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Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]

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Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]

#21
post #9

Didn't watch the video, but a quick point on how the energy efficiency of this works out: Electric heaters are 100% efficient at turning electrical energy into heat. All the energy they take in, that's where it goes. Bitcoin mining (and computers in general) are basically in the same boat. There's some ancillary energy use for blowing air around or shining lights or making sound waves, but for the most part the elect…

To be fair a heat pump probably wouldn’t work in Siberia with such low temperatures. Most heat pumps are no good below 20f.

That's true, I'm speaking more generally about bitcoin mining for heat, but it may make more sense in Siberia if electric heaters are the dominant heating method.

There are other reasons electrical heating isn't great, heat pumps aside. An average coal plant (in the US in 2015, I'm using EIA numbers) was about 34% efficient in turning the energy in coal into electricity. Then you lose about 5% of that in transmission, so from the heat released by burning coal you're only getting 32% of that as electricity at your house. Converting 100% of that into heat is pretty unimpressive in the big picture, you'd get 3x more heat by buying some coal and setting it on fire.

Obviously you can't do that, but a high efficiency gas-fired furnace will get 90%-98% of the combustion heat into your ducts, with the much smaller remainder going up the chimney. Unless you're on solar power (or some other renewable), burning fossil fuels on-site does better than resistive electric heating.

Of course that may also not apply to Siberia. If the ground is frozen all the time it's harder to run gas lines compared to putting in an electric grid. Mostly I'm trying to dissuade anyone in most of the US from stocking up on mining machines thinking it'll be a great heating system.

Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]

#22

Didn't watch the video, but a quick point on how the energy efficiency of this works out: Electric heaters are 100% efficient at turning electrical energy into heat. All the energy they take in, that's where it goes. Bitcoin mining (and computers in general) are basically in the same boat. There's some ancillary energy use for blowing air around or shining lights or making sound waves, but for the most part the elect…

>There's some ancillary energy use for blowing air around or shining lights or making sound waves

I believe this isn't really an exception, this energy would also just be converted to heat?

Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]

#23

Of course, it would be cool if Bitcoin didn't require throwaway computation. Then we could use this computation for something that's actually valuable, like protein folding, or something, and still make use of the waste heat.

>it would be cool if Bitcoin didn't require throwaway computation Sure, but that's a technology that does not exist. If you can figure out how to create a blockchain-like concept, where the 'proof of work' actually contributes to humanity, you have invented the next big thing. Edit: Reading the comments below me, it looks like this is a space that is being actively explored. Exciting!

There are some coins that do something like this, primecoin's proof of work has to do with primes.

> The innovative prime proof-of-work in Primecoin not only provides security and minting to the network, but also generates a special form of prime number chains of interest to mathematical research. Thus primecoin network is energy-multiuse, compared to bitcoin.

This is of course very basic, but still, it's interesting.

http://primecoin.io/

Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]

#24

Didn't watch the video, but a quick point on how the energy efficiency of this works out: Electric heaters are 100% efficient at turning electrical energy into heat. All the energy they take in, that's where it goes. Bitcoin mining (and computers in general) are basically in the same boat. There's some ancillary energy use for blowing air around or shining lights or making sound waves, but for the most part the elect…

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]

#25

Of course, it would be cool if Bitcoin didn't require throwaway computation. Then we could use this computation for something that's actually valuable, like protein folding, or something, and still make use of the waste heat.

Isn't that the premise of Ethereum?

It's not. It still uses proof of work, for now at least. They say they want to implement proof of stake. THAT will be interesting, but I want to see if they ever get there.

Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]

#26

Didn't watch the video, but a quick point on how the energy efficiency of this works out: Electric heaters are 100% efficient at turning electrical energy into heat. All the energy they take in, that's where it goes. Bitcoin mining (and computers in general) are basically in the same boat. There's some ancillary energy use for blowing air around or shining lights or making sound waves, but for the most part the elect…

>heat pumps are (effectively) more than 100% efficient The CoP of a heat pump is greatly dependent on the difference in temperature potential of the source and sink. If it's extremely cold outside, it's very hard to pump heat from colder air into a house. When the temperature potential between the two reservoirs is equal, sure the CoP beats out electric heating but when it's high (When your house is warm and the outs…

Very true for air source heat pumps. Ground source is still an option for colder areas, but that's a much more involved installation.

Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]

#27

Of course, it would be cool if Bitcoin didn't require throwaway computation. Then we could use this computation for something that's actually valuable, like protein folding, or something, and still make use of the waste heat.

That "throwaway" computation ensures the integrity & correctness of the blockchain, all while confirming new transactions.

Funny you're getting down-voted. This is quite literally a true statement.

Then the only point of contention is whether the benefit of this secure network existing and what it gives the world outweighs the cost of the resources consumed.

I believe it is, by a large amount.

Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]

#28

Didn't watch the video, but a quick point on how the energy efficiency of this works out: Electric heaters are 100% efficient at turning electrical energy into heat. All the energy they take in, that's where it goes. Bitcoin mining (and computers in general) are basically in the same boat. There's some ancillary energy use for blowing air around or shining lights or making sound waves, but for the most part the elect…

>There's some ancillary energy use for blowing air around or shining lights or making sound waves I believe this isn't really an exception, this energy would also just be converted to heat?

Agree.

Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]

#29

Didn't watch the video, but a quick point on how the energy efficiency of this works out: Electric heaters are 100% efficient at turning electrical energy into heat. All the energy they take in, that's where it goes. Bitcoin mining (and computers in general) are basically in the same boat. There's some ancillary energy use for blowing air around or shining lights or making sound waves, but for the most part the elect…

>There's some ancillary energy use for blowing air around or shining lights or making sound waves I believe this isn't really an exception, this energy would also just be converted to heat?

At some point, yes, but if the sound is audible outside your house or the light shines out the window then it didn't turn into heat where you wanted it to.

So not 100% of that sound or light will be an exception, but some of it might.

Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]

#30
post #2

How much are they paying for power?

In Siberia power is paying for you! Seriously though in Irkutsk electricity is about 0.017usd per kilowatt/hour

For comparison, PG&E E1 baseline for California is currently $0.19979/kWh. As in, 12x more. God help you if you wander from baseline.

https://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-1.pdf

Even using a time-of-use plan like E6 (which they don't allow any more), off-peak is $0.16728/kWh in the summer, and peak summer is $0.35933/kWh. The ETOU-A and ETOU-B plans they're pushing people toward bottom out at $0.17279/kWh winter off-peak, up to $0.36335/kWh. Again, all baseline figures. Electric Vehicles and over-baseline (read: mining) will punish you to death.

https://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-TOU.pdf

In those rate plans, PG&E apparently spends more on transmission alone than Siberian customers entirely pay for service. Also, good luck explaining the plan structure to someone; it took me 20 minutes of edits just to put this comment together coherently.

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