5 ms·
Anywhere in the USA who has to pay USA power prices is going to be at a disadvantage by that alone then. It would seem that locating the hashing equipment to th
by feelix 11y ago
Anywhere in the USA who has to pay USA power prices is going to be at a disadvantage by that alone then. It would seem that locating the hashing equipment to the place with the cheapest power possible would be a logical step when things start to get cut that fine. Unless that could be overcome with clever usage of naturally generated local power (such as solar power).
- douche 11y agoYou'd think Canada would have more major data centers. They've got a lot of extremely cheap hydro power. You could surely lay ultra-high-speed fiber along the same right-of-ways that the transmission lines use. Also, it's cold as hell more often than not, so cooling is less of an issue than putting them out in the desert somewhere.
- rockyleal 11y agoBitcoin miner's dilemma: Should I mine where it's hot for the free solar energy or should I mine where it's cold for the extra refrigeration?
- Jtsummers 11y agoCold air but hot ground. Take advantage of geothermal and hydroelectric in the arctic and near-arctic regions.
- karlkatzke 11y agoPhotovoltaic power is actually less efficient where it's warmer. The ideal for photovoltaic generation is somewhere cold but sunny. And I'm not aware of too many solar thermal plants that are online and profitable versus other generating methods.
- geon 11y agoIceland! Active volcano geothermal power and cold climate.
- Jtsummers 11y agoThere have already been articles about people doing that a couple years ago. I believe they were located in a cooler climate as well, made cooling the datacenter a bit cheaper so more power was going to computing than maintaining the computing equipment. I'll look for that article now. EDIT: Not the article I was looking for, but it covers it and was from 2013. This guy was using the cheap Icelandic power and the cold Icelandic air to his advantage. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/into-the-bitcoin-mines/?_r=0 http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/into-the-bitcoin-mine...
- maaku 11y agoUSA (Washington state) has the cheapest power in the world (at volume -- places like Iceland are cheaper/nearly free, but with too limited capacity for large scale mining).
- Scoundreller 11y agoTherein lies