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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]

#111

Post by exDM69 »

mrfusion wrote: post #9
wlesieutre wrote: post #3

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.

Heat pumps would still work most of the year, even in Siberia. Different models have different operating ranges. I have 3 heat pumps that are good to -20 Celsius (-4 F), one of them even a bit colder.

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

#113

Post by himlion »

where_do_i_live wrote: post #110

So - I actually physically run 2 mining rigs - each with 6 Nvidia GTX 1070s - pulling 1020 Watts each. They each heat a room fairly nicely and I make around maybe $300 in profit from just selling coins per month. This is AFTER I subtract my electricity costs which for these 2 rigs is about $160 per month. I have not quantified the heating benefits but I'd estimate it at maybe $20 a month. I built them back in March/A…

But if you'd bought $6k worth of ethereum outright in march it would be worth $90k now. That's why I haven't started mining, it only seems profitable in a sideways market.

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

#114

Post by Retric »

andbberger wrote: post #103
wlesieutre wrote: post #3

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…

This is silly, CPUs are 100% efficient at converting electrical energy into heat. Where do you think that 'ancillary energy' is going? Obviously heat pumps are more efficient - that's kinda beside the point though. The main point here is you can take anywhere you had a resistive heating element and replace it with a mining chip, and you're now doing something useful with that energy you were turning into heat anyway.…

CPU's can't tolerate high temperatures so it only works for a small subset of things you need a heating element for.

Aka, you can uses them to cook with. Also, while you can use electricity to heat water it's vastly more efficient to burn natural gas to make heat than burn natural gas to make electricity to make it, ditto solar power etc.

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

#115

Post by asavinov »

There is a startup which installs their servers in private homes and other buildings where they are used for heating. They essentially connect the market of server computing and heat.

[1] https://cloudandheat.com

[2] https://www.informationweek.com/cloud/heating-your-house-wit...

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

#116

Post by tylerhou »

himlion wrote: post #113
where_do_i_live wrote: post #110

So - I actually physically run 2 mining rigs - each with 6 Nvidia GTX 1070s - pulling 1020 Watts each. They each heat a room fairly nicely and I make around maybe $300 in profit from just selling coins per month. This is AFTER I subtract my electricity costs which for these 2 rigs is about $160 per month. I have not quantified the heating benefits but I'd estimate it at maybe $20 a month. I built them back in March/A…

But if you'd bought $6k worth of ethereum outright in march it would be worth $90k now. That's why I haven't started mining, it only seems profitable in a sideways market.

But that’s also survivorship bias. If you buy a rig, you can always have the flexibility of mining whatever’s profitable, and even potentially not mining when there’s no profit to be made.

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

#117

Post by andrewwharton »

wlesieutre wrote: post #21
mrfusion wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Interesting point about on-site combustion heating.

Assuming that the fossil fuel to electricity conversion is about 1/3 efficient and the heat pump CoP is 3, then on-site combustion heating is effectively as "efficient" as a heat pump.

I guess the main point is that "fossil fuel -> electricity -> grid -> heat pump" cycle seems crazily inefficient in terms of losses, especially when heating is a large portion of electricity consumption in many households.

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

#118

Post by where_do_i_live »

himlion wrote: post #113
where_do_i_live wrote: post #110

So - I actually physically run 2 mining rigs - each with 6 Nvidia GTX 1070s - pulling 1020 Watts each. They each heat a room fairly nicely and I make around maybe $300 in profit from just selling coins per month. This is AFTER I subtract my electricity costs which for these 2 rigs is about $160 per month. I have not quantified the heating benefits but I'd estimate it at maybe $20 a month. I built them back in March/A…

But if you'd bought $6k worth of ethereum outright in march it would be worth $90k now. That's why I haven't started mining, it only seems profitable in a sideways market.

That has a different risk profile entirely.

I could always resell the video cards I bought at near cost. Buying speculative coins is another matter entirely. Further, I'm not mining ETH - if I took your advice on the coin I am mining I would have a net LOSS not gain. You should take another look at the economics of mining, I think you have a few aspects misunderstood.

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

#120

Post by adrianmonk »

andbberger wrote: post #103
wlesieutre wrote: post #3

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…

This is silly, CPUs are 100% efficient at converting electrical energy into heat. Where do you think that 'ancillary energy' is going? Obviously heat pumps are more efficient - that's kinda beside the point though. The main point here is you can take anywhere you had a resistive heating element and replace it with a mining chip, and you're now doing something useful with that energy you were turning into heat anyway.…

Actually, heat pump water heaters are a thing. They are also called "hybrid" water heaters.

They cost more money, but Consumer Reports says "payback time is short" (see https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/water-heaters/buying-gui... ).

They probably don't make as much sense in cold climates, but where I live, air conditioning in the summer (and spring and fall) dwarfs the energy usage from heating in the winter. So a device that makes it colder on average indoors would be a net win even if it didn't have the function of heating your water.

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