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Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#151

Post by avianlyric »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #64
pjc50 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entirely normal evidence for raiding cannabis farms. I'm not sure what more you'd reasonably expect to find.

> I'm not sure what more you'd reasonably expect to find. Literally any sort of activity that uses electrical ovens. I can think of dozens of processes for the manufacture of plastic, ceramic and metal items where you're gonna want to bake stuff. Edit: Apparently it wasn't obvious I was disagree about the assertion that "Based on heat and people coming and going" is normal justification for raiding a pot grow op and…

I imagine the complete lack of anything actually being shipped into or out of the unit during normal hours was probably a big give away.

Most people when using an industrial unit to bake things, then sell the things they bake. Rather than just piling them up in a corner until the entire unit is full.

Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#152

Post by kasey_junk »

phire wrote: post #138
kasey_junk wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can routinely get ~2 c kWh in Chicago: https://hourlypricing.comed.com/

That's not the total price. It doesn't include Transmission, distribution, taxes or whatever a "Capacity Charge" is.

On my last bill that added 4.2c per kWh.

The bill previous was 3.9.

The majority of those fees are fixed cost so don’t scale linearly with usage.

Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#154

Post by CarelessExpert »

Empf wrote: post #149
arsome wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, during the winter I mine on my video card because I'm basically just swapping some of my natural gas heat out for a few hundred watts of electric heat and my electricity is primarily provided by nuclear and hydro. Kind of weird to think of mining as a way to reduce your carbon emissions but in some cases it certainly can be. I'll definitely look more into heatpumps when it comes time to replace my furnace or ai…

I'm very curious how that can be better then an electrical heater. It has to be more inefficient as you are not spending energy on calculation but if you substitute it with selling your bitcoins you would need to compensate your co2

Because it also generates revenue via bitcoin. So it's "cheaper" insofar as the bitcoin is subsidizing the operation of the rig and, as a byproduct, heating the space.

Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#155

Post by amarant »

arsome wrote: post #146
bluGill wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just electrical rate, also what you do with the waste heat. I know at least one person who is heating his garage. Mining bitcoin is cheaper than an electric heater for the same task. A heat pump would probably be more cost effective in the long run, but I didn't tell him that.

Yeah, during the winter I mine on my video card because I'm basically just swapping some of my natural gas heat out for a few hundred watts of electric heat and my electricity is primarily provided by nuclear and hydro. Kind of weird to think of mining as a way to reduce your carbon emissions but in some cases it certainly can be. I'll definitely look more into heatpumps when it comes time to replace my furnace or ai…

I don't know about Canadian winters, but heat pumps certainly perform well in Swedish winters, which I don't imagine are much milder than Canadian ones.

If you can get a water-water heat pump you'll be fine for sure (requires drilling a rather deep hole in your backyard tho, so the initial investment is a bit bigger)

Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#156

Post by arsome »

Empf wrote: post #149
arsome wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, during the winter I mine on my video card because I'm basically just swapping some of my natural gas heat out for a few hundred watts of electric heat and my electricity is primarily provided by nuclear and hydro. Kind of weird to think of mining as a way to reduce your carbon emissions but in some cases it certainly can be. I'll definitely look more into heatpumps when it comes time to replace my furnace or ai…

I'm very curious how that can be better then an electrical heater. It has to be more inefficient as you are not spending energy on calculation but if you substitute it with selling your bitcoins you would need to compensate your co2

My understanding is it's essentially just as efficient as a resistive electrical heater as all the energy used in your video card is converted to heat at some point in the process. There may be some very minor loss here, but I'm not enough of a physicist to say what it'd be.

Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#157

Post by addingnumbers »

josefresco wrote: post #141
rtkwe wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have the money to pay for the electricity you'll see more profit by just buying the BTC at the current market price. You start making money immediately instead of having to make it to the electricity price you paid. So it still only makes sense as a strategy if you're stealing electricity, have an off grid system with excess electricity (or you don't get paid for back feeding the grid) or have a (really really…

Let's assume your mining rig costs $1 to run, generates 1 FAKECOIN with a current value of $.90. That first month you pay $0.10 out of pocket for 1 FAKECOIN. If you had just purchased 1 FAKECOIN, it would have cost you $1. 10x the cost. Like a startup, this is not sustainable without external factors changing. "Just buy it directly" requires a separate income.

Hang on. You think the power company only asks for $0.10 after you use $1 worth of power that month?

Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#158

Post by josefresco »

addingnumbers wrote: post #157
josefresco wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's assume your mining rig costs $1 to run, generates 1 FAKECOIN with a current value of $.90. That first month you pay $0.10 out of pocket for 1 FAKECOIN. If you had just purchased 1 FAKECOIN, it would have cost you $1. 10x the cost. Like a startup, this is not sustainable without external factors changing. "Just buy it directly" requires a separate income.

Hang on. You think the power company only asks for $0.10 after you use $1 worth of power that month?

My mistake, I'm a moron. The math is just worse, because you'd have to cash out some of your FAKECOIN for electricity. I'll accept the downvotes with dignity!

Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#159

Post by awrence »

Empf wrote: post #149
arsome wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, during the winter I mine on my video card because I'm basically just swapping some of my natural gas heat out for a few hundred watts of electric heat and my electricity is primarily provided by nuclear and hydro. Kind of weird to think of mining as a way to reduce your carbon emissions but in some cases it certainly can be. I'll definitely look more into heatpumps when it comes time to replace my furnace or ai…

I'm very curious how that can be better then an electrical heater. It has to be more inefficient as you are not spending energy on calculation but if you substitute it with selling your bitcoins you would need to compensate your co2

It's pretty brilliant actually. Case 1 electric space heaters blindly pass electricity through dumb wires. Case 2 instead of dumb wires you use ASICs. Case 2 is a win win that helps secure a decentralized monetary asset, get paid for it, and heat your home which you would have done anyway, all with the exact same carbon footprint (assuming you're expending equivalent amount of electricity to just heat your home as originally planned). You've basically turned PoW into proof of heating where the miner gets paid and gets the benefit of heating his home on top. And incremental environmental impact is exactly 0.

edit: quick google -> and here it is :)

https://bitcoinminingheater.com

Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#160

Post by gaff33 »

thinkmassive wrote: post #131
why_only_15 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to pay $50k in electricity to mine a $40k bitcoin, it would be better to just turn off the mine and buy the bitcoin directly.

Some industrial scale miners might have commitments to buy electricity at a certain rate. It could be more expensive to break a contract than to keep their equipment running when the exchange rate temporarily falls below profitability. Also not everyone has easy access to an exchange. Others may prefer to avoid the KYC paperwork, or simply be willing to pay a premium for freshly mined coins.

There's a healthy power market - so the providers can and should work out a way for their clients to exit their contract and for them to sell the electricity elsewhere.

Sure the client might be liable for some loss-of-earnings fees but this really should be better for everyone than this.

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