The share of Bitcoin
Batten highlights more than just the rise in clean power use. The mining industry is helping renewable energy projects move forward by taking on power from green sources that are otherwise stuck in connection delays of ten to fifteen years.
As a result, the payback periods for those developments drop from 8 years to about 3.5 years.
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Mining operations offer a demand source that adjusts quickly and boosts confidence for grid operators to add more solar and wind capacity.
It also brings electricity to isolated regions. Through a project called “Gridless Compute”, miners deliver power to 8,000 homes across Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia.
Currently, foundational energy sources for heating rely on fossil fuels. Bitcoin mining offers a cleaner substitute by using its waste heat. For example, a mining firm, MARA, employs this heat to warm 80,000 residents in Finland, about 2% of the country’s population.
Batten said:
The combined impact of carbon-negative Bitcoin mining is that mitigation has already reached 7% of the Bitcoin network’s emissions.
He noted that mining can provide new funding options for renewable energy research. It has also helped revive outdated technologies such as OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion) by making them financially viable without expensive grid connections.
Recently, Batten addressed several common misconceptions about Bitcoin mining’s energy use. What did he say? Read the full story.
