What Will We Do With Our Free Power?
Title taken from the article version of this newsletter; posting the newsletter version because that has no paywall.
https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F68356a7b-c0b4-5673-9e07-d429ac0c3c23Open linkView original on slrpnk.net
Desalination? As an uneducated guess
Ooh, another good option!
The problem is that electricity will be free intermittently. This means it's going to require finding ways to use it that are not capital-intensive.
There are plenty of things we could do with excess power. Green hydrogen production and electrochemical carbon fixation spring to mind.
Realistically, bros will use it to mine bitcoin.
At one point hopefully it gets banned.
No need to ban it just jail the manipulators.
That too :)
One day someone will build an entire Dyson Sphere... just to mine Bitcoin.
For sure. The challenge is that there's a cost of capital, and intermittently available excess power is difficult to use cost-effectively with anything like current technology.