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Blockchain-Enabled Electric Car Charging Comes to California

greentechmedia.com

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Re: Blockchain-Enabled Electric Car Charging Comes to California

#41

Post by IanCal »

jstanley wrote: post #27
stale2002 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto currencies would absolutely use zero electricity if they could too. There are efforts RIGHT NOW to solve this problem. So just like how BOA wastes electricity right now, and is trying to reduce its electricity use, so too are cryptocurrencies. For example, one way to do it is to power the blockchain via "wasted" electricity from other sources, that was going to do nothing anyway. For example, a heater literall…

> For example, a heater literally sends electricity through wires, and "wastes" that energy to create heat. One could imagine a heater that uses the electricity/heat from mining for "free". Right, but once people do that, mining becomes more efficient. If mining becomes more efficient, more people start mining, then the difficulty adjusts, and then you're back at the beginning. It's not a bad thing : efficiency gains…

> It's not a bad thing: efficiency gains are good. But they don't reduce the total energy expenditure, because they incentivise increased mining.

I think it's a stretch to say the two are perfectly linked.

If you dropped someone's electricity price in half, would they buy twice the equipment to mine? If you dropped it to 1%, would they buy 100x as much equipment?

Re: Blockchain-Enabled Electric Car Charging Comes to California

#42

Post by xg15 »

OT, can anyone explain this idiom to me?

> The peer-to-peer concept relies on blockchain, one of today's hottest trends [...]

Note the missing article. Not "relies on the blockchain" or "relies on a blockchain" but "relies on blockchain" as if that were some kind of new elemental resource like water or electricity.

I've noticed that expression in quite a few articles. DOes anyone know where it comes from?

Re: Blockchain-Enabled Electric Car Charging Comes to California

#43

Post by mulmen »

IanCal wrote: post #41
jstanley wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, a heater literally sends electricity through wires, and "wastes" that energy to create heat. One could imagine a heater that uses the electricity/heat from mining for "free". Right, but once people do that, mining becomes more efficient. If mining becomes more efficient, more people start mining, then the difficulty adjusts, and then you're back at the beginning. It's not a bad thing : efficiency gains…

> It's not a bad thing: efficiency gains are good. But they don't reduce the total energy expenditure, because they incentivise increased mining. I think it's a stretch to say the two are perfectly linked. If you dropped someone's electricity price in half, would they buy twice the equipment to mine? If you dropped it to 1%, would they buy 100x as much equipment?

That's not exactly the question. It's more like if you dropped the price of electricity to 1% would 100x as many people participate. The answer to that is generally yes.

Re: Blockchain-Enabled Electric Car Charging Comes to California

#44

Post by RoboTeddy »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #33
mrb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Put a few tons of carbon in the air pointlessly calculating hashes to mine coins " It's not pointless. Have you read the arguments in http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-mining-is-not-wasteful/ ? It's not Ethereum-specific but the same logic applies. I feel I post that link too frequently, but people get too often mentally blocked on one technical detail (hashing) and fail to think about the big picture (renewables, jo…

I'd like to ask more about Proof of Stake's flaws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-stake#Criticism These problems seem fairly significant and unresolved. Thoughts? Statistical simulations have shown that simultaneous forging on several chains is possible, even profitable. But Proof of Stake advocates believe most described attack scenarios are impossible or so unpredictable that they are only theoretical. Any…

AFAIK Ethereum plans to resolve this "nothing at stake" issue by using security deposits. If someone submits a proof that a miner was staking on multiple chains, the miner loses their security deposit.

https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Proof-of-Stake-FAQ

That said, this all looks hard to get right...

Re: Blockchain-Enabled Electric Car Charging Comes to California

#45

Post by mulmen »

foota wrote: post #16
CalChris wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use ChargePoint a lot. If the charger isn't broken, it takes significantly less time than dealing with a gas station. 9 times out of 10, I know ahead of time whether a charger is broken or busy. As for their monetization strategy, I think chargers should require a maintenance contract and that that should be built into the kWh cost. Pay at the pump. I do not like to see free chargers because everyone uses them and…

I don't have an electric car, but I was under the impression that filling a tank up took a significant amount of time? s/tank/battery

You don't have to stand at the car while it charges so the time comparison should really just be how long it takes to plug in and pay. This assumes the charger is at a location you are already visiting. If we accept that assumption you also save the time you went out of your way to a gas station.

