Or so they say:
As a blistering heat wave smothered Texas this week and taxed the power grid with record-high demand, bitcoin mining operators in the state shut down their electricity-guzzling machines.
Complying with requests from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas — the grid operator that asked businesses and residents to voluntarily conserve electricity during the heat wave — nearly all industrial-scale mining in the state reportedly powered down, according to the Texas Blockchain Council, an industry association.
Cryptocurrency mining requires huge amounts of electricity, prompting concerns not only around whether Texas’s beleaguered grid can keep up with skyrocketing demand as more miners are expected to flock to the state, but also over the industry’s broader potential environmental impact.
“There are over 1,000 megawatts worth of bitcoin mining load that responded to ERCOT’s conservation request by turning off their machines to conserve energy for the grid,” Lee Bratcher, president of Texas Blockchain Council, told Bloomberg News in an email.
Of course, an industry that is melting down before everyone’s eyes and taking millions of people’s life savings in those losses. has no reason at all right now to lie in ways that will take attention away from those facts.
Reporters today are often such shitheads. They “fact check” doctors who says a 10-year-old had to go to Indiana for an abortion, but take the word of an entire shady industry as gospel when they say they are helping the environment and energy loads.
And what’s even worse?
The WaPo reporter in question never once mentioned in her article that crypto was in a freefall. I think that might have something to do with the fact that those guys are willing to cut back.
Anyway, you can read the rest here.