More energy concerns about Bitcoin

[69GTX]

Bitcoin quantity is only "limited" in one particular brand of crypto coin. There can be hundred or thousands of others competing as well. Sure, you can have one huge gold mining company out there such as Newmont gold. But there are thousands of other miners doing it too. Gold mining increases the world's above ground supply by approx 1-1/2% per year. Bitcoin mining has been moving at much faster pace. There's no immutable law of physics that says Bitcoin mining stops at XXX number of coins. Supposedly the printing of physcial paper formatted currencies/notes is limited....yet an unlimited amount of them can be keystroked into existence almost instantaneously.

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted by KrisZ

Mind boggling waste indeed. I remember when Bitcoin we as peddled as the environmentally friendly currency. I'm surprised such things are even allowed, but nothing can stand in the way of profits. Individual allowences, now that's a different story. Try building a wood burning fire place and you're the environmental terrorist.

I don't understand what you mean by allowed. You mean that bitcoin is allowed to exist? That the company is allowed to operate?

 

[KrisZ]

Originally Posted by Wolf359

Originally Posted by KrisZ

Mind boggling waste indeed. I remember when Bitcoin we as peddled as the environmentally friendly currency. I'm surprised such things are even allowed, but nothing can stand in the way of profits. Individual allowences, now that's a different story. Try building a wood burning fire place and you're the environmental terrorist.

I don't understand what you mean by allowed. You mean that bitcoin is allowed to exist? That the company is allowed to operate?

I company can exist, but someone approved the permits for a site that can consume more energy then the local town, possibly jeopardising energy supply to it's citizens without any economical incentive to the locals,with the exception of some tax to the local coffers. In the province where a lot of things are not allowed in the name of environment, why is it OK to allow this?

 

[Shannow]

60MW, 20 bitcoins per day...3MW days per coin...72MWh per coin. 30 tonnes of coal per coin...think a cube of 10 feet on each side sitting in the middle of your living room. Will do more equivalence sums when my brain wakes up a bit more...

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted by KrisZ

Originally Posted by Wolf359

Originally Posted by KrisZ

Mind boggling waste indeed. I remember when Bitcoin we as peddled as the environmentally friendly currency. I'm surprised such things are even allowed, but nothing can stand in the way of profits. Individual allowences, now that's a different story. Try building a wood burning fire place and you're the environmental terrorist.

I don't understand what you mean by allowed. You mean that bitcoin is allowed to exist? That the company is allowed to operate?

I company can exist, but someone approved the permits for a site that can consume more energy then the local town, possibly jeopardising energy supply to it's citizens without any economical incentive to the locals,with the exception of some tax to the local coffers. In the province where a lot of things are not allowed in the name of environment, why is it OK to allow this?

Maybe because it's not a totalitarian state. There's probably rules that say if someone wants to buy power, you've got to sell it to them if they're willing to pay. Sometimes certain business don't need permission to operate.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by Shannow

60MW, 20 bitcoins per day...3MW days per coin...72MWh per coin. 30 tonnes of coal per coin...think a cube of 10 feet on each side sitting in the middle of your living room. Will do more equivalence sums when my brain wakes up a bit more...

Jesus!

 

[Leo99]

I own some crypto currency. Made some money; lost some money. Don't understand it one bit. It's not fiat currency and it's not inherently worth anything like a precious metal would. Just because it expensive to mine one, that makes is have value? I don't understand fiat currency exchange rates, either.

 

[Leo99]

Originally Posted by KrisZ

Originally Posted by Wolf359

Originally Posted by KrisZ

Mind boggling waste indeed. I remember when Bitcoin we as peddled as the environmentally friendly currency. I'm surprised such things are even allowed, but nothing can stand in the way of profits. Individual allowences, now that's a different story. Try building a wood burning fire place and you're the environmental terrorist.

I don't understand what you mean by allowed. You mean that bitcoin is allowed to exist? That the company is allowed to operate?

I company can exist, but someone approved the permits for a site that can consume more energy then the local town, possibly jeopardising energy supply to it's citizens without any economical incentive to the locals,with the exception of some tax to the local coffers. In the province where a lot of things are not allowed in the name of environment, why is it OK to allow this?

its I committed to be a spell checker on here a couple days ago have been slacking in my duties.

 

[Astro14]

Originally Posted by Leo99

I own some crypto currency. Made some money; lost some money. Don't understand it one bit. It's not fiat currency and it's not inherently worth anything like a precious metal would. Just because it expensive to mine one, that makes is have value? I don't understand fiat currency exchange rates, either.

It's ...

 

[Leo99]

Originally Posted by Astro14

Originally Posted by Leo99

I own some crypto currency. Made some money; lost some money. Don't understand it one bit. It's not fiat currency and it's not inherently worth anything like a precious metal would. Just because it expensive to mine one, that makes is have value? I don't understand fiat currency exchange rates, either.

It's ...

Nice! I hereby resign.

 

[Garak]

Astro, here's one for you. I noticed on Steam the other day they have a Bitcoin simulation game for sale, of all things.

 

[KrisZ]

Originally Posted by OVERKILL

Originally Posted by Shannow

60MW, 20 bitcoins per day...3MW days per coin...72MWh per coin. 30 tonnes of coal per coin...think a cube of 10 feet on each side sitting in the middle of your living room. Will do more equivalence sums when my brain wakes up a bit more...

Jesus!

It's quite incredible now that Shannow put it into perspective.

