I have a question that I was wondering, that unfortunately didn't gain much traction in /r/bitcoin. Perhaps some LTB'ers would like to chime in :]
Solar provides electricity, but without VARs that are produced in locomotive machinery at power plants. VARs are crucial to running devices such as computers to appliances such as water heaters in households.
Solar power introduces volatility to the grid, which is costly because ramping up and down power plant damages equipment quicker than not. Is there a way to keep power plants baseloaded outputting constant MW, where the extraneous power is used towards supporting crypto? I can think of a couple:
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Use the extraneous power to mine Bitcoin. A very rough example is a power plant running at near capacity of 1000 MW. If peak daily demand is at 800 MW, anywhere between 200 MW - 1000 MW of extraneous power can be used. The big question here is this sort of centralized mining acceptably safe for Bitcoin's network? If one power plant does this? If a fraction of the world's power plants do this?
- Use the extraneous power to support a separate, power plant blockchain. This will closely resemble that of a DAC, but even here it's hard to foresee what the utility can commoditize to recuperate the costs of making electricity (fuel).
Links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volt-ampere_reactive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load_power_plant [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_following_power_plant ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_following_power_plant ) http://www.powermag.com/make-your-plant-ready-for-cycling-operations/
TLDR: Alternative, decentralized energy introduces high volatity to the power grid that current power utilties are having a difficult time supporting to scale. Currently, support involves remodifying current and/or buying new infrastructure (like combustion turbines to replace steam turbines) that costs a lot. Is there a way for power plants to generate near constant power and use the deficit from the grid's demand in a decentralized model? Or are power plants and alternative energy sources at odds in a zero sum game?
