There seems to be a blindingly obvious solution, to capture some economic value from the otherwise excess solar power generated -- Bitcoin mining. In theory, it's very similar to this application, using otherwise wasted gas flares from oil drilling: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/12/23-year-old-texans-made-4-mi...

Please note, I am not advocating for Bitcoin mining as a productive means of consuming electricity that could have gone to something else (either industrial or commercial or residential) -- I'm specially talking about what the article is covering, aka EXCESS generation that truly has nowhere else to go... Might as well convert that electricity into Bitcoin, to capture something (better than nothing) from the generated electricity.

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mlsu 8 months ago | parent | next [-]

On a philosophical note.

Bitcoin's entire value prop is based on proof of work. At the end of the day, for something to be work, it must have some type of use. The usefulness is philosophically part of the definition.

So, if this power is actually indeed excess, if it actually has nowhere else to go, it cannot provide value to the bitcoin network. Think about it: if bitcoin were entirely run on "free" electricity, where would the value come from? If it doesn't take value to prove work, no value is provided. The "value" of bitcoin comes from its using useful electricity, electricity that would (not just could -- would!) otherwise go towards useful purposes.

Someone who puts a bitcoin miner e.g. next to a solar plant to capture power that is otherwise curtailed is performing an arbitrage. They are trading their worthless power for valuable power elsewhere and pocketing the difference -- and hence extracting value from the other parts of the network which utilize useful power.

Even if tomorrow we switched to bitcoin mining with only "free" power, one of two things would happen: (1) the power actually is truly "free" and hence it does not function as "work" for value purposes and hence the the underlying asset is worthless. Or, much more likely, (2) the power is not "free," the bitcoin is not worthless; it is a drain on our resources.

	▲	strgcmc 8 months ago \| parent [-]
		I mean, let's go further than that even... Imagine if somebody invented commercially viable nuclear fusion and achieved effectively free and infinite electricity, then by your logic, either of two things could happen: - Bitcoin becomes immediately worthless, because suddenly many actors could afford to tap infinite energy to mount a 51% attack and destroy the security of the network - Or, self-interested miners would try to "corner" the market, nearly infinite though it may be... Industrial players might try to outrace each other in terms of bringing more fusion power plants online that are dedicated towards mining -- "white hats" trying to preserve Bitcoin, vs "black hats" trying to destroy, and it's just an arms race... Maybe the end result is actually that, humanity only has productive need for 5% of the total energy that fusion generates (hey it's my thought experiment, just go with it), so what do you do with the other 95% that is otherwise pure excess? ... Maybe it all goes back into Bitcoin mining anyways, because maybe God loves a recursive joke

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_aavaa_ 8 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Or we could use it for an actually useful purpose, like charging batteries to handle peaks later in the day.

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strgcmc 8 months ago | parent [-]

Comments in other threads explained why there will always be a gap between generation vs storage capacity, or why it's economically unwise to build so much storage as to cover peak generation.

For my purposes, I assumed a reasonable allocation towards storage was already going to happen, and that there would still be excess unused capacity beyond that level.

	▲	_aavaa_ 8 months ago \| parent [-]
		Maybe, maybe no. But it’d put wasting money on Bitcoin very low on that list. My person idea would be a 1,000ft tesla coil to have it look cool.

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Sohcahtoa82 8 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If we're going to use excess power to run compute, I'd rather it go towards protein folding simulation. Something that might actually prove useful.

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strgcmc 8 months ago | parent [-]

I wouldn't argue about usefulness, but certainly Bitcoin mining is more directly economically rewarding than an indirect contribution towards protein folding progress for the field at large.

Every 1 hr of mining at X hash rate will yield a fairly predictable (though fluctuating) $Y of output, but every 1 hr of protein folding will not necessarily yield any direct or predictable income. From the perspective of profit-maximizing energy producers, I suspect they will prefer the former, unless someone can quantify or monetize the latter more easily and directly.

	▲	Sohcahtoa82 8 months ago \| parent [-]
		The amount of Bitcoin produced per hour is constant (or rather, designed to be constant between halvings). We don't need more miners.

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Tostino 8 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Then you need to have the hardware sitting idle when the power produced isn't in excess of what can be used. I'd guess that's not economically viable.

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m463 8 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I believe there are better options.

aluminum smelting is very energy intensive and can be run on-demand.

Also, lots of other areas have figured out how to pump water UP a dam to store energy for later.

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itishappy 8 months ago | parent | prev [-]

Carbon capture.

The issue with both is that hardware is expensive, so it's a tough sell for stuff that intends to sit idle half the time.