 

[Shannow]

Calculated a better one... 72MWh is 259,200MJ If you had a gasoline generator at an (overly generous) 25% efficiency, you would need 1GJ of energy fed through that generator...gas contains 34.2MJ/l...30,300L (8,000gal) would need to go through it. 20 of these per day, one per bitcoin.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted by Astro14

$2,000 in electricity to make a single bit coin. Wow.

Here, wholesale before transmission is $85 (Oz) per MWh, so if they were hard wired to a power station, that's $6k Oz, $4,300 US. Assuming that the quoted power is scalable, and at Oz retail rates, that's $19,400 Oz, or $13,800 US.

 

[Astro14]

Originally Posted by Shannow

Originally Posted by Astro14

$2,000 in electricity to make a single bit coin. Wow.

Here, wholesale before transmission is $85 (Oz) per MWh, so if they were hard wired to a power station, that's $6k Oz, $4,300 US. Assuming that the quoted power is scalable, and at Oz retail rates, that's $19,400 Oz, or $13,800 US.

Even more stunning! I knew that the quoted consumption cost in the article was predicated on cheap hydro power in that valley...but..who would mine Bitcoin at this cost? Let's see, I'll spend $13,800 (plus the cost of my server farm) to create something that I can sell at a market price of, $6,600...

 

[Astro14]

Originally Posted by Garak

Astro, here's one for you. I noticed on Steam the other day they have a Bitcoin simulation game for sale, of all things.

Hmm...just discovered Kerbal Space Program on Steam...might have to get to the Mun before I go exploring Bitcoin...but thank you!

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted by Astro14

Originally Posted by Shannow

Originally Posted by Astro14

$2,000 in electricity to make a single bit coin. Wow.

Here, wholesale before transmission is $85 (Oz) per MWh, so if they were hard wired to a power station, that's $6k Oz, $4,300 US. Assuming that the quoted power is scalable, and at Oz retail rates, that's $19,400 Oz, or $13,800 US.

Even more stunning! I knew that the quoted consumption cost in the article was predicated on cheap hydro power in that valley...but..who would mine Bitcoin at this cost? Let's see, I'll spend $13,800 (plus the cost of my server farm) to create something that I can sell at a market price of, $6,600...

Scarier even than that...per the article

Quote

"They could have gone anywhere in the world and they chose Medicine Hat," said Clugston. "[Hut 8] is not here for renewable energy because it is not reliable. They need gas-fired generation and we have it in spades."

I can handle that if you build a gas plant (not the open cycle part), and run it constantly, you get an early return on investment (and GTs, low life consumption, as life is 1:1 in those regimes)...it pays the installation off.

Quote

The bitcoin system is designed, so only a limited number of the cryptocurrency can be mined everyday. Over time, as more miners compete for a decreasing number of available bitcoins, facilities will have to use more electricity compared to the amount of the cryptocurrency they collect.

So it's self limiting, per the $ that you have suggested...any home bitcoiner miners in Oz are seriously mathematically challenged...and eventually it won't be worth mining. But the numbers are astonishing...I did a thread some months ago where bitcoin uses more energy than New Zealand...that's utterly insane... Per the quoted company https://hut8mining.com/ They proudly display that at the current time they are using 87MW...mining furiously...That's 7% of Tasmania's current demand...for 20 bitcoins a day. It's not even solving SETI, curing cancer, just proving that the right number of hashes have been crossed to demonstrate the effort of "mining"...it's a disastrous model

 

[thooks]

Looks like there's more people than I could ever imagine that have nothing productive to do....

 

[Win]

Quote

..... Let's see, I'll spend $13,800 (plus the cost of my server farm) to create something that I can sell at a market price of, $6,600...

"Medicine Hat owns its own natural gas and electricity generation and distribution businesses ..... . Financial details of the city's deal with Hut 8 are not disclosed." No Freedom of Information Act equivalents in CA? Certainly doesn't make financial sense in any accounting / tax scenario I am familiar with. Maybe they have some kind of deal worked out that ties the cost of power to the market "value" ( term used loosely ) at the time some mark trades something of actual value for .... what ?

 

[OVERKILL]

It makes perfect sense if they have a deal for fixed consumption on which they are being paid a fixed rate. Instead of having to curtail generation, they get to run the plant wide-open. Locally, we have five hydro-electric dams, one of them is 150 years old. That dam has been paid for for well over a century. We also have our own local utility and generating body and if they were to strike a deal with a large consumer that would be pulling off of one of those existing assets rather than us spilling at times of the day or night when demand was low, then that would be a boon for them. Even if the rate at which the power was sold was significantly less than their regular feed-in wholesale rate, it's still profit, unlike curtailment/spillage. The instant we dump steam at one of the nukes, we are losing money for example. This is why the IESO will enter into rate agreements with large consumers who might otherwise go co-gen nat gas. Bruce Nuclear, at 6,384MW of installed capacity, produced 49TWh last year, that's 153GWh a day. They are paid a fixed-rate of $0.067/kWh but they periodically are forced to bypass steam to allow renewables, which are given priority under the idiotic GEA, on the grid when there is insufficient export demand and therefore nobody to sell it to. We export or curtail this nuclear because it's cheaper than wind or solar at $0.133/kWh and $0.48/kWh respectively. Now, we do also curtail wind, it just depends on where demand is, what exports are at...etc. Regardless, as soon as you bypass steam, you are throwing money out the window. So, even if Bruce was able to sell that power to a another party at $0.04/kWh, they are still making more money than if they were to dump it. On the other hand, it's basically impossible to create a contract for fixed consumption for wind or solar generation, even ignoring the insane rate contracts levied by the province. Because of course you can never guarantee availability and subsequently, you have to have backup available, for which there is a premium charged, eliminating any sort of incentivized fixed-consumption contract benefit.