Crypto boom hits Texas. Is the grid ready?

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Oct 13, 2022 View in browser   By Arianna Skibell Presented by In anticipation of record high demand, service technicians work to prepare the grid in Houston. | Brandon Bell/Getty Images Within a year, Texas crypto miners could be using more power than the city of Houston. The state's cheap energy and lax regulations have quickly made it the nation's bitcoin capital. That's fueling concerns the boom could further imperil Texas' fragile grid and exacerbate planet-warming pollution. Mining cryptocurrency is an energy-intensive process. Computers "mine" bitcoin and some other types of digital currency by solving complex puzzles around the clock. After China banned the practice earlier this year, miners began flocking to Texas, which by some estimates is now home to a quarter of all U.S. digital coin mining operations. Gov. Greg Abbott has embraced the influx as a way to drive investment in increased power generation. But the magnitude of potential climate damage is prompting the White House to consider ways to crack down on producers of energy-intensive digital assets. A recent study in Scientific Reports found that mining bitcoin is as energy-intensive as beef production or burning gasoline, and causes comparable climate-related damage when taken as a proportion of market value. During this summer's record-breaking heat wave, energy demand in Texas topped 80 gigawatts for the first time ever, prompting the grid operator to urge conservation. The crypto industry says it can quickly reduce its power consumption when the grid is stressed — and did so when energy demand peaked in July. But critics have raised concern that crypto miners were given hefty subsidies for curtailing use, which helped the industry avoid higher electricity prices. And on Wednesday, seven Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to Texas' main grid operator expressing concern over the anticipated strain on the grid.   It's Thursday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO's Power Switch. I'm your host, Arianna Skibell. Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind  E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to askibell@eenews.net.   A message from the PAGE Coalition: Replacing foreign coal with U.S. LNG will reduce emissions. Join here.   Listen to today's POLITICO Energy podcast Today in POLITICO Energy's podcast: Ben Lefebvre breaks down the three-way Montana race for a House seat and why former Trump Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who departed the administration under a cloud of ethics scandals, is in what observers call a surprisingly tight contest. This Is Climate Change Low water levels caused by drought and a late-season heat wave killed tens of thousands of salmon in a single Canadian creek before they could spawn. The die-off of mostly pink and some chum salmon could devastate local people reliant on the fish as well as the wider ecosystem. Power Centers A home in Fort Myers Beach, Fla., after Hurricane Ian swept through. | Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo Hurricane Ian A decade ago, Florida lawmakers effectively killed the state's ability to check urban sprawl by passing a law called the 2011 Community Planning Act, setting the stage for rampant growth in communities that just got wiped out by Hurricane Ian, writes Daniel Cusick. The law, passed by a Republican-controlled Legislature with support from then-Gov. Rick Scott, rolled back much of Florida's 1985 Growth Management Act, which helped the state avoid unplanned, unwise development. Clean power tussle An electricity market in the Southeast aimed at supporting clean electricity and lowering costs is set to launch next month, despite a pending lawsuit and disagreement over the program's design, writes Miranda Willson. Proposed last year by some of the largest utilities in the South, the Southeast Energy Exchange Market is a first-of-its-kind electricity trading program that would affect customers in 12 states. Winter is coming Germany has declassified a top-secret energy security assessment, which, only four months before Russia's war began, found that energy supplies "won't be jeopardized" by increased dependency on Russian gas, writes Hans von der Burchard. The 2021 assessment also dismissed growing concern that the Nord Stream 2 undersea pipeline designed to carry natural gas directly from Russia to northern Germany would increase the risk of energy blackmail by Russian President Vladimir Putin. In Other News A family playing in Lake Mead's receding water levels at Boulder Beach in Nevada. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Drought: The Lake Mead water crisis is exposing volcanic rock from eruptions 12 million years ago. Losing ground: How one New Orleans community is sinking.   A message from the PAGE Coalition:   Subscriber Zone A showcase of some of our best subscriber content. Icebergs are seen from NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland research aircraft. | Mario Tama/Getty Images Rising air temperatures are working with warm ocean waters to speed the melting of Greenland's seaside glaciers — like the process of stirring ice cubes in a glass of water. The raft of scandals that chased former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke from Donald Trump's Cabinet is proving a surprising drag on his House campaign in Montana. The Energy Department launched a $32 million program to deploy technologies for extracting critical minerals from coal and coal byproducts. That's it for today, folks! Thanks for reading.   A message from the PAGE Coalition: Exporting U.S. liquefied natural gas, which produces 50% fewer emissions than foreign coal, can dramatically reduce global emissions. Support LNG exports.     Follow us on Twitter Arianna Skibell @ariannaskibell   Follow us

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