Bitcoin mining has been in an awkward state for nearly a year now, due to high electricity costs combined with a lackluster Bitcoin value. Mining Bitcoin requires a certain base value of BTC for most miners, and even those who can keep mining costs low in general, need to find alternative solutions. Renewable energy can play an important role in the Bitcoin mining business over the next few years.
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Is Renewable Energy A Viable Solution?
It is no secret how the generation of electricity is slowly starting to drain the planet’s resources. Renewable energy sources are becoming more and more popular, although setting up the wind- and water-based energy solutions is still a costly manner. But a recent report by Stanford researcher Mark Jacobson might change the way we think about renewable energy.
Turning the entire United States into a 100% renewable energy grid – without relying on batteries- would not be an easy feat. Using wind turbines sounds like a valid idea on paper, yet the amount of machines needed would make hurricanes look like a minor breeze stroking your hair. Messing with Mother Earth’s ecosystem is not always a good thing, but that doesn’t mean there are no solutions.
One of the main things to take into consideration is creating a stable grid to ensure all of the intermittent generators are up and running at optimal capacity on a 24/7 basis. Instead of looking at traditional solutions like fossil fuel or nuclear solutions, a combination of heat storage and hydrogen production would be sufficient to pull off this effort.
Unlike what most people would assume, the generation of heat is quite important for electrical storage, and “banking” additional energy resources is of great value to our society for the generations to come. Also, hydropower would act as an additional form of stored power, rather than just being a baseline power source.
As utopian as these ideas sound, they are quite feasible in the long run, assuming things start to change sooner rather than later. Especially the concept of long-distance transmissions of electricity would have to be improved. On top of that, there would be a ton of new jobs waiting to be created in the build-out of renewable power sources.
All of this can be achieved by 2050, and the fully renewable grid would become a superior economic model compared to the system being used today. However, analysts strongly feel the whole idea is not realistic by any means. At the same time, there are still a lot of interesting bits of information to keep in mind from this analysis.
The Role and Future of Bitcoin Mining
One of the many worrying things about Bitcoin mining is how the machines used to perform this task can generate quite a bit of heat. While some people use this heat to warm their houses in the winter, most of the energy generated is going to waste.Finding a way to harness that heat could be beneficial to the future of our planet, while putting Bitcoin mining a positive spotlight.
But the biggest downside of Bitcoin mining is the sheer amount of electricity it requires. Mining at home has become all but impossible, except for residents of a handful of countries. Cheaper electricity solutions are beneficial to all of us, including Bitcoin miners. If the heat generated by this process could be given back to society for additional renewable energy, an interesting vicious circle could be created.
Source: Pnas
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