Episode 51

The Angry Clean Energy Guy

I’ve had it with the bashing of bitcoin, the blockchain and crypto miners for their energy usage. This is all, in one word, noise and should be ignored. 250 million people already think bitcoin is useful. In addition, the world consumes approximately 160,000 TWh / year of energy and wastes, along the way, at least one-third. What bitcoin consumes is 0.07% of that energy and 0.002% of what we waste. Most importantly, the disruption of information technology created by bits is an excellent preview of what electrons are in the process of doing, once increasingly massive amounts of excess energy compared to existing electricity demand, at near-zero marginal cost, are delivered: Entirely new business models and applications will emerge, alongside the electrification of everything. We can already see the harbinger of the electron abundance era in the increasing electrification of cars, scooters and buses as well as heating for example, and this will extend to multiple other sectors such water treatment, green cement and green steel, waste processing and many others. Bitcoin miners are just the vanguard.