How is Bitcoin a boon to renewables? Bitcoin consumes energy, and that energy is not being used for other things. Taxing one form of energy will just mean everything that uses energy becomes more expensive; Bitcoin fees would rise or mining operations would simply move to places without the tax.
The actual problem is that Bitcoin's incentive structure works against energy efficiency. Usually we would expect to see improvements in technology result in reductions in energy consumption. Instead, when a new hashing machine is built that computes the same number of hashes for less energy, the response from Bitcoin miners is to compute more hashes using the same amount of energy. That is what Bitcoin incentivizes, and that is why Bitcoin will always be an environmental catastrophe even if we only had renewable power sources (take a look at the environmental cost of producing a solar panel -- there is more to the environment than carbon emissions).
> How is Bitcoin a boon to renewables? Bitcoin consumes energy, and that energy is not being used for other things.
The utopian view is that not all energy is currently being used for other things. On grids with heavy penetration of renewables, peak production can overwhelm demand, causing bulk power to become effectively free.
In a suitably regulated environment, bitcoin or an equivalent could act as a last-resort user of such power. Doing so would provide a baseline demand for excess generation, effectively subsidizing renewable buildout.
This effect becomes stronger with carbon taxes, which would make non-renewable power comparatively much more expensive and effectively reduce bitcoining-demand from such sources relative to renewables.
However, the non-utopian view is that this possible arbitrage is global, not local. Through bad regulation, corrupt governments, or outright theft, miners somewhere on the planet can access power even more cheaply than from the excess renewables contemplated above.
...or we could work on better energy storage and distribution technologies and move away from "base load" approaches to power generation. I am also not seeing how Bitcoin, which consumes power regardless of whether or not there is any excess, helps in any way. Why do you think Bitcoin miners would shut their operations down during periods of high demand in any regulatory environment, other than one which specifically punishes Bitcoin miners (in which case, why should anyone think Bitcoin would continue to exist)? Bitcoin would just push up the floor on how much electricity must be supplied at any given time.
> or we could work on better energy storage and distribution technologies
That's a "both and" issue. An energy generator could hypothetically mine cryptocurrencies to buffer their excess-power periods right now with little capital investment, whereas developing new storage technology is an expensive and long-term problem.
> Why do you think Bitcoin miners would shut their operations down during periods of high demand in any regulatory environment
A non-criminal bitcoin miner (the argument applies to any other proof-of-work coin in the same way) will reduce their mining effort if the marginal cost of mining (the power bill) is larger than the reward from doing so (mining rewards plus transaction fees).
The problem then is one of value, but cryptocurrency valuations aren't fixed. If the price of bitcoin durably collapses for some reason, miners will turn off their rigs and the energy cost per coin will fall. (Note that I'm not a "bitcoin bull," but I also know better than to predict future prices with false confidence.)
It isn't, but it could be. If we had proper taxes on carbon emissions; The cheapest power would always be from renewables, bitcoin miners would invest in renewable energy which would make it cheaper in the long run as mass production scales with demand.
Energy efficiency is not important in carbon neutral energy production, and in fact can stifle development and raise prices making fossil fuels more attractive.
The actual problem is that Bitcoin's incentive structure works against energy efficiency. Usually we would expect to see improvements in technology result in reductions in energy consumption. Instead, when a new hashing machine is built that computes the same number of hashes for less energy, the response from Bitcoin miners is to compute more hashes using the same amount of energy. That is what Bitcoin incentivizes, and that is why Bitcoin will always be an environmental catastrophe even if we only had renewable power sources (take a look at the environmental cost of producing a solar panel -- there is more to the environment than carbon emissions).