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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

#81

Post by triMichael »

ctmnt wrote: post #55
UltraSane wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The minimum amount of energy needed to compute decreased asymptotically to 0 as the temperature of space goes to 0. This is the reason a common sci-fi trope where advanced civilizations hibernate for extremely long times so that they can do more computation with available energy.

That’s a common trope? Can’t say I’ve run into it. But I’d like to! What are some good examples?

Kurzgesagt just made a video on it a couple months back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMm-U2pHrXE

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

#82

Post by anon84873628 »

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.

I think what they mean is that there is not a Carnot engine hooked up between the heat source and sink. Which theoretically something the data center could do about it.

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

#83

Post by jesse__ »

NewJazz wrote: post #75
jesse__ wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a large steel foundry uses approximately 1/10 of the power of this facility. Arc furnace foundry : 500 kw/tonne Production : 150 t/hr 500*150 = 75 MW/h

I'm not 100% but I think you may have confused watts and watt hours somewhere in there. Wouldn't it be X kWh/ton?

Yeah, I think you're right. Maff still maffs though. Units work out to MWh/h.. which makes sense to me

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

#84

Post by anon84873628 »

geoffschmidt wrote: post #18
dangalf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How many computer things you got done per unit electricity, and how many mechanical things you do with the temperature gradient between the computer and its heat sync.

For example, kinda wasteful to cook eggs with new electrons when you could use the computer heat to help you denature those proteins. Or just put the heat in human living spaces.

(Putting aside how practical that actually is... Which it isn't)

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

#85

Post by hetspookjee »

kanemcgrath wrote: post #15

I always wondered if anybody has calculated how much of our global heating could be attributed, if any at all, to every electronic device, server, and engine outputting heat as a byproduct.

I have the feeling that particular energy output does not so much, really. For example this plant in the image is about 700x400m and when multiplied with the suns peak output you already get a potential energy of 280MW. And this site almost triples that. The sun shines practically everywhere, though.

Humans produce about 20TW globally at this time (ChatGPT), while the sun adds about 174000TW of energy to the earth.

I guess you could argue that our waste heat does something, but I think the greenhouse gases that trap this enormous energy more effectively have a far bigger effect.

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

#86

Post by anon84873628 »

cousin_it wrote: post #70
stouset wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wasted energy that in theory could be turned into useful work Even if turned into useful work, the end result of that work is still ultimately heat.

Right, but if it's noticeably hotter than the environment, then that temperature difference could be used to drive a heat engine and get some more useful work. So the knee-jerk response "omg, we see the heat from space? it's gotta be wasteful!" is kind of correct, in theory.

Some people are saying "waste heat" in the technical sense of "the heat my industrial process created and I need to get rid of" and others are saying "waste heat" as "heat humans are emitting into space without slapping at least one Carnot engine on it yet".

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

#87

Post by anon84873628 »

EGreg wrote: post #50
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.

Seriously, the only way I would accept Bitcoin mining is as a winter heating source that pays for itself. Why can't people sell those?

Unfortunately, Bitcoin mining is pretty hot as far as regular computer use goes, but not very hot at all compared to burning some fuel.

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

#89

Post by devsda »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #49
robkop wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting question - how much will end up as sound, or in the ever smaller tail of things like storing a bit in flash memory?

Heat is the graveyard of energy. Everything that uses energy, or is energy, is actually just energy on it's way to the graveyard. The energy of the universe is a pool of water a top a cliff. Water running off this cliff is used to do stuff (work), and the pool at the bottom is heat. The "heat death of the universe" is referring to this water fall running dry, and all the energy being in this useless pool of "heat".

Do thermophotovoltaic cells operate on different kind of heat?

Is it impossible to convert heat into other forms of energy without "consuming" materials like in the case of steam, geothermal or even the ones that need a cold body to utilize thermoelectric effect.

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

#90

Post by eimrine »

anon84873628 wrote: post #84
geoffschmidt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How many computer things you got done per unit electricity, and how many mechanical things you do with the temperature gradient between the computer and its heat sync. For example, kinda wasteful to cook eggs with new electrons when you could use the computer heat to help you denature those proteins. Or just put the heat in human living spaces. (Putting aside how practical that actually is... Which it isn't)

Good luck with collecting that heat from air.
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