[HN] Texas paid Bitcoin miner more than $31M to cut energy usage
[HN] Texas paid Bitcoin miner more than $31M to cut energy usage
To ease load on aging grid, state program offers energy credits to bitcoin miners to curtail their power consumption.
[ comments | sourced from HackerNews ]
This is the best summary I could come up with:
As a bitcoin mining enterprise, Riot Platforms runs thousands of computers in the energy-guzzling pursuit of minting digital currency.
Texas' power grid has faced growing demand from consumers and businesses in recent years as climate change leads to more extreme weather.
In 2021, residents faced a blackout when a snowstorm knocked out coal and gas facilities, nuclear plants, and wind turbines.
On Wednesday, Texas officials declared an emergency as sky-high temperatures again threatened to trigger rolling blackouts across the state.
Residents of Navarro County, Texas, started a petition last year opposing a bitcoin mining facility in their area.
For now, the credits are a boon for Riot and other bitcoin miners whose profits have dried up during a cryptocurrency market downturn deepened by the collapse of exchange FTX last fall.
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