251
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2024
251 points (99.2% liked)
technology
23283 readers
171 users here now
On the road to fully automated luxury gay space communism.
Spreading Linux propaganda since 2020
- Ways to run Microsoft/Adobe and more on Linux
- The Ultimate FOSS Guide For Android
- Great libre software on Windows
- Hey you, the lib still using Chrome. Read this post!
Rules:
- 1. Obviously abide by the sitewide code of conduct. Bigotry will be met with an immediate ban
- 2. This community is about technology. Offtopic is permitted as long as it is kept in the comment sections
- 3. Although this is not /c/libre, FOSS related posting is tolerated, and even welcome in the case of effort posts
- 4. We believe technology should be liberating. As such, avoid promoting proprietary and/or bourgeois technology
- 5. Explanatory posts to correct the potential mistakes a comrade made in a post of their own are allowed, as long as they remain respectful
- 6. No crypto (Bitcoin, NFT, etc.) speculation, unless it is purely informative and not too cringe
- 7. Absolutely no tech bro shit. If you have a good opinion of Silicon Valley billionaires please manifest yourself so we can ban you.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
Basically they can do this because the miners signed fixed-rate power contracts with the utility a few years back. So the contract says they only have to pay, I don't know, 10 cents per kilowatt-hour. If it's a high demand day and power goes to 50c/kwh, the utility doesn't want to be selling its scarce capacity at 10c/kwh so will bribe the miners with money, say, 20c/kwh multiplied by their usual daily kwh consumption. That lets the utility sell the electricity they would have sold to the miners at an effective rate (for the utility) of 30c/kwh to the public, who pays 50c/kwh.
An even more ridiculous thing the miners can do is just buy all the power they can at 10c/kwh and redirect it back onto the grid where they can sell it at 50c/kwh to the public (usually through a utility intermediary).
It isn't all upside for the miners, theoretically, since there's a risk that power could decrease in cost below their fixed rate contract sometimes. But given how shitty Texas' electricity grid is and how the state has no ability to actually incentivize building more capacity that probably won't happen. (actually these miners themselves were envisioned to be this incentive, love to set up a rube goldberg mechanism instead of just being like "build more power capacity").
lol. lmao, even.
I wonder how much it would cost the power companies (company?) to just break those contracts. Maybe it could be worth it?
Although of course a sensible government would just say “nah fuck that”, nationalize the power grid, and rip up the contract.