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0 pointspostmeta5y ago0 comments

More like, it adds another use for solar energy surplus besides storing in a battery or selling back to the grid.

https://wintonark.medium.com/bitcoin-mining-impact-on-renewa...

https://github.com/ARKInvest/SolarBatteryBitcoin

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4 comments · 2 top-level

danans5y ago· 2 in thread

If the problem supposedly being addressed is surplus renewable supply, a far better and more broadly relevant use would be heating domestic hot water, which would simultaneously displace natural gas usage for that purpose.

About 15% of US household natural gas usage is for domestic hot water heating. That adds up to a lot of CO2.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37433

Edit: corrected percentage and added reference.

sudosysgen5y ago

I've always thought municipal hot water systems are a good idea. Maybe warming water in buffer tanks to supply to homes for hot water and heating writ large a few hours or days later is a feasible buffer?

danans5y ago

Municipal hot water systems would suffer from significant heat losses in the piping between the heating plant and the houses, not to mention the huge infrastructure expense of running an extra set of hot water lines throughout a municipality.

What I was describing is more along the lines of dispatchable electric heat pump water heaters in houses. These type of water heaters are already available today, and we should be replacing every natural gas water heater with them.

Dylan168075y ago

That's a really large fraction of money going to the mining hardware, despite the model already using high electricity prices. That makes me worry the economics wouldn't be stable enough.

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