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Crypto Mining Consumes a Mind-Boggling 2% of U.S. Electricity

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Re: Crypto Mining Consumes a Mind-Boggling 2% of U.S. Electricity

#31

Post by rightbyte »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #5

I saw a theoretical calculation many years ago saying that bitcoin mining would eventually use 7% of the world's electricity. I laughed at it then, but take it more seriously now. Electricity in the US is expensive, so if it's using 2% here, it must be using more in some other parts of the world.

> Electricity in the US is expensive, so if it's using 2%

I believe much of it is stolen. Like sysadmins running it in schools during the night. Or someone tapping a communal powerline etc.

Re: Crypto Mining Consumes a Mind-Boggling 2% of U.S. Electricity

#32

Post by darthrupert »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #5

I saw a theoretical calculation many years ago saying that bitcoin mining would eventually use 7% of the world's electricity. I laughed at it then, but take it more seriously now. Electricity in the US is expensive, so if it's using 2% here, it must be using more in some other parts of the world.

Weird thing is that this seems to be irrelevant: there are plenty of PoS cryptos but people are still mining away bitcoins.

Electricity is too cheap, I suppose.

Re: Crypto Mining Consumes a Mind-Boggling 2% of U.S. Electricity

#33

Post by EliRivers »

dorkwood wrote: post #28
ecf wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter? Crypto, arguably useless to 99.9% of US citizens is ~~using~~ wasting 2% of all energy.

So just because it's useless now, that means it will never be useful? I guess we should give up on every new technology that's not immediately beneficial.

It's been almost fifteen years and the principle use is crime and ponzi. Not only has it not been immediately beneficial, it's been without benefit for a long time.

Re: Crypto Mining Consumes a Mind-Boggling 2% of U.S. Electricity

#34

Post by ProllyInfamous »

rightbyte wrote: post #31
throwaway81523 wrote: post #5

I saw a theoretical calculation many years ago saying that bitcoin mining would eventually use 7% of the world's electricity. I laughed at it then, but take it more seriously now. Electricity in the US is expensive, so if it's using 2% here, it must be using more in some other parts of the world.

> Electricity in the US is expensive, so if it's using 2% I believe much of it is stolen. Like sysadmins running it in schools during the night. Or someone tapping a communal powerline etc.

There are multiple LEGAL crypto-mining facilities in my mid-sized US South city.

I don't know the specifics, but having spoken with a few of the technicians, it seems our local publicly-owned electric utility has agreements with these facilities for Time-of-Use offsets, which significantly reduces the kWH pricing.

There is a single facility in my city which is allowed to consume about 1% of entire multi-county grid usage, but must agree to seasonal shut-down schedules where local utility can take them offline almost-immediately during emergency demand peaks.

For their predictable baseload usage (21/7) and not-too-damaging shutdownability, the 1% miner gets kWH's at around 2¢+/ea.

----

Majority of our base-load energy is hydro/nuclear -generated, so my only remaining complaint is that these AI/crypto -mining facilities ought to somehow be incorporated into a local centralized heat distribution facility, perhaps to generate steam (or possibly even pre-heat existing generating facility water pre-steam/turbine).

Re: Crypto Mining Consumes a Mind-Boggling 2% of U.S. Electricity

#35

Post by MichaelVangard »

tass wrote: post #30
MichaelVangard wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all electricity is created equal. I don’t think Bitcoin miners should be allowed to fire up an old coal power plant just for the sake of mining Bitcoin, but in the case of renewables, like hydro, wind, solar, etc., there is going to be, at times, more electricity generated than we can use or store. All other use cases aside, the ability for Bitcoin miners to turn excess or otherwise wasted electricity into revenu…

Is it profitable to be a part-time miner? I thought the equipment was too expensive and short lived to sit idle.

At the per kWh price a lot of these miners contract for, it’s profitable even with older hardware. These arrangements also help extend the lifespan of older hardware.

Re: Crypto Mining Consumes a Mind-Boggling 2% of U.S. Electricity

#37

Post by waych »

Skinetio wrote: post #29
waych wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one has an EV that will last 50 years. They are also not made from renewables. CO2 is plant food, and is a red herring to the energy discussion.

Oil is co2 'plants' from a timespan of over houndred thousend years which we burned in 50 or 100 years. The EV components are primarily reusable. A gas / fuel car will ALWAYS consume oil. If yo want to switch to greener energye transport systems like plant oil, you can do that, its just not very efficient in comparision to an EV car. And if you really really ment co2 as 'plants will consume it' no they are not able t…

Plants die for lack of CO2. It's their food.
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