Hertz-Shargel: Bitcoin mining raises Texas power bills by $1.8B annually
Ben Hertz-Shargel · The great Bitcoin energy debate · May 11, 2023 · at 17:33
Ben Hertz-Shargel of Wood Mackenzie discusses findings from their power grid modeling study on the wholesale and retail rate impacts of Bitcoin mining in Texas (ERCOT).
0:00 / 0:22exact quote · 22.2s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“So collectively, it's 1.8 billion conservatively per year. And that's sort of a run rate, I would say. And that represents around a five percent increase in costs of Texans, of, you know non-Bitcoin mining consumers. And that, that's across all the different subsets. That's not just retail, but that's retail and commercial and industrial.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Ben Hertz-Shargel
WattTime finds 85% of Bitcoin mining load is powered by fossil fuels
“And so Watt Time, that is the general methodology that they use. They found that 85% of incremental load from Bitcoin mining comes from coal and natural gas plants.”
Hertz-Shargel: Siting Bitcoin mines beside existing renewables merely displaces clean power
“The reality is that The total number, the total amount of load on the system has grown, and therefore all you've done is displaced other customers who would be served by that renewable generation. So it's, and so your number of pigeons has grown, and so you kn…”
Hertz-Shargel: Many Bitcoin miners run even at $4,000/MWh power prices
“Some miners do have a price threshold which empirically is between 103 hundred dollars per megawatt hour but many have basically no threshold, and they will continue running up even into the thousands, up to 4000 dollars per per megawatt hour.”
Hertz-Shargel: Grid power resale by Bitcoin miners creates no public good
“But really, the way to view this is, this was a generation that was sitting there that they were otherwise consuming. They are just refraining from consuming it at these, during these periods. So you can't credit them for, Again, for a good, you can only credi…”
Hertz-Shargel: Major Bitcoin mines are not signing offtake PPAs with new renewables
“So they are not signing new PPAs with new wind to as off takers to kind of make these plans happen. They're signing PPAs with retailers and utilities mostly conventional types of deals, such as being put on base interruptible rates. So, you know, it provides d…”
Hertz-Shargel: Bitcoin Miners Restart Defunct NY Fossil Plants
“They also chase defunct oil and gas plants because those can be sort of rehydrated and turned on and used directly for mining. And so that has happened a lot, especially in New York, these sort of mothballed plants that are able to be turned on and run Pretty …”