I’m sure this was upvoted to the front page because it implies negative environmental impact, but per the article, this would actually help reduce the plant’s carbon footprint.
eh, it says they were struggling to remain profitable. Maybe running it at full capacity (with the mining) is better that ramping up and down (as the article claims), but shutting the whole plant down would surely be better for the environment.
Yes, any assertion that propping up the old plant reduces emissions is just blindly accepting the spin from the executives. Fossil fuel operations that both emit CO2 and are naturally unprofitable when competing with solar/wind should be shut down. That is how we planned for them to die, and if they don't die, that is terrible.
Bitcoin is responsible insofar as it provides a low barrier to entry to the business of turning electricity into profit. Any schmuck can do it, and any schmuck will, including ones that would use it to prop up a coal-fired power plant. There is a component of this that is orthogonal to any value you ascribe to the mining.
Can you imagine what a time it is to be a fossil fuel executive? You face the prospect of a dying industry, where at best you can earn your reputation for being a good steward into the afterlife, making endless marketing materials featuring green plants on every page and sending your shiniest lumps of coal to Australian politicians to display in Parliament... and then someone comes along with a tool to create energy demand for yourself at precisely the hours of day when the sun isn't out? I guess we'll have to wait another ten years for the battery tech to really arrive, right? They are laughing at us.
I'm not sure this project is actually doing that, and on the whole I don't think this is occurring the level of electricity market manipulation that Enron attained in California around the turn of the century, but it could get in the ballpark pretty quickly. Bitcoin mining eliminates the cost of generating fake demand to suit a narrative that renewables are not enough. All you need to do is not tell the regulator you're doing it.
(For a practical thing to do to counter this, ask your government to track it, and exclude from their planning calculations any electricity demand that has a conflict of interest behind it like this one.)
