Bitcoin Miners help the Texas power grid during Winter Storm Landon. Covered:  Texas Suffering, Bitcoin Helping Why Bitcoin Can Fix Texas Energy Needs Texas Suffering, Bitcoin Helping Texas has become the Bitcoin hub of America. The energy-rich Lone-Star state has welcomed miners with open arms, and now the miners are doing their part to give […] The post Bitcoin Miners Help Stabilize Texas Grid Through Bitter ‘Cold Snap’ appeared first on CryptosRus.

Bitcoin Miners Help Stabilize Texas Grid Through Bitter ‘Cold Snap’

Bitcoin Miners help the Texas power grid during Winter Storm Landon.

Covered: 

  • Texas Suffering, Bitcoin Helping
  • Why Bitcoin Can Fix Texas Energy Needs

Texas Suffering, Bitcoin Helping

Texas has become the Bitcoin hub of America. The energy-rich Lone-Star state has welcomed miners with open arms, and now the miners are doing their part to give a little back. Texas is suffering through a bitter cold snap caused by winter storm Landon. The miners shut down operations to assist the power grid predicted to be strained by the storm.

Texas suffered a similar event last year. Storm Uri last year “left more than 4-million people without power in subfreezing temperatures.” Over 700 people actually died from the outages. Texas Governor Greg Abbott warned this could happen again and is taking measures to prevent another calamity. “No one can guarantee that there won’t be a load shed event,” Abbott said. He was referring to the potential of rolling blackouts.

As of now, the outages have come to a halt, but on Thursday, things were looking worse with flights grounded as 50,000+ outages hit North Texas. The bitcoin miners took action in response to this. According to Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council, “all of the industrial scale Bitcoin miners in the state have already shut down, which should push a significant amount of power back into the grid.”

They even went as far as to promise to “create additional capacity in response to ERCOT [Electric Reliability Council of Texas] needs if needed.” Riot Blockchain was the first to make the move, shutting down “99 percent of operations at one of its data centers in Rockdale.” Other then followed suit.

Recommended: The Fundamental Problem With Bitcoin’s ASIC Mining

Why Bitcoin Can Fix Texas Energy Needs

Texas is an anomaly in the way they handle their energy needs. They use a grid that is wholly separate from the rest of the country. “Texas operates a deregulated market in which utility companies bid for service by offering the lowest rate.” This means that the state is “on it’s own” to upkeep its own power grid. Sovereignty that is in line with Bitcoiner ideals and thus places a large responsibility on the industrial miners.

The system works in such a way that miners sell their power back into the grid “to cover some of their losses for turning off.” For Texas, the miners are like having a spare generator on standby. “Because mining is flexible load, it makes grids more resilient by funding extra generation in normal times, then yielding that generation in a crisis when the price is high.” Bitcoin expert Nic Carter has been one elucidating this fact strongly.

Even Vice News admitted, “the state’s Wild West crypto endeavors can solve long-standing issues with the grid, despite skepticism from environmentalists who see mining as a consumptive use of energy rather than a generator.” In this deregulated environment, Bitcoin miners become a critical, efficient component arguably more effective than in publicly managed scenarios.

We tip our hats to bitcoin miners in Texas and wish the state a safe winter.

credit: bbc: why china’s bitcoin miners are moving to texas

Recommended: What Marathon’s Crazy High Hash Rate Projection Means For Bitcoin In 2022

The post Bitcoin Miners Help Stabilize Texas Grid Through Bitter ‘Cold Snap’ appeared first on CryptosRus.