[HN Gopher] Markets in Power
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       Markets in Power
        
       Author : BOOSTERHIDROGEN
       Score  : 45 points
       Date   : 2022-10-01 06:24 UTC (16 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (bam.kalzumeus.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (bam.kalzumeus.com)
        
       | metadat wrote:
       | So many good insights in this article. I haven't encountered such
       | coherent language covering the macro forces driving the Bitcoin
       | mining scene until now.
       | 
       | > Bitcoin miners are in the business of bidding electronics
       | depreciation and electricity consumption against each other to
       | win a tournament in generating random numbers with mystical
       | properties. From this tournament arises a mediocre transaction
       | processing network and a speculative asset. You get more of the
       | speculative asset if you're the global highest bidder in
       | electricity used in generating random numbers and, hence, the
       | huge overlap in professional Bitcoin miners and people with deep
       | expertise in quirks of the power generation market.
        
         | evronm wrote:
         | Yeah, I was really impressed with that paragraph. He's being
         | kind of unfair to bitcoin, but put in context, that description
         | is spot on.
        
       | shostack wrote:
       | Great read. This had distinct "Connections" series vibes.
        
       | iambateman wrote:
       | This article was fascinating - At least in large part due to
       | patio11's entertaining style.
       | 
       | I have always wondered how it's possible to have such regular
       | power, when it seems like such a challenging problem to solve.
       | 
       | Lastly...if you ever get a chance to support nuclear power in
       | your community, please do. it's safe.
        
         | megaman821 wrote:
         | I don't think nuclear's problem is safety. If it was cheap it
         | would be built anyway. Do you think most people think the
         | thick, black plumes of smoke coming out of a coal plant are
         | safe? No, but at the time coal was cheap power and we build a
         | lot of coal plants.
        
           | WJW wrote:
           | Nuclear power has at least three problems:
           | 
           | - It has historically been associated with nuclear weaponry,
           | giving it an unsafe imago. Chernobyl and related incidents
           | didn't help, and remediation of nuclear incidents is much
           | more difficult than something like the aftermath of a coal
           | pile fire.
           | 
           | - It was not really cheaper than fossil fuels for much of its
           | life, and it is not cheaper than renewables now.
           | 
           | - Not many countries have the capability to build nuclear
           | power plants, which means they need assistance from abroad.
           | This creates unwanted dependencies. As a simple example, I
           | bet Finland is not very happy about its Russian-built nuclear
           | power plants right now.
        
             | gryn wrote:
             | there's also the political side of things:
             | 
             | - countries having nuclear not wanting developing countries
             | to have nuclear energy that act as a gateway to developing
             | nuclear weapons over time.(I think this was the case for
             | iran, not sure)
             | 
             | - in case of conflicts/wars a nuclear site blowing up is a
             | much bigger deal than a coal plant or wind farm blowing up.
             | 
             | renewable energy doesn't have these problems.
        
       | ZeroGravitas wrote:
       | People get a little bit hysterical about demand response.
       | 
       | It's just a cheap and sensible thing to do. But since fossil fuel
       | interests need to create that continuing narrative of chaos and
       | collapse, doing the cheap and sensible thing is treated like one
       | of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
       | 
       | The rest of the article touches on why the peakiest peaks are
       | expensive. But still, sending a text message to offer a financial
       | incentive to do something trivial to help avoid an inefficient
       | waste of resources, is a sign that civilization is on the verge
       | of collapse, rather than a boring cost optimisation.
        
       | sideway wrote:
       | Such an insightful article.
       | 
       | I'm really curious how one acquires the knowledge and develops
       | the skills needed to write so eloquently about a deeply
       | complicated topic. What does patio11 read, who are the people he
       | interacts with, what helped him nurture his exploratory traits,
       | how does he structure new knowledge. It's all a fascinating
       | mystery to me.
        
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