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Satellites reveal heat leaking from largest US cryptocurrency mining center

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Re: Satellites reveal heat leaking from largest US cryptocurrency mining center

#11

Post by driggs »

nullc wrote: post #9
andai wrote: post #3

So I don't have any context for this. The article says it uses as much power as 300,000 homes. Is that a little? Is that a lot? How much does one steel foundry use? Edit: One steel foundry uses about 3,000 more than that, according to my napkin math

Home energy usage is knocked down people that don't that don't do anything at home and where almost their energy use is externalized (at places that make the goods they use, or other places where they spend most of their their waking hours). So it's a useful figure if you want to make a shocking headline. "Uses as much power as infinity of something that uses no power!"

Have you considered that it's used as a unit to represent capacity of our power grid?

As in, we have now have the energy capacity for 300,000 fewer homes given this operating data center.

So not only is it a relatable unit, but it's an incredibly meaningful unit for those who care about ensuring that energy availability actually support something of value (families) rather than something wasteful (crypto mining).

Re: Satellites reveal heat leaking from largest US cryptocurrency mining center

#12

Post by msisk6 »

andai wrote: post #3

So I don't have any context for this. The article says it uses as much power as 300,000 homes. Is that a little? Is that a lot? How much does one steel foundry use? Edit: One steel foundry uses about 3,000 more than that, according to my napkin math

This was previously the location of an Alcoa aluminum smelter which used something around 1000+ MW. And that's why the crypto farm is there -- it already had sufficient electrical capacity to the site.

Folks should be happy since the crypto operation is using far less power and dumping less heat into the environment that the industrial operation that was previously there, but datacenters seem to be a trendy thing complain about at the moment so here we are.

Re: Satellites reveal heat leaking from largest US cryptocurrency mining center

#13

Post by lolc »

msisk6 wrote: post #12
andai wrote: post #3

So I don't have any context for this. The article says it uses as much power as 300,000 homes. Is that a little? Is that a lot? How much does one steel foundry use? Edit: One steel foundry uses about 3,000 more than that, according to my napkin math

This was previously the location of an Alcoa aluminum smelter which used something around 1000+ MW. And that's why the crypto farm is there -- it already had sufficient electrical capacity to the site. Folks should be happy since the crypto operation is using far less power and dumping less heat into the environment that the industrial operation that was previously there, but datacenters seem to be a trendy thing com…

I do get utility out of aluminium.

Re: Satellites reveal heat leaking from largest US cryptocurrency mining center

#14

Post by troglo-byte »

msisk6 wrote: post #12
andai wrote: post #3

So I don't have any context for this. The article says it uses as much power as 300,000 homes. Is that a little? Is that a lot? How much does one steel foundry use? Edit: One steel foundry uses about 3,000 more than that, according to my napkin math

This was previously the location of an Alcoa aluminum smelter which used something around 1000+ MW. And that's why the crypto farm is there -- it already had sufficient electrical capacity to the site. Folks should be happy since the crypto operation is using far less power and dumping less heat into the environment that the industrial operation that was previously there, but datacenters seem to be a trendy thing com…

A cryptominer is a "datacenter" in the same way that a chop shop is an automotive parts supplier.

Re: Satellites reveal heat leaking from largest US cryptocurrency mining center

#16

Post by hephaes7us »

userbinator wrote: post #5
theamk wrote: post #2

"leaking" is the wrong word here - it implies some sort of inefficiency, process which is not working as well as it needs to. Leaky bucket, leaky faucet... That's not the case here, that center is __dumping__ heat into environment - it is by design, all that electricity is being converted into the heat. By design, it's enormous electric heater.

I wonder if there's enough heat being produced for it to act as a district heating plant.

There absolutely is, but of course it's nonzero cost to capture.

Re: Satellites reveal heat leaking from largest US cryptocurrency mining center

#17

Post by dangalf »

theamk wrote: post #2

"leaking" is the wrong word here - it implies some sort of inefficiency, process which is not working as well as it needs to. Leaky bucket, leaky faucet... That's not the case here, that center is __dumping__ heat into environment - it is by design, all that electricity is being converted into the heat. By design, it's enormous electric heater.

Technically it is inefficiency. The electricity should be doing computer things. Heat is wasted electricity. Just there's not much the data centre could do about it.

Re: Satellites reveal heat leaking from largest US cryptocurrency mining center

#18

Post by geoffschmidt »

dangalf wrote: post #17
theamk wrote: post #2

"leaking" is the wrong word here - it implies some sort of inefficiency, process which is not working as well as it needs to. Leaky bucket, leaky faucet... That's not the case here, that center is __dumping__ heat into environment - it is by design, all that electricity is being converted into the heat. By design, it's enormous electric heater.

Technically it is inefficiency. The electricity should be doing computer things. Heat is wasted electricity. Just there's not much the data centre could do about it.

Heat is not by itself waste. It's what electricity turns into after it's done doing computer things. Efficiency is a separate question - how many computer things you got done per unit electricity turned into heat.

Re: Satellites reveal heat leaking from largest US cryptocurrency mining center

#20

Post by dajt »

msisk6 wrote: post #12
andai wrote: post #3

So I don't have any context for this. The article says it uses as much power as 300,000 homes. Is that a little? Is that a lot? How much does one steel foundry use? Edit: One steel foundry uses about 3,000 more than that, according to my napkin math

This was previously the location of an Alcoa aluminum smelter which used something around 1000+ MW. And that's why the crypto farm is there -- it already had sufficient electrical capacity to the site. Folks should be happy since the crypto operation is using far less power and dumping less heat into the environment that the industrial operation that was previously there, but datacenters seem to be a trendy thing com…

Where is the upside here? An alu plant probably provided more jobs and produced something of actual utility. This is burning power for no benefit to society.

It's burning less power than before, but it's not producing anything of value.

The world cannot reasonbly run without alu, it got along better without crypto currencies.

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