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How bitcoin drives cheap green energy production in Kenyawww.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2025/0401/bitcoin-mining-green-energy-africa
317 sats \ 3 comments \ @KenyaCoin 2 Apr bitcoin_Mining
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121 sats \ 2 replies \ @south_korea_ln 2 Apr
Pretty cool!
Though bitcoin is a volatile currency, some studies have shown that extra income from bitcoin mining can help renewable energy providers scale up. In Ethiopia, home to some of the cheapest green energy in the world, nearly a fifth of all electricity sold in the country last year went to bitcoin mining companies. The income will help develop the national grid.
But also...
Not all the signs are so promising, though.
Renewable energy will only really be able to replace fossil fuels when the technology exists to store and transport it. But energy companies selling to bitcoin miners next door do not have to find ways to store it, says Jona Stinner, a postdoctoral researcher at Witten/Herdecke University in Germany who studies the environmental impact of bitcoin mining. So there is no incentive to develop novel storage facilities.
It is “not very helpful for the long-term green transformation,” Mr. Stinner says.
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141 sats \ 1 reply \ @KenyaCoin OP 3 Apr
But they are getting revenue they likely otherwise would not have gotten, and that revenue generally has mostly profit as marginal expense on the revenue is minimal. That could help subsidize R&D or production systems that expand their green energy footprint. Or not, who knows. Bitcoin mining doesn't exist to serve the green energy industry.
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @south_korea_ln 3 Apr
I agree with you.
Bitcoin mining doesn't exist to serve the green energy industry.
Very true. It's just that the green industry argument sometimes gets abused by the likes of Daniel Batten who don't add the necessary nuance to the discussion on the possible benefits of bitcoin mining.
You, and the article's writer, do add this nuance.
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