I find it quite interesting that we managed to make us of thermal waste through semiconductor based logic..
I heat my home by mining crypto currencies
321–330 of 419 posts
Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies
#322I wonder if we could make it even better and make smart heaters that instead of wasting calculations actually do something useful, something like folding proteins or some other computing load that doesn't require huge network load and can be easily distributed (something like SETI@home but actually useful). In densely populated cities we could bury huge datacenters underground and use that energy for heating directly…
Welcome to Qarnot. https://qarnot.com/en/the-radiator-computer/
happy to know they're still on
Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
A heat pump in a −273 °C space will convert electricity to heat at a 1:1 ratio. If you count the heat taken from the space around the condenser, which you should based on Google's definition, heat pumps are only 100% efficient. Calling heat pumps >100% efficient is like calling my solar water heater >100% efficient. True if you only count the electrical input, and not other sources of energy.
You will be pleased to know that the majority of heat pumps are installed in homes whose exteriors stay above 0 kelvin year round. Also, in what I assume is an efficiency feature, most heat pumps do not allow operation in a zero Kelvin environment. Also, to nit pick: Kelvins are not degrees and do not use a ° sign.
And, as a bonus efficiency feature, most heat pumps are installed with the condenser external to the home!
Yes, if you draw an imaginary box around the home and the outdoor/underground condenser, they're exactly 100% efficient, but if you only consider the inside of the home and ignore that the condenser is taking in heat energy from the outside, they're more than 100% efficient.
Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
A heat pump in a −273 °C space will convert electricity to heat at a 1:1 ratio. If you count the heat taken from the space around the condenser, which you should based on Google's definition, heat pumps are only 100% efficient. Calling heat pumps >100% efficient is like calling my solar water heater >100% efficient. True if you only count the electrical input, and not other sources of energy.
You will be pleased to know that the majority of heat pumps are installed in homes whose exteriors stay above 0 kelvin year round. Also, in what I assume is an efficiency feature, most heat pumps do not allow operation in a zero Kelvin environment. Also, to nit pick: Kelvins are not degrees and do not use a ° sign.
did not realize kelvin is not a degree. I fixed my comment.
Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aren't you concerned with hardware degradation with your GPU running at 100% most of the time?
The main causes of degradation in electronics are usually material failure due to thermal stress (cycles of expansion and contractor weaken the electrical pathways, resistance goes up, that causes more stress etc.) and electromigration due to over-voltage (the flux of electrons induces a shift in the position of the atoms it goes through). Considering mining is a constant load (not much thermal stress) and improving…
Electromigration can happen because of constant high temperatures as well!
Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies
#326Future humans will wonder why humanity wasted so much valuable time, effort and real for no reason.
Do you really think Bitcoin mining/speculation is up there with the most wasteful and counter-productive things we do? It doesn't currently have much social value, but, man, there's much worse things. Think of US military spending. If you think that military has a reason to be, while speculation doesn't, you don't understand speculation.
Yes, BTC is the most wasteful.
Other things we think are wasteful, are not - either they are for pleasure, or they are byproducts of other things, or they are contextually relevant (i.e. weapons/war), part of the systematic inconsistency but not strictly wasteful. Even then, there are benefits.
Mining BTC using electricity is up there with the stupidest things we do - there are many ways to distribute new BTCs, handing them over to those who consume the most resources is a terrible idea.
Given the cost of electricity and that it's a scarce resource, often subsidized etc. - BTC mining should probably be illegal unless you make your own electricity.
My local government is actively trying to court BTC miners, with what is subsidized electricity - I can't think of a more directly wasteful thing to do.
Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies
#327This makes sense unless you have the option of natural gas heating, then not so much.
Natural gas heating contributes significantly to climate change, and if you're in an area with significant renewable electric (or if you expect you will eventually over the lifetime of your system), you can lower your carbon footprint by heating with electric heat pumps.
Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
I know that's what you're paying for, but I wonder what the marginal effects are. I.e. am I paying for a 100% renewable energy that otherwise would have been sold to a customer not on a renewable plan? If I use more of the 100% renewable energy, does that increase the amount of non-renewable energy that must be generated for other people's consumption? I have no idea how grids work.
Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
They don't run an extra cable though, they just buy credits and if you're lucky the profit doesn't go to the parent fossil energy company. It's still better than old energy firms but it's not as if the coal plants run any less hard when you turn on your bitcoin farm with a green contract instead of a fossil one. It's just a matter of where profits flow, and also some public perception. (E.g. Climeworks says that individual customers help show investors that that's a market for it, which helps them do more good than purely the CO2 you pay them to remove.)
Regarding this "fossil parent" thing btw, list of checked companies: https://www.robinwood.de/oekostromreport (I'm with Green City Power because they don't only go the easy hydro route but also build out solar -- iirc, it has been a while). Switching is a matter of signing up with the new provider. Nobody needs to come by, power doesn't go out at all, you just tell them what the meter says on date X and all is good.
Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies
#330I 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 have a 3090 and cheap-ish electricity. Is it actually worth doing GPU mining again? I thought that died out long ago.