Re: Blockchain-Enabled Electric Car Charging Comes to California

#46

Post by davidgerard »

jstanley wrote: post #12

Cryptocurrency enthusiast here. This is exactly the sort of nonsense that people are doing that makes other people think the entire cryptocurrency community is a joke. Obviously there is no benefit to having this on a blockchain here. You can just pay the charging station. I made a comment the other day that there is very little overlap between cryptocurrency enthusiasts and people who want to blockchain-all-the-thin…

> I made a comment the other day that there is very little overlap between cryptocurrency enthusiasts and people who want to blockchain-all-the-things. It was heavily downvoted and I suspect people didn't believe me, so I'm going to keep repeating it until people believe me :)

Probably because:

1. you're making a historically false claim. Pushing "blockchain" to business is quite well documented (Digital Gold, contemporary press) as being something that was pushed by the Bitcoin fans at the time - late 2014, when the bitcoin price was cratering - as a way to keep interest up.

2. the claims for "Blockchain" (and even the further euphemism, "Digital Ledger Technology") are blatantly the most fantastic claims for Bitcoin, with only the buzzword changed.

3. the bitcoin blog press can't get enough of these "blockchain" initiatives. Clearly their readers think it's all much the same thing.

Re: Blockchain-Enabled Electric Car Charging Comes to California

#47

Post by davidgerard »

mrb wrote: post #21
bpodgursky wrote: post #3

Perfect! Put a few tons of carbon in the air pointlessly calculating hashes to mine *coins, and then use those e-coins to charge your electric car. This uses Ethereum so when they eventually move to proof-of-stake I'll mostly retract my scorn, but for now I stand by this being counterproductive and dumb.

" Put a few tons of carbon in the air pointlessly calculating hashes to mine coins " It's not pointless. Have you read the arguments in http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-mining-is-not-wasteful/ ? It's not Ethereum-specific but the same logic applies. I feel I post that link too frequently, but people get too often mentally blocked on one technical detail (hashing) and fail to think about the big picture (renewables, jo…

> Venture capitalists invested more than $1 billion into at least 729 Bitcoin companies which created thousands of jobs.

... for return to date of zero. This is literally broken-windows economics.

Re: Blockchain-Enabled Electric Car Charging Comes to California

#48

Post by davidgerard »

xg15 wrote: post #42

OT, can anyone explain this idiom to me? > The peer-to-peer concept relies on blockchain, one of today's hottest trends [...] Note the missing article. Not "relies on the blockchain" or "relies on a blockchain" but "relies on blockchain" as if that were some kind of new elemental resource like water or electricity. I've noticed that expression in quite a few articles. DOes anyone know where it comes from?

It's the 100% certain tell of a bad article. Worse if they capitalise it.

Re: Blockchain-Enabled Electric Car Charging Comes to California

#49

Post by tlb »

thinkmassive wrote: post #6
tlb wrote: post #2

I'd love to have an alternative to ChargePoint for charging my Tesla at airports. It takes multiple minutes of diddling around with their app to make their charger's relay contacts close. They have reviews within their app, wherein people report which of their chargers usually work, which sometimes work, and which never work. In no case is the actual power faulty -- it's their monetization strategy that fails to toug…

I'm not familiar with how billing for Tesla's chargers work, except that some of the high end models include free charging (or at least they used to). Are you saying the electricity should be free, or simply that you prefer to pay monthly based on usage? This startup seems like a stepping stone to me. Eventually you should be able to define limits (max $/kWh, min charge rate, min time available, max distance) and the…

My Tesla is an early model, so charging at their stations is free. Paying a monthly usage bill would fine too. The bad thing is having to use a flaky UI every time I need to charge remotely (which is only every month or two). I think ChargePoint's fundamental problem is in order for their app to enable charging:

- the app must be installed and updated

- it must get an accurate location from GPS to look up the ID number of closest station (and often they're adjacent, so the next one is 12' away).

- my cellular data, and the base station's cellular data have to work

- all inside a concrete parking garage.

so it only works 3/4 of the time.

Re: Blockchain-Enabled Electric Car Charging Comes to California

#50

Post by xg15 »

davidgerard wrote: post #48
xg15 wrote: post #42

OT, can anyone explain this idiom to me? > The peer-to-peer concept relies on blockchain, one of today's hottest trends [...] Note the missing article. Not "relies on the blockchain" or "relies on a blockchain" but "relies on blockchain" as if that were some kind of new elemental resource like water or electricity. I've noticed that expression in quite a few articles. DOes anyone know where it comes from?

It's the 100% certain tell of a bad article. Worse if they capitalise it.

That was my suspicion. Reminds me of "one internet please"...
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