Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Sparks

One of America’s Most Conservative Politicians Is a Crypto Skeptic Now

Don’t mess with Texas’ power demand.

Dan Patrick.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Load growth is becoming controversial in Texas, where its isolated, uniquely free market electricity system makes a sometimes awkward fit with the state’s distinctive right-wing politics. They crashed together Wednesday, when the state’s conservative Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who a few weeks ago was attending Donald Trump’s criminal trialin New York City, expressed skepticism of the state’s bitcoin mining industry and the prospect of more data centers coming to Texas.

Responding to “shocking” testimony from the head of ERCOT, which manages about 90% of Texas’s electricity grid, Patrick wrote on X, “We need to take a close look at those two industries [crypto and AI]. They produce very few jobs compared to the incredible demands they place on our grid. Crypto mining may actually make more money selling electricity back to the grid than from their crypto mining operations."

Texas has become a center of the crypto mining industry precisely because of how flexible and market-oriented the state’s grid is. Crypto miners in Texas can take advantage of ERCOT’s “demand response” programs, which pay large users of electricity to be willing to shut down when power is scarce and expensive on the grid, and have a relatively easy time getting onto the grid.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration has estimated that crypto mining makes up about 2% of the country’s electricity demand, and the industry’s power usage has come under scrutiny from politicians before, but typically from Democrats.

Riot Networks, a crypto miner based in Texas, has at times made dramatically more money from its interactions with the grid than by actually generating Bitcoin. Last August, when Texas was setting records for electricity demand, the company made $31.6 million from selling power back to the grid that it had previously bought for a prearranged price, or from incentive payments for being willing to power down in moments of peak demand, compared to $8.6 million from crypto mining. The result, the company’s chief executive said in a statement, “was a landmark month for Riot in showcasing the benefits of our unique power strategy.”

The miners have also been blamed for raising pricesfor Texas residents and businesses who can’t be as flexible with their power demand, as well as for the greenhouse gas emissions generated by their activity.

Patrick, oddly enough and almost certainly inadvertently, echoed an extensive 2013 New York Timesstory when he said that “Texans will ultimately pay the price” for high power demand from this crypto and data operations. “I’m more interested in building the grid to service customers in their homes, apartments, and normal businesses and keeping costs as low as possible for them instead of for very niche industries that have massive power demands and produce few jobs. We want data centers, but it can’t be the Wild Wild West of data centers and crypto miners crashing our grid and turning the lights off,” Patrick wrote.

(The New York Times: “Other major energy users, like factories and hospitals, cannot reduce their power use as routinely or dramatically without severe consequences,” and “other industries, including metals and plastics manufacturing, also require large amounts of electricity, causing pollution and raising power prices. But Bitcoin mines bring significantly fewer jobs.”)

At the same time, Trump has been making a concerted play for the crypto community, including miners. He has promised to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht, who operated The Silk Road, an online marketplace (for, among other things, illegal drugs) that used crypto. (He’s serving a life sentencefor narcotics distribution and a host of conspiracy charges.) On Wednesday, Trump posted to Truth Social, “Bitcoin mining may be our last line of defense against a CBDC,” a.k.a. a central bank digital currency. “Biden’s hatred of Bitcoin only helps China, Russia, and the Radical Communist Left. We want all the remaining Bitcoin to be MADE IN THE USA!!! It will help us be ENERGY DOMINANT!!!”

Trump in the past has sounded the Bitcoin skeptic, having tweeted in 2019, “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air. Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity....,” but has since seemed to have, for now, come around.

While Trump is making a concerted play to win over new constituencies for his election bid, Patrick was responding to testimony from the head of ERCOT that Texas’s power demand will grow faster than previously estimated, and that electricity supply may need to almost double in the next 10 years at the latest.

That will require substantial new supply. While Texas is leading the nationin installation of utility-scale solar and is the number one state for wind thanks to a combination of its large size, growing population and electricity demand, large sunny and windy areas,and a more light-touch approachto regulation and hooking up to the grid, it is also embracing state planning for its fossil energy sector. Texas has established a $5 billion fund to provide low-cost financing to developers of dispatchable power generatorsthat can be turned on and off at any time — largely natural gas.

Patrick had said earlier in a statement, “We must bring new dispatchablegeneration (primarily new natural gas plants) to Texas to ensure we maintain reliable power under any circumstance.”

Green

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Sparks

Rewiring America Slashes Staff Due to Trump Funding Freeze

The nonprofit laid off 36 employees, or 28% of its headcount.

Surprised outlets.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Trump administration’s funding freeze has hit the leading electrification nonprofit Rewiring America, which announced Thursday that it will be cutting its workforce by 28%, or 36 employees. In a letter to the team, the organization’s cofounder and CEO Ari Matusiak placed the blame squarely on the Trump administration’s attempts to claw back billions in funding allocated through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.

“The volatility we face is not something we created: it is being directed at us,” Matusiak wrote in his public letter to employees. Along with a group of four other housing, climate, and community organizations, collectively known as Power Forward Communities, Rewiring America was the recipient of a $2 billion GGRF grant last April to help decarbonize American homes.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Sparks

Sunrun Tells Investors That a Recession Could Be Just Fine, Actually

The company managed to put a positive spin on tariffs.

A house with solar panels.
Heatmap Illustration/Sunrun, Getty Images

The residential solar company Sunrun is, like much of the rest of the clean energy business, getting hit by tariffs. The company told investors in its first quarter earnings report Tuesday that about half its supply of solar modules comes from overseas, and thus is subject to import taxes. It’s trying to secure more modules domestically “as availability increases,” Sunrun said, but “costs are higher and availability limited near-term.”

“We do not directly import any solar equipment from China, although producers in China are important for various upstream components used by our suppliers,” Sunrun chief executive Mary Powell said on the call, indicating that having an entirely-China-free supply chain is likely impossible in the renewable energy industry.

Hardware makes up about a third of the company’s costs, according to Powell. “This cost will increase from tariffs,” she said, although some advance purchasing done before the end of last year will help mitigate that. All told, tariffs could lower the company’s cash generation by $100 million to $200 million, chief financial officer Danny Abajian said.

Keep reading...Show less
Green
Sparks

The Power Sector Loves Big Tech’s Billion-Dollar Data Center Plans

Meta and Microsoft both confirmed plans to invest heavily in AI infrastructure.

Meta headquarters.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Big Tech said this week that it’s going full steam ahead with building out data centers, and the power industry loves it. Since Microsoft and Meta reported their earnings for the beginning of the year on Wednesday, including announcements either reaffirming their guidance on capital expenditures or even increasing it, power sector stocks have jumped.

Shares of Vistra, which has a fleet of power plants including nuclear, natural gas, coal, and renewables, are up almost 7% in early afternoon trading. Constellation, one of the largest nuclear producers in the country, is up 8%. GE Vernova, which makes in-demand gas turbines, is up 4%. Chip designer Nvidia’s shares are up 4%.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow