Posted on 05/23/2021 2:41:22 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
In upstate New York, an idled coal plant has been restarted, fueled by natural gas, to mine cryptocurrency. A once-struggling Montana coal plant is now scaling up to do the same.
A University of Cambridge index pegs the annual power consumption of bitcoin mining at around 130 terawatt-hours, more than three times higher than at the beginning of 2019. That would be more than the power consumption of Argentina.
It bought the Greenidge coal-fired power station in 2014 after the plant in Dresden, N.Y. had been shut a few years earlier because it was economically unattractive to operate.
Atlas first converted the plant to natural gas from coal. Then, last year, it launched a data center for mining bitcoin using power the plant generated. The company said it currently has 19 megawatts of mining capacity and plans to raise it to 85 megawatts by the end of 2022.
groups have written letters to New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation and Gov. Andrew Cuomo urging them to revoke the plant’s permits.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Where they save $ is:
Not having worldwide offices - corner location, skyscrapers, etc. to heat, cool, light, security, travel, computer systems, regulators, etc.
… energy for employees to commute - Wells Fargo alone has 233,000 employees.
There are approximately 25,000 - to 30,000 chartered banks in countries around the world. Most have multiple locations. Wells Fargo has about 7,200 locations. Hard to find definitive numbers about total bank locations for all banks worldwide.
I do not know the combined energy usage for the worldwide banking industry… but it must be mammoth.
And the more I look, the more it seems a silly issue about crypto energy usage. Energy usage is a business or personal spending decision. No laws broken. Let it rip.
As I alluded earlier ... “on a good day” ;-)
—”Is there a fish and chips place nearby?”
Probably two or three!
England swings like a pendulum do
Bobbies on bicycles, two by two
Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben
The rosy-red cheeks of the little children
Man makes last-ditch effort to recover $280 million in bitcoin he accidentally threw out
Banks, bureaucracies, bitcoin vendors... GO BIG OR GO HOME!!
There must be some industry that successfully downsized, stays down, and succeeded?
—”I do not know the combined energy usage for the worldwide banking industry… but it must be mammoth.”
This is not a new topic, SWAG estimates abound, the problem is finding a detailed analysis.
—”And the more I look, the more it seems a silly issue about crypto energy usage. Energy usage is a business or personal spending decision. No laws broken. Let it rip.”
Totally agree.
But refurbishing an old powerhouse is a good story.
It’s a boon for Canadian hydro too, which can generate more power than they can use. Nice and green too, eh.
Yeah, whatever they are.
okay, how do power plants mine bitcoin?
Does the power plant have to supply power, forever, to support the bitcoin?
Does one expend x number of kwh to generate a bitcoin?
why do you need massive amounts of electric power?
The problem is Musk kept his bitcoins.
—”Does the power plant have to supply power, forever, to support the bitcoin?”
Not forever but as time goes on it will take longer and more computing power. IIRC Bitcoin is limited to 31 million coins.
But there a seemingly infinite number of other ‘coin products’ to mine.
—”Does one expend x number of kwh to generate a bitcoin?”
With each iteration of bitcoins, the calculations to produce a new bitcoin become more complex and consume more power.
—”The problem is Musk kept his bitcoins.”
Had he dumped them the market would have cratered.
Computers mine Bitcoin, and it takes tons of computing power to mine one coin. The computers do number crunching of an algorithm that eventually results in 1 BTC.
Running that computer takes tons of electricity.
If BTC is now at $38k, I suspect it takes $20k to $30k of electricity to generate/mine 1 BTC. Maybe more.
But the difference between the cost of the electricity and mining computers and the value of one BTC determines whether it is profitable to do so.
Relative mined Litecoin with 4 computers he built that ran 24x7, and the electric bill was enourmous. In the beginning he made nice $$ mining Litecoin. But eventually the cost of the electricity to run the computers exceeded the value of 1 Litecoin, so he quit.
—”Yeah, whatever they are.”
If a bitcoin falls into the street, does it make a sound?
This is a total nonsense argument. Bitcoin’s waste of energy argument is a fool’s errand. Bitcoin energy consumption is far more efficient and greener than today’s banking system.
Bitcoin is 1% of the entire current banking system that we hear nothing about its “carbon footprint” nonsense.
Here is a full report for anyone with this B.S. argument.
Yes, an interesting article.
But, I disagree.
IMO, Bitcoin is similar to a fiat currency in that it has NO intrinsic value.
ZERO.
Also see Adam Smith, labor theory of value. Marx too.
So, don’t blame me when the margin call comes.
The value is in the protocol. It’s deflationary also compared to the USD that is inflationary.
Are you Bitcoin people the same ones who believe in UFOs?
Maybe I’m missing something- after reading this post I looked up the bitcoin price chart. Did it really drop almost 40 percent in the last couple of weeks? Haven’t heard anything about it in the news other than the Fed and China are looking to get into the same game and add regulations. Is that the reason for the drop? Just surprised the amount of the drop hasn’t been on the news more.
—”Are you Bitcoin people the same ones who believe in UFOs?”
While not a bitcoin person, I find the technology fascinating and the blockchain elegant.
And would like to learn more about”Satoshi Nakamoto”.
As for the intrinsic value, that is similar to UFOs; only for the true believer.
If you ask around, other opinions are “out there”.
—”Did it really drop almost 40 percent in the last couple of weeks? “
YES!
Easy to move like that because there is no there there.
With zero mass it can move very quickly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.