that the energy consumption from Bitcoin would ever be so high. Or that GPUs and then ASICs would be used. There wasnât supposed to be a massive arms race in GPUs and then ASICs and huge amounts of power used. If theyâd chosen a PoW that couldnât be done with GPU or ASICs it would only need a fraction of the electricity and compute resources to secure the network.
The intention with Bitcoin was that home computer users would use their CPUs to secure the network and get a reward. That went out of the window a long time ago though. The weight of numbers of electricity and compute resources attempts to ensure that transactions canât be rolled back but it doesnât guarantee it at all. There is now massive centralisation in Bitcoin mining and mining pools and itâs not hard to imagine situations that could lead to control being grabbed by a monopoly or collusion.
Itâs likely that Bitcoin wasnât ever intended to be the final product and just a Proof of Concept. But it caught on and there wasnât enough thought about how it might develop or if there were better ways of achieving the same thing and here we are. But we shouldnât kid ourselves that it is ideal just because it was the first and took off.
Safe replaces the energy and compute resource with âclever stuffâ ⢠and doesnât waste resources while securing the network and the immutability of the data. And it can do more things.
I donât think Bitcoin will disappear overnight. Iâm going to predict that the last block will end up being mined and it will still be in use for useful things. It will definitely still be used by criminals to move value around because thereâs a lot of confidence built up in it for that purpose. The speculation in the price will continue while there is still a price to it. I expect the arms race to control the network will continue because while itâs still in use people will want to try to control it. But I think the attention and usage will shift to other platforms and Iâm betting Safe will be the main one.
I agree with much of this logic and regard many of the counter arguments as delusional. But Iâm also aware that there is value here, in bitcoin and therefore in mining bitcoin. For example, as well as demonstrating the principles of non fiat means of exchange, bitcoin and its derivatives have funded the majority of work on Safe Network! Though I imagine without BTC David would still have found a way!
So I wouldnât argue in such absolute terms.
It is though not a great way to do this stuff and we surely want something that works faster and use less energy. Which is one reason for supporting SN, but one of many.
Safe Network may deliver the technical solution but bitcoin will remain the market leader for a while, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Maybe bitcoinâs greatest contribution to humanity will be to keep people distracted while Safe Network establishes its full range of capabilities.
All those arguing âbitcoin mining is a waste of energyâ are actually saying that to them bitcoin has no value that warrants such use. However, bitcoin has immense value as an internationally available non-state money and monetary network - one with a strictly limited supply, unparalleled security, thatâs uncensorable and with a proven track record of uptime and reliability.
Whoâs to say what is a waste of energy? I could argue that millions of people ordering coffee every day is a waste of energy, or spending countless hours in front of the TV is a waste of energy. The waste of energy argument is based on what people perceive as valuable or not.
The importance of money cannot be denied. The debt-based fiat monetary system we have now, with its endless âprintingâ and political manipulation, is a primary cause of wars and economic mayhem. Bitcoin offers a radical alternative to all that and represents a fundamental value which I believe is essential to the liberation of mankind.
Though I imagine without BTC David would still have found a way! 
