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301 sats \ 12 replies \ @MaaliMKen 15 Oct 2023 \ parent \ on: Intercontinental energy grids. 🌎←♻️→🌍 bitcoin
@mallardshead I would like to respectfully disagree with your assessment that by 2035 PV owners will be generating 150% of their energy needs. This really is simple Physics and truthful market dynamics. I live in Uganda and full-scale rooftop solar energy is something acquired only by the rich who can afford to pay for 24/7 national electricity. The poor can only afford tiny PV systems for lighting. These do not boil water and certainly cannot cook food.
OP has written a very good and fun-to-read article on HVDC, but the way he fumbled the data on solar electricity supply economics is off-putting. Simply understand this, if solar WAS REALLY cheaper that fossil fuels, then the poorest parts of the world would be the most PV covered areas on Earth. Places like Morocco that literally enjoy desert level amounts of sunshine almost 12 hours each day, might afford to greatly subsidize solar PV farms enough to profit from that entire investment. In Uganda, with our equatorial climate, lots of water bodies and forested places, it hardly ever shines non-stop for 8 hours on the sunniest of days during the dry season. So PV farms here will always run secondary (big time secondary) to national grid hydroelectricity.
If neither you nor the OP hasn't heard of Alex Epstein I really recommend you go check him out. He has facts backed by graphs, references, and rebuttals to quoted exaggerations by all the big pro-renewable experts (including Leonardo Di Caprio's guy).
Thank you for your time.
Now about fiat being connected to fossil fuels via the petrodollar, this is a non sequitur if one concludes that 'therefore if we do away with fossil fuels, we shall have done away with fiat'. fiat corrupts fossil fuels, not the other way around. And they do not corrupt the world together.
Fossil fuels are only a big problem as far as only one metric is concerned - they pollute the air. Otherwise, they are the densest, cheapest, most useful energy source that propelled the USA into global dominance (because most thankfully to their lucky stars who watch over ya'll, when Americans first discovered oil they could trade it as they see fit. They literally showered in it and at one point, owners of oil wells thought oil was some useless nuisance making their farmlands dirty. Not like every other part of the world now where oil trade is a secret dealing between top brass in the government and foreign contractors).
Because of fossil fuels, in fact, we can support 8 billion humans on this planet with the best modern life has to offer. And China can manufacture tons of solar panels faster than a kid sucks breastmilk from its mother's tits.
Bitcoiners will therefore go where energy is the cheapest and if Texas has state subsidies making solar the cheapest, then by all means, be my guest. But don't go badmouthing people in Africa say running Bitcoin nodes with cow dung biogas, tree wood, diesel, or plastics. Because this ain't Texas.
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Not sure it was a non-sequitur, because the conclusion to be drawn isn't that taking away the petrodollar causes a cessation of fiat to exist. This wasn't the case before the petrodollar existed. My argument is that there's a connection, one that's built the American security order, and provided demand. Because oil was the fastest expanding type of energy once upon a time, and companies like Ford, Chevy, Exxon, Chevron, etc, were the largest companies in the world by market cap (internet didn't exist yet), any expansion of energy was necessarily an expansion of the USD. All oil profits found their way into the US stock market and in US bonds. It was so effective that for 52 years we saw few to no negative effects for monetary expansion of the USD. It was far better than the quasi gold standard that was dumped in its favor. As the petrodollar fades, demand becomes more of an issue. This is partly a bullish feeling I have about bitcoin. Green energy is the fastest expanding type of energy now, and per KwH is the cheapest. Bitcoin uses electricity.
Fossil fuels are cheap and dense, the wind, sun and earth's core are also energy dense. Fossil fuels have done quite a bit for humanity's flourishing, but that's simply a historical observation.
Bitcoin miners will go where the energy is cheapest agreed. My point was the ERCOT grid miners haven't faced competition from energy storage or HVDC yet. Both occupy the same unique space as miners do. They'll lobby against it as it threatens to change their energy contract favorabillity, instead of changing their business models. Mining will get distributed globally, and hashpower will grow enough to where there's nothing about that grid that's advantageous beyond its independence from federal oversight. So nothing there changes, which means nothing about the companies change. None are profitable, none are good stewards of debt, none have grown their treasuries, none of them have shown in any way that they will without more fiat debt. Thusly, I view an investment there as a waste.
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The mind of the brainwashed fiat cuck is fascinating.
Tell me, what percent of total electricity production do you anticipate will go toward mining in 50-100 years?
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50 years? With a bitcoin standard and photonic silicon? Probably one order of magnitude more than what we use today as a percentage of global electricity. If bitcoin doesn't have a quote price and no other money or fiat exists, then everyone is using it: every government, business, and person. 51% attacks are a sillier proposition than they are today for reasons beyond energy. There's a trailing mass of mining hardware getting built as we go into the future too, but free/cheap sources of renewable energy theoretically mean all that old stuff is profitable, or that it at least has a much longer life. That's just another reason I'm no bull when it comes to industrial mining companies with no vision of the future other than doing the same things over and over again expecting different results (i.e. unprofitability). Hate to say it, but bitcoin L1 won't be particularly friendly to any business directionally trying to extract money from its coinbase or tx fees. That's why people should be suspicious of these public mining grifters and CEXs. You know how gun manufacturers are lobbying for laws to stop decentralized production (3d printing) of ghost guns and lower receivers because they're cutting into their profits? Same shit will come of miners. Espousing bullshit forks (drivechain etc), trading subsidies for OFAC compliance, accepting fossil fuel hush monies to keep convincing users of what political side to take, debt games with Wall Street bankers, APs for ETFs, all while getting Pied Piped by their pool master Foundry et al. Fuck these fiat companies dressed in orange. L2 is where the innovation and applications get built. Not a particularly great layer for miners or CEXs, especially with where it's trending—more self custody, more fully validating wallets.
Nodes is where it's at. Bring back the full-clients lol.
100 years? Who knows. If the security assumptions of quantum communication hold then it could be a lot of energy or close to none. Nodes will still matter tho. More independently powerful than ever.
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Ok, nice, so something you're not retarded about. I thought you might say something absurd like 30-70%
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Thanks Ken, I was talking mostly about the US and single family homes. Apartments/condos excluded. I have a solar and battery setup that's 2 years old and produce about 130%. When my geothermal for cooling/heating is complete it will be closer to 250%. The cost of both is falling. The technological efficiency of both are increasing. Finding newly built single family homes without one or the other will become rare in about 7 years, not just because of state incentives, but because of economics and demand. You mentioned hydroelectricity, that's also renewable. Quebec has an overabundance of hydro and is running it to New York City via HVDC. Ethiopia will produce 80% of their country's electricity with the GERD dam and so on.
Cellphones, VCRs, electric cars, video games, etc, were once things only for rich people and non-existent in the developing world. Same with renewable energy infrastructure. That started to change around 2015 though. The developing world accounts for around 54% of (non-hydro) renewable energy investment now. Don't focus solely on solar, also consider wind and geothermal and nuclear. Just like we see a mix of fossil fuels providing energy as geographical circumstances demand today, assume there will be a mix of renewable energy technologies tomorrow.
I've read Alex Epstein's recent book Fossil Future, and met him once when he was walking his well-groomed dog. He's discounted fossil fuel geopolitical friction, grid interconnectors, and the capacity of human ingenuity a bit, but it was a good read.
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Sorry I've taken a while to respond to this.
You have given points to the effect of "renewable are not being allowed to compete with fossils" and to the extent that this is true, that shows the corrupting effect of fiat. And the unnecessary politicization of energy supply and demand economics.
Only thing governments had to do in 2009, or 2010, even 2023, is mine and learn about BTC like their citizens. And ask for it in taxes. And all would be well with the world.
It will happen eventually. Thank goodness for the fact that BTC is an idea whose time has come.
It might be true that renewable are becoming cheaper in many parts of the world for household needs. But most households, industry and social services can't get past the infrastructure costs like mega battery packs and decentralized grids for energy synchronization.
Now, allow me share on how I think it will happen.
Some research has show that BTC can help supercharge the energy transition --> https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/bitcoin-mining-solar-wind-renewable-energy-b2454666.html
My own back of the napkin calculations involving the power consumption of the hash rate, the mining rewards and the value growth of the currency (which tracks everything like transactions within it) confirms it.
The facts are startling.
People are willing to pay or invest about 6x more money in their electiricty bill if it is running Bitcoin or some Bitcoin related productivity, than if it was running Netflix, Cable TV, Refrigerators in a Supermarket, Video games, etc. Name it.
Because that is what the growth in value means. People are pumping funds into Bitcoin.
This is wild and means the best way to really transition is to build as many BTC projects around the world, run them on renewables and
wherever possible, and subsidize the whole thing with fossils as renewable tech matures.
Again, it will happen. Because it is an idea whose time has come.
Sam Altman wants $7 trillion to build AI systems but Bitcoin-for-renewables is serious competition he isn't thinking about.
Again, people are willing to pay for electiricty mining/transacting BTC than for electricty generating impressive ChatGPT prompts.
I'm hoping to systemize all this in an article on Hackernoon.com. Stay tuned.
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I feel in this case the goal is to get to the point where renewable energy is sufficient to build all the requirements for more renewable energy. It's here the subsidies will dissipate. Until then, subsidies for fossil fuels (the largest of them all) and renewables are necessary, and thusly, so is a fiat standard. In the world of a commodity money base layer, it should absorb the value of products and services added to the global economy. Energy however, is required to produce an overabundance of those. I'm with you bitcoin as a mechanism can supercharge renewable growth, appreciating in value with the overabundance it can create. Almost like a circular recycling mechanism.
Too, a world with few dictators (most will statistically be beyond the age of death by next decade) is important, because it reduces disruption and friction, which is costing us all too much. International grids are an incentive aligning tool.
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With retards like you, it's no wonder the fiat overlords feel ok about enslaving the world. Luckily, bitcoin neuters the damage that retards like you can bring about.
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Oh dear Delta how long since? Where there's a nod to anything green on this platform you're certain to follow with that X-style rhetoric. Bitcoin will speed up the neutering of your favorite WTI brands. Many will mistake it as damage.
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Post the hackernoon article please
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Why respectfully? Idiots are harmful and should be mocked. He is reading propaganda on fake price info with false LCOE numbers while ignoring EROI, which shows how garbage renewables are.
He is just a brainwashed leftist.
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