81–90 of 361 posts
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If mining is a net positive for Kazakhstani miners, doesn't that make the country better off? That's a net export.
No, because everyone pays higher electricity bills while a small number of people benefit from selling their mined crypto.
Electricity = keeps you warm, cooks your food, powers your devices. Cryptos = suck that energy out of the power grid to gamble with one another.
Technically if all electric space heaters were crypto miners as well then crytpo mining would be well distributed, resistant to attack and unprofitable to mine - win, win, win. Edit: Looks like matheusmoreira below doesn’t understand a 500w electric heater and a 500w crypto miner produce the same amount of heat and use the same amount of electricity.
- They're much more expensive than normal heaters, and the returns on mining don't make it cost effective.
- If you've spent that much money on heaters/miners, you're going to want to max them out 24/7 before they become obsolete rather than just switch them on when its cold, which defeats the point.
- They'll also need to be upgraded every 6-12 months to keep up with the mining arms race, and no-one wants to have to replace their super-expensive heating system that often.
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> And at best crypto provides extremely limited utility for society. This is true for bitcoin . It failed at everything it set out to be and yet it is the most mined coin. Truly a waste of energy. There are better projects out there which actually provide value and utility. Monero is an example. It's pretty sad that bitcoin is still number one despite the existence of these projects.
Monero is a proof of work cryptocurrency. I like PoW, it is the most secure distributed consensus algorithm we have discovered. If Monero was as popular as Bitcoin, it would use something similar to the energy. None of it is a 'waste of energy'.
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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 have not recently done the math What calculations are these? How do I figure out if it's worth it?
Electric heat is 100% efficient. Natural gas is anywhere between 80-97% efficient depending on your model of furnace. Convert therms of gas[0] and kWh[1] to BTUs, and multiply by efficiency and price to determine which is cheapest[2]. Usually natural gas wins.
For emissions it’s more complicated. You need to look up the energy source for your grid[3], it will vary a bit seasonally, and factor in transmission losses for electric heat. You can then calculate the emissions per BTU of natural gas heat vs. the emissions of the grid to give you a BTU of electric heat. For most grids, natural gas still wins.
Where this gets complicated is if you use a heat pump, either a “mini split” (common in Europe and some new apartments) or a ground source (“geothermal”) heat pump. These have a seasonally adjusted efficiency rating[4], usually between 2 and 4. This means per unit of electrical energy the unit is moving 2-4 units of heat (depending on model and exterior conditions). You can take the electric heating number from above and divide by this number to figure out the cost and emissions for a heat pump. Usually a heat pump will win on emissions and lose on price (including installation costs) because natural gas is very very cheap.
0 - A “therm” of gas is the traditional measuring and billing unit of natural gas in the United States, it’s equivalent to roughly 100,000 BTUs. Your bill will probably be in therms, but cubic feet are trivially convertible to BTUs too.
1 - 1 kWh is 3,412 BTUs
2 - You can either compare per BTU costs, or your estimated monthly cost based on your heating need. The latter is important if you have tiered or seasonal electricity pricing. To figure this out take a sample monthly gas bill from winter, subtract your summer gas bill (if you have gas hot water) and use the calculations above to determine your heating needs in BTUs. This lets you calculate your electricity needs in kWh and therefore costs.
3 - It’s important that this is a seasonally correct. Most grids get dirtier as more polluting and less efficient power plants are turned on for summer AC, often coal power plants in most regions. Therefore the emissions per kWh will vary on a month by month basis for a given grid.
4 - If we’re being very precise, a non seasonally adjusted number would be best here. An air sourde Heat pump will struggle to extract heat from very cold exterior air, reducing its efficiency. A ground source one will be more efficient, given that ground water is warmer than the air typically.
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Maybe it would make more sense to you, but not to most people I think. Electricity has much better uses than cryptocurrency.
If only we had an open, decentralised mechanism to figure out what's a better use of a limited resource is. Oh wait. That's exactly what "cost" is.
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…
Electricity = keeps you warm, cooks your food, powers your devices. Cryptos = suck that energy out of the power grid to gamble with one another.
Technically if all electric space heaters were crypto miners as well then crytpo mining would be well distributed, resistant to attack and unprofitable to mine - win, win, win. Edit: Looks like matheusmoreira below doesn’t understand a 500w electric heater and a 500w crypto miner produce the same amount of heat and use the same amount of electricity.
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…
Your comment is very true for Bitcoin and other PoW tokens but that will soon be in the rearview mirror as more and more coins either come out as PoS (proof of stake) or migrate to it (in the case of Ethereum), even Bitcoin is taking about migrating to a PoS model.
Crypto will evolve past this.
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If only we had an open, decentralised mechanism to figure out what's a better use of a limited resource is. Oh wait. That's exactly what "cost" is.
Yeah, "cost" is one of the fundamental terms of economics. So is "externality".
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There is a difference between the two. That's like comparing the fuel use or exhaust of a Fiat 500 to that of a cargo ship.
Under your analogy we shouldn't regulate car exhausts before we regulate cargo ships. At any rate, article says 250k mining devices there so the electricity usage is likely more from mining but not orders of magnitude more, and even if it was it would suggest they are not banned because of how useful it is (arguably gaming is even less useful) but because of size. But sure compare to gaming + TVs then.