Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

eurasianet.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 361 posts

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#191

Post by dpierce9 »

latchkey wrote: post #164
dpierce9 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that all New York power plants, including Moses Saunders, are connected to a massive electrical highway that runs straight to New York City.

The lines from Moses Saunders to the plant are direct. You can even see them on google maps if you zoom in and follow them. You can't just suddenly push more power through the same lines.

The Moses Saunders dam is connected to the NYISO transmission network. The power system in New York is designed to move power north to south, west to east (lines tend to be symmetric in theory but a good model is that the city is the load). You can look at a price map of New York State and see that. Power from the dam can go from it to anywhere else in New York (or the eastern interconnect) at the cost of transmission losses and tolling. Drawing power directly from a hydro plant doesn’t make that power green because, insofar as the plant could supply electricity to the rest of the grid, it means your power usage has the same environmental impact as the average unit of electricity on the grid at that time. The only thing it does is reduce your cost.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#192

Post by oblio »

risyachka wrote: post #190
cletus wrote: post #57

And so it begins. In the developed world in particular, we're seeing the move away from fossil-fuel power. This is good but currently relatively expensive. Crypto mining is starting to have very real impact on the ability of other people to live. It is adversely and disproportionately affecting poor people (who pay a greater share of their income for power). And at best crypto provides extremely limited utility for s…

"extremely limited utility for society" is harldy an argument. It's limited today. In 10 years it can change many things for people (very possibly in areas that are not even close to crypto). Going to space had hardly any utility, going to Mars even less. But on the way there will a TON of progress and discoveries made that will be used in medicine, manufacturing etc.

Yeah, but meanwhile let's not burn the planet down.

Let's ban all resource intensive crypto-currencies.

If they're so good for society, surely they can be lean, too?

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#193

Post by Scoundreller »

latchkey wrote: post #164
dpierce9 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that all New York power plants, including Moses Saunders, are connected to a massive electrical highway that runs straight to New York City.

The lines from Moses Saunders to the plant are direct. You can even see them on google maps if you zoom in and follow them. You can't just suddenly push more power through the same lines.

This does make me wonder how difficult it is to raise the voltage on the same lines by changing transformers.

You might need to separate the lines more (and need bigger insulators), but I wonder how much of this gets overbuilt at the point of construction so you can upgrade to run more energy over the same wires without replacing them.

Anyone know?

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#194

Post by oblio »

latchkey wrote: post #161
jamincan wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's on the order of 7+ million people within 150km of the dam. I don't think I would call that remote.

Do you know how much to costs, per km, to run and maintain those lines?

I can't be that much since we've had long distance high voltage transmission lines for decades, even in relatively poor countries.

Plus, if you really wanted to because there was no other use, you could, you know, shut down the hydro power plant and return the land to nature. Hydro power plants still have an environmental impact, no point in running them for what is practically, speculation.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#195

Post by jcadam »

vel0city wrote: post #47
matheusmoreira wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Electricity = keeps you warm Computers also generate heat. Wish I could use cryptocurrency miners for my heating needs. Why burn fuel or pass current through resistances for that?

If you're using resistive heating, a computer is about as efficient as a space heater. I have not recently done the math, but I'm pretty sure in my area its still more economically efficient to heat my home with natural gas than resistive heat. Obviously, emissions are a concern, future price uncertainty of fossil fuels, etc. Not the best way forward. However, heat pumps in my area can make a ton of sense. They're fa…

I use NatGas to heat my house here in Alaska (in-floor radiant heat, quite efficient). But I also have wood burning stoves and am surrounded by forest. If the price of NatGas increases to the point it becomes unaffordable, trust me when I say my carbon footprint will go up dramatically. NOT heating my house is not an option in the winter here.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#196

Post by latchkey »

dpierce9 wrote: post #191
latchkey wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lines from Moses Saunders to the plant are direct. You can even see them on google maps if you zoom in and follow them. You can't just suddenly push more power through the same lines.

The Moses Saunders dam is connected to the NYISO transmission network. The power system in New York is designed to move power north to south, west to east (lines tend to be symmetric in theory but a good model is that the city is the load). You can look at a price map of New York State and see that. Power from the dam can go from it to anywhere else in New York (or the eastern interconnect) at the cost of transmissio…

The amount of load that is allocated to the Alcoa facility has been negotiated and fixed into contracts and capex has been spent to build out the infrastructure for that. It isn't like you can just flip a switch and direct the power to the NYISO.

