> US is incredibly slow in building transmission lines, takes decades.
A lot of bitcoin miners use stranded power, which would otherwise go to waste. People often respond to me on HN that the power could be easily/cheaply sent elsewhere for better uses [0]. Comments like this just re-enforce the fact that these people have literally no idea what they are talking about. Thanks, I'll favorite this one. =)
If you know more than others, that's great—please share some of what you know, so the rest of us can learn. But please don't post putdowns or shame other people for being wrong. We're all mostly wrong about most everything, after all.
> A lot of bitcoin miners use stranded power, which would otherwise go to waste.
Often claimed, rarely supported by evidence or numbers.
It's also unlikely to be very practical, because that'd essentially mean running bitcoin miners in load-balancing mode, and not running them most of the time. Given that bitcoin hardware tends to loose value quickly, as the next generation of mining hardware comes to the market, this is unlikely to be a feasible model.
Update: I got downvoted for not posting them. I did in the link above though.
https://www.coinmint.one/ is the data center. They have about 500MW of power going to them from the Moses-Saunders dam.
They don't need to shut down cause it is hydro and 24/7. They actually help keep the dam running cause they balance the load coming from it. Just like the aluminum smelter before it did. The location of the facility and dam are near the border of Canada and the US. It is very remote and in the middle of nowhere with enough population to consume the 500MW. There are main grid lines going past them, but it would likely need new infrastructure to connect to it at that much power.
I've seen their power costs (including transmission), I can't post that, obviously. But, a large chunk of their costs, is transmission, which pays for the install and maintenance of the lines running the few miles from the dam. These are large / tall physical towers.
Disclosure: I'm a former very large scale bitcoin/litecoin/ethereum miner and now building an AI bare metal gpu service.
That's actually an interesting situation, but it doesn't support the assertion that the power would "otherwise go to waste" or that this is something a lot of bitcoin miners do. The argument that it's non-trivial to just transmit the power elsewhere is a persuasive one, the argument that bitcoin mining is somehow uniquely able to take advantage of that power is not as persuasive.
Even if the argument is that compute heavy data centers are the only use-case that makes sense, there's lots of compute use cases other than bitcoin. And obviously the former presence of the aluminum shelter suggests data centers are not the only good use-cases. I understand the appeal of the argument that bitcoin mining has less energy impact than people think because it can uniquely take advantage of weird edge cases, but it doesn't make sense to me.
You're trying to apply persuasive logic to something that doesn't need persuasive logic. It is what it is.
The fact that the smelter shut down and literally nobody picked it up and put it to use, speaks volumes. Heck, Alcoa was so desperate to unload it, they let those "dirty" bitcoin miners move in, over any other business potential.
Here is another one... the Quincy/Wenatchee area of WA state. Also sparsely populated, but more hydro power than anyone knows what to do with. This is where a huge number of data centers are, including bitcoin miners.
There is no law of nature that says that the pace of US infrastructure improvements should be like that. It's a matter of policy. The US has built impressive projects before at a staggering rate, and they could do so in the future. (currently China is doing the same but on a larger scale. It shows it is possible if you have the political will)
When people say that the power "could" be sent elsewhere, they are right, you just need to build the damn transmission lines. It's not rocket science.
> A lot of bitcoin miners use stranded power, which would otherwise go to waste.
A lot of bitcoin miners are keeping fossil fuel spewing power plants from being retired because the regulations that keep power affordable for Americans haven’t caught up. There’s a reason China killed bitcoin mining and the US needs to follow suit. Literally killing the planet for imaginary coins that don’t solve any problems that weren’t already solved. Well, besides the whole anonymous ransom thing.
> There’s a reason China killed bitcoin mining and the US needs to follow suit.
According to this data, China tried, but failed to kill bitcoin mining. As of the last update in Jan 2022, China currently has 55% of the hashrate it had before the ban. https://ccaf.io/cbnsi/cbeci/mining_map
Also, mining is a global industry. Banning it in one country is like grabbing a fist full of water. It just oozes out elsewhere. It looks like the China ban mostly oozed into the US and Kazakhstan, before rebounding back into China. The effective reduced total energy use from the China ban barely lasted 6 months before it surpassed previous levels.
This was the result of one of the strongest authoritarian surveillance states in the world. What makes you think anyone else can do better?
I believe that the US should work to end coal plants regardless of who is buying power from them.
Oh and I'm more of a fan of Ethereum. They've now moved to PoS, which consumes a fraction of the power, and there is actual utility on that chain. Moved my bitcoin to wbtc too, but looking forward to more decentralized versions of it eventually.
Bitcoin mining is a pioneer species, proving out the tapping of novel and remote energy sources and laying the initial infrastructure for more investment.
As much as I appreciate articles like this, you're not going to win over the HN crowd with them. Especially now that Ethereum has been so successful with PoS and decimating power usage, not just on that chain, but all GPU based PoW chains.
There was only ever going to be one PoW chain that dominates the world.
Ethereum abandoning it just cements bitcoin as the winner. It might have some great utility, but bitcoin is now the standard for immutability that all other solutions will be measured against.
> There was only ever going to be one PoW chain that dominates the world.
Only because there is only one chip that can be produced in mass, asic's.
> Ethereum abandoning it
Ethereum didn't abandon it, it was part of the plan all along. Bootstrap on PoW, move to PoS. I agree with you about immutability, but that is going to be an issue moving forward, as I believe strongly that human nature favors utility.
It would be more useful if that was the way that all (b)/(sh)itcoin miners operated. It is not like that here in Texas [0]. The state has even paid them multimillions of dollars to cut energy consumption during extreme weather periods. [1]
That money came straight from Texas citizens who gain nothing from the operations of these coin miners and who have already had to pay for the near collapse of the power grid back in Feb. 2021 which occurred because utilities are largely unregulated and can ignore requirements that they upgrade facilities or worse, just whine about the costs of bringing power generation plants into compliance with modern air quality standards like a bunch of rich spoiled toddlers. Many of these plants were grandfathered in when standards were established even though they would have been easy to upgrade at the time.
It is about time that the feds do what the Chinese did a few years ago and take a hard look at all the energy waste in shitcoin mining. [2]
In addition to energy consumption, this facility in Granbury, TX is already under fire for being a huge noise nuisance from the cooling fans that operate 24/7. [3]
I understand from your replies that you had a personal stake in shitcoin mining and you're pivoting to something else. Maybe for you the handwriting is on the wall.
If you're so upset at what happened in Texas, then you should speak up to your representatives there. To me, it sounds like a larger systemic issue than just Bitcoin mining.
> I understand from your replies that you had a personal stake in shitcoin mining and you're pivoting to something else. Maybe for you the handwriting is on the wall.
This feels like a personal attack, which as I understand it, is against the guidelines. But, to explain... I worked for businesses with stakes. I didn't have it myself. That would be like blaming someone who works for SpaceX, for Elon's bad takes.
It was not intended as a personal attack. It was an observation that you may have been involved in the industry long enough to sense that changes were coming in near future and that it might be a good time to think about other ways to earn an income.
As far as the Texas political situation goes, I do what I can. I'm only one vote and experience has demonstrated that when you contact one of your elected reps here, the best that you can hope for is that they forget to add your contact information to their list of Texas residents who might support the election or re-election of people just like them. I made the mistake once of correcting one of my reps during a community phone roundtable discussion and later followed up with an email. Since then I have been trying (with some success) to remove my contact info from their call and email lists. The simple fact that they spam your contact accounts from every state-wide and national candidate in spite of the fact that they should know that they will never have your support tells me that they are trying to discourage people who will vote against them from participating in the process. It won't work with me but it might with others.
This is as far off of the topic of solar panels in the Four Corners region as I think I need to go today. Good luck in your new ventures.
A lot of bitcoin miners use stranded power, which would otherwise go to waste. People often respond to me on HN that the power could be easily/cheaply sent elsewhere for better uses [0]. Comments like this just re-enforce the fact that these people have literally no idea what they are talking about. Thanks, I'll favorite this one. =)
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39317583