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I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

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Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#281

Post by legulere »

arnaudsm wrote: post #88
dreen wrote: post #3

Years ago when mining with a single gaming card was more common and viable, I lived in a rented room in a house owned by a live-in landlord who controlled the heating, and wouldn't turn it on for very long in the winter. Since electricity was included in my (fixed) rent, I was able to keep my room a few degrees higher than the rest of the house. However I must point out that you shouldn't do this in most circumstance…

In countries like France [1], electricity heating is the most environmentally friendly, at 40 g Co2/kWh, while gas (the cheapest and most common) is >250. [1] https://www.electricitymap.org/map

At least in Germany you can also buy electricity that is 100% renewable at 0 g CO2/kWh. It also does not really cost much more (though we generally have pretty high electricity prices because of taxes on electricity).

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#282

Post by bayindirh »

epr wrote: post #211
cinntaile wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have been here for a couple of years, surely you have noticed downvotes don't always make sense.

Seriously. I've actually gotten into the habit of compulsively upvoting anything that has been downvoted unless someone is really out of line, even if I disagree with an opinion they're expressing.

Same here. Unless it's something intentionally offensive or trollish, I don't downvote anyone. Including opinions I don't agree with.

If it's something I disagree, and worth discussing, I set aside five minutes to write a good reply instead. I think it's much more constructive.

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#283

Post by GauntletWizard »

Way back in my younger days, I left my PS3 running Folding@Home, and it left my living room noticably warmer - Enough that it replaced the baseboard heater in that room for most of the winter months. I could not say whether the electricity cost was changed any, but it certainly worked.

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#284

Post by srcmap »

lupire wrote: post #105
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #49

I did this in an apartment I lived in years ago, and do it now in my house. My computer room in the house is the lowest point in the house, so naturally, it tends to be a couple degrees cooler than the upstairs. This means that if I set the thermostat so that the computer room is comfortable, the bedroom is too warm. If I run the house circulation fan constantly, it's not an issue, but that consumes a decent amount o…

What is the $ cost of the power?

Is there any cost analyze for using solar panel power for Crypto?

I am installing Solar from Tesla, wonder if I should just use the external power generated for crypto than to send them back to PG&E.

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#285

Post by ericd »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #264
lupire wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the $ cost of the power?

About $20-25/month. But it's not as if the cost of power is wasted. It's generating heat which I desire. If my GPU is consuming 300W, then that's 300W of heat that my heater doesn't have to generate.

Electric resistive heating is the worst form of heating, though - heat pumps are something like 3-4x the heat per kwh used. So not totally wasted, but a much worse way to get heat into your house, if that's your goal.

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#286

Post by km3r »

IneffablePigeon wrote: post #274
robocat wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but very misleading. When you add a marginal kWh of electricity usage, how is that extra 1 kWh generated? If France runs its nuclear power at nearly 100% utilisation, then if you add 1 kWh usage then that power comes from another source, which could be a high CO2 emitter. The same goes for hydroelectricity: if all the hydroelectric power is already being utilised (no spillway), then you cannot claim that your e…

This is an interesting topic - I agree with your interpretation, but to add another wrinkle, I live in the UK which has a decent but not amazing proportion of renewable energy now. I pay a little extra to my supplier to provide me with "100% renewable electricity" - meaning that for every customer on that tariff, they total up the power usage and buy at least that much renewable energy from the grid. I assume that th…

I always figured those programs just would lead to people not on the green plans buying less green energy. Though I guess if you got enough of a critical mass of users on the plan it could have that upward pressure. I wonder if any studies have been done? It seems that green energy is often used as much as it can, as solar/wind/geo all have low marginal costs once built, and gas/coal/oil are the ones manually turned on/off based on total demand. That would lead me to believe buying green power would have no effect, but this is all conjecture.

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#287

Post by kiddico »

gkfasdfasdf wrote: post #279
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #49

I did this in an apartment I lived in years ago, and do it now in my house. My computer room in the house is the lowest point in the house, so naturally, it tends to be a couple degrees cooler than the upstairs. This means that if I set the thermostat so that the computer room is comfortable, the bedroom is too warm. If I run the house circulation fan constantly, it's not an issue, but that consumes a decent amount o…

I would really like to try NiceHash, but the fact that I have to add it as an exception to Windows Defender antivirus, and that one of the founders has previously been convicted [0] and served time for writing botnet malware, really gives me pause. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NiceHash

I'd bet that writing botnet software was pretty good training for writing distributed processing software like NiceHash, though I think your concern is still valid.

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#288

Post by danans »

balls187 wrote: post #278
barkingcat wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is usually a non-concern. It's likely that the GPU will become obsolete in the time that it fails due to being run at 100% of the time. The other question to ask, if you compile programs, write webpages, and edit photoshop images: are you concerned with hardware degradation with your CPU if you run at 100% all time time, for example, compiling chrome that takes 3+ hours, applying photoshop filters to an image to…

The flipside, if you have a CPU and you can't keep it pegged 100% of the time, are you wasting resources?

No, because a CPU isn't a consumable resource, like electricity or labor. You should occupy the CPU with all valuable work (for whatever definition of value) but keeping it pegged for no reason makes no sense, and just wastes electricity.

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#289

Post by drran »

xenocyon wrote: post #276

1. At an individual/hobbyist level this is a fine thing to do, if one is already a cryptocurrency enthusiast. 2. At a social/planning level it is important to remember that opportunity costs matter, and this should not be recommended as public policy. One kWh of electricity could either be used for mining bitcoin (creating at most one kWh of indoor heat), or it could be used for running a heat pump[*], yielding multi…

Definition of efficiency (from Google): the ratio of the useful work performed by a machine or in a process to the total energy expended or heat taken in.

Heat pumps are >100% efficient.

Usually, we cannot convert all input energy into useful work, so efficiency is always 100% efficiency.

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