In a recent webinar, the Energy Information Administration outlined their future plans to collect data on Bitcoin mining operations located in the United States. agreement was reached The previous emergency survey must cease on the 1st March of this year and the records from the last operation should be destroyed.
It was clarified by the Federal Registrar that there is no ongoing survey on their website or in progress at the moment. They held a webinar to solicit feedback from participants of the ecosystem and members of public about the type of information that they can collect.
The two main challenges that they faced in trying to get a better picture of Bitcoin mining activity in the United States was the inability to identify mining operations in areas where electricity is cheaper, and the fact that mining operations can quickly relocate in order to take advantage of lower prices.
They plan to start a survey this year or possibly this quarter. The survey will be structured based on any input from industry members and the general public.
The webinar was attended by a number of members of the industry, including Thomas Mapes (Digital Energy Council), Michael Postupak (Blockchain Association), Margot Pez (Bitcoin Policy Institute, Georgia Tech), Jayden Browder from Marathon Digital Holdings Inc., Lee Bratcher (Texas Blockchain Council), and many others.
All speakers agreed that Bitcoin Mining can have a positive effect on energy infrastructure. This is especially true when it comes to demand response programs, which help consumers free up power during high-demand periods.
Lee Bratcher brought up specifically the question of Bitcoin miners receiving a special survey that was only for them. He also suggested expanding the survey in order to include data centers as a whole, separating data centres that were inflexible, which must be powered on all the time, from data centers with flexibility, that could dynamically turn off in response to consumer or grid operator needs.
Jayson Browder echoed this sentiment, stating that mining operators were hesitant and skeptical about the reason for the survey’s targeting of them.
Dennis Heidner raised his concern as a webinar participant that capital investments could actually discourage miners from shutting down operations in times of high demand. The EIA was asked to take this into consideration when structuring their future surveys, as miners must still work hard to recoup the hardware investment and shutting down operations will result in a loss of revenues during that period.
Margot Paez proposed that Georgia Tech partner with Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory where researchers are located. Arman Shehabi is currently conducting research AI and energy consumption in data centers. She argued that the EIA was already collecting the data they were looking for in the surveys. Given the connections she had developed with the mining industry and how datacenter energy consumption was relevant to their general concerns about Bitcoin mining this partnership would combine existing research and address EIA needs.
The EIA would still have a clear view of what is happening in the space without having to compromise the privacy.
In general, the webinar shows a rethinking by the EIA in regards to the data collection for Bitcoin mining operations within the United States. In the aftermath of the emergency report being rejected in court, it appears that they are open to moving towards a collaborative approach with industry participants to obtain an accurate picture of power usage for policymakers to make decisions based on.
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Source: bitcoinmagazine.com