> at the cost of transmission losses and tolling

... a key point that I feel you're glossing over.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#197

Post by ilamont »

latchkey wrote: post #138
bobcostas55 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy is not fungible. Just because you have electricity in place A doesn't mean you can get it to place B in a cost-effective way, so mining next to, say, a hydro station with spare capacity (where electricity is cheap) doesn't necessarily have any impact at all elsewhere.

Specific example: Coinmint in upstate new york is located in an old Alcoa aluminum smelter plant that has long shut down. It gets power from Moses Saunders dam a few miles away. The factory was originally placed near the dam so that it could provide massive amounts of power to keep the pot lines hot 24/7. The whole place is super remote. I've seen the costs for carrying hundreds of MW just a few miles and they are ma…

The crypto miners who set up shop in Northern NY to take advantage of cheap hydro and wind power caused electricity prices to spike for local residents, resulting in municipalities leveraging new taxes on the companies or issuing outright bans. This article is from 2018:

Plattsburgh went over its power allotment and was forced to purchase electricity on the open market for far higher prices. This cost was distributed among the city’s residents, some of whom ended up paying between $100 and $200 more for their electricity than usual.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/8xk4qv/bitcoin-ban-plattsbur...

Massena (near the Alcoa facility) this year issued a moratorium so the city could draw up new regulations:

“The moratorium is a pretty straightforward procedure. The language is relatively clear. The idea is that we place a moratorium on any further cryptocurrency mining development while we get some regulations in place that will govern those types of facilities. The planning board had indicated, and I agreed that the code lacked any real regulatory scheme for these types of facilities within the town,” Mr. Gustafson said.

https://www.nny360.com/communitynews/business/town-of-massen...

https://www.northcountrynow.com/letters/snake-oil-alert-bloc...

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#198

Post by dpierce9 »

baybal2 wrote: post #173
dpierce9 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Residential rates are not typically subsidized, they are regulated and billed at cost plus. The only thing that can be called a subsidy is a delay in raising costs. When local utilities are required to supply at a fixed price and that fixed price is less then cost + fixed profit margin, then they are losing money. The remedy for this is to ask their regulators to change the fixed price to account for both the higher…

It is https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/Kazakhstan/electricity_pr...

There being a price difference between business and residential does not imply a subsidy. It can simply cost more to distribute electricity to businesses, the time power is supplied may be different, and the nature of what is supplied may also be different. Commonly (in the US) businesses have larger supplies, three phase power, and lines and transformers may be buried or harder to access. Midday electricity is also more expensive typically and businesses use more electricity midday (which is why it is more expensive). Further, businesses may be charged real time rates while residential rates lag spikes in price or are averaged over time.

That said, Kazakhstan may subsidize their power, I don’t know.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#199

Post by oblio »

rfd4sgmk8u wrote: post #158
whatisthiseven wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, ETH switching to PoS is the reason I am holding the currency. In the future I expect all PoW cryptocurrencies to be banned, or severely hobbled, because of their electricity usage and e-waste. I have a long bet on ETH specifically because of its eventual move to PoS. Bitcoin doesn't even have a plan, and when the legal landscape changes it will be in the worst position to pivot. We'll just have to see wha…

Nah, I don't think it can be banned. At least not in the non-authoritarian parts of the world. Even if it is, they would need to break my fingers to prevent me running a Bitcoin node. And I will get the blocks via Satellite. If there was a credible threat, we would go somewhere it is not. If your economic thesis is based on hoping the government bans something, why are you even playing with state-resistant decentrali…

> Nah, I don't think it can be banned. At least not in the non-authoritarian parts of the world.

Why can't it be banned? It's wasteful and closer to a Ponzi scheme than an actual currency.

> Even if it is, they would need to break my fingers to prevent me running a Bitcoin node. And I will get the blocks via Satellite. If there was a credible threat, we would go somewhere it is not.

That could be hard if many of the worthwhile places ban it :-)

> If your economic thesis is based on hoping the government bans something, why are you even playing with state-resistant decentralized monetary systems?

Most people in crypto are in it for the money, not for idealism.

Re: Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages

#200

Post by jamincan »

Scoundreller wrote: post #193
latchkey wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lines from Moses Saunders to the plant are direct. You can even see them on google maps if you zoom in and follow them. You can't just suddenly push more power through the same lines.

This does make me wonder how difficult it is to raise the voltage on the same lines by changing transformers. You might need to separate the lines more (and need bigger insulators), but I wonder how much of this gets overbuilt at the point of construction so you can upgrade to run more energy over the same wires without replacing them. Anyone know?

The NYPA is in the process of upgrading the Massena-Adirondack transmission lines which will initially be at 230kV, but later be able to be run at 345kV.

https://www.nny360.com/news/stlawrencecounty/power-authority...

Post reply on HN