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Bitcoin Songsheet: Wind And Solar Are The Altcoins Of Energybitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-songsheet-wind-solar-are-altcoins-energy
42 sats \ 19 comments \ @jimmysong 16 May 2022 bitcoin
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51 sats \ 8 replies \ @cointastical 17 May 2022
Energy and money are not the same.
I can use bitcoin just as easily to buy a loaf of bread whether that requires 5,000 sats, 50,000 sats, or 5 sats.
In other words, scarcity of money does not make the money less useful (as money) to me.
Energy is different. Scarcity makes an energy less useful. A diesel truck will only run on diesel fuel. If some of the demand for diesel is due to power plants running on diesel (even if just a peaker plant) generation of power from other sources can reduce the operation of those diesel power plants, which then results in diesel being more affordable and thus more useful for transportation.
Wind and solar do have utility (pun intended). Whether they are competitive as the alternatives (natural gas, hydroelectric generation), ... that's debatable yet today. But progress towards harvesting nature's energy at greater efficiency and lower cost of production (i.e., resources needed for it, including capital expense) will benefit us all.
So yes, I want wind power, solar power, hydro, geothermal, coal, natural gas, ... and safe and competitively priced nuclear power (which I'm not yet convinced exists, at least not at a cost that considers the entire life span through decommissioning).
I want them all battling it out. Without government subsidies. Like you mention, bitcoin mining essentially now becomes that method to subsidize energy production that might not have been viable previously.
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20 sats \ 5 replies \ @jimmysong OP 17 May 2022
Where in the article did I say that energy and money are the same? I said the government's actions on both have the same effect, which is that they devalue labor. You're arguing a straw man.
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @cointastical 17 May 2022
Out of context, but yes, yes you did.
"Energy is like money,"
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22 sats \ 3 replies \ @cointastical 17 May 2022
Blocked on Twitter? Seriously?
Same team, Jimmy. Same team.
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20 sats \ 2 replies \ @jimmysong OP 17 May 2022
I block people who don't argue honestly. I'd block you here if I could.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cointastical 17 May 2022
Well, since I can't DM you, had a couple edit suggestions:
It’s no wonder the best and the brightest in developing countries immigrate.
s/b emmigrate (?)
Though we do get power outages once in a while, it’s been less devastating for developed countries.
s/b less devastating than for developed countries (?)
Or am I misreading that?
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @cointastical 17 May 2022
Hehe, ok.
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5 sats \ 0 replies \ @jp 17 May 2022
FWIW, I think you provided a great and fair response. Appreciate your viewpoint (which I happen to agree with).
Even if I didn't agree with it, your response opens up conversation & engagement within the community (which is what most of us are here for)
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2 sats \ 0 replies \ @jp 17 May 2022
Agreed.
This article could have been better written and I also think the key points highlight in the article are fairly weak.
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10 sats \ 3 replies \ @kr 16 May 2022
Batteries continue to get cheaper and more widely adopted as tools for storing energy.
Would low-cost, widely available batteries connected to solar panels change your views on the value of solar energy?
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69 sats \ 2 replies \ @jimmysong OP 17 May 2022
I'm for better battery tech, certainly. But if you study it, it needs many orders of magnitude better storage for it to be anywhere near the energy density of fossil fuels. The real tragedy is that the promise of "green" energy has oppressed the people in the developing world. I'm not fine with waiting until tech to get better to let those countries develop.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @faithandcredit 17 May 2022
Also if someone was able to cheaply compress energy to the same degree as fossil fuels are then if he wanted to generate the energy to be compressed he was going to need alot of solar panels or wind mills so the economics still dont seem to work out and if something is not economical its wasteful and thus bad for the environment imo.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kr 17 May 2022
appreciate the thoughtful response, and agree on not waiting for tech to improve.
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110 sats \ 1 reply \ @davidc 17 May 2022 freebie
One aspect that always seems to be missing from these energy debates among bitcoiners is sovereignty. I can put solar panels on my roof but I can’t refine oil or mine coal in my backyard. Fossil fuels necessitate centralized entities producing and controlling the distribution of the energy.
Solar and wind give us a chance at decentralized energy production. While I generally agree it doesn’t make any sense to integrate these unreliable sources to the (macro)grid I think there’s a possibility microgrids allow individuals and communities to have more sovereignty over their energy sources which solar and wind will help facilitate.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @02d10975a1 17 May 2022
Exactly. Fossil fuels are just tax to oil countries. Almost all of the cost is profit for them.
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20 sats \ 0 replies \ @jp 17 May 2022
The subsidization of solar and wind have directed a lot of resources toward these boondoggles rather than making fossil fuels a lot more efficient and available
Subsidies have existed both for alternative energy and fossil fuels so to use this as an attack vector on wind/solar isn't really a valid opinion.
Our productivity increases when energy gets cheaper and more abundant
Doesn't alternative energy increase the overall energy supply - wouldn't this be an argument for additional energy sources (fossil fuel and alt energy)?
It’s no wonder the best and the brightest in developing countries immigrate. They’re multiple times more productive in developed countries because they have access to abundant energy!
This commentary is limited in scope and doesn't take into account a variety of factors. Germany, for example, had the second highest net migration vs the world (https://www.un.org/en/desa/international-migration-2020-highlights) but can barely break into the top 10 in energy producers in the world. If you look at the UK, it paints even a starker picture.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @02d10975a1 17 May 2022
Fossil fuels play no part in the future of our civilization. Current global energy production & consumption is just a blib, basically nothing at all. From the future, we look like cavemen who just discovered fire. One day, we'll be using thousands or even millions of times more energy per capita.
I'm not against fossil fuels, but it's time to think bigger.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryptocoin 16 May 2022
They are ridiculously inefficient and if governments stopped subsidizing them, they would not survive.
Energy is like money, which people think they understand, but really don’t. The average person uses a lot of energy day to day, whether it’s the electricity to power their computers, gasoline to power their cars or natural gas to heat their homes. Like money, usage gives people the illusion that they understand it.
They cause more power outages because they only generate electricity when it’s sunny or windy.
Our time is enormously valuable because our labor is multiplied through energy. Taking that multiplier away or even curtailing that multiplier effect significantly shrinks our labor output. We won’t be forcing farmers to use horses again to till their land, but we will need a lot more farmers and many other manual laborers if we take away fossil fuels. By taking away cheap energy, we are being taxed on our labor.
They’ve essentially imposed on developing countries the use of solar and wind, the least reliable, most expensive and most limited sources of energy.
As we go toward a Bitcoin standard, we get better incentives with respect to energy. First, more energy is explored and made viable through proof-of-work. Because bitcoin mining is a portable customer, energy development is more economical everywhere in the world. Traditionally, energy producers had to make sure there were enough customers first before building out energy facilities. Now, they don’t because Bitcoin mining will be a customer, provided the energy is cheap enough.
Bitcoin will remove the bad incentives and create good incentives for energy. That means a more productive work force through the multiplicative effects of energy use. I reject the charlatanism of wind and solar. I am an efficient energy maximalist.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @faithandcredit 16 May 2022
We have the climate change activists to thank for these fuel prices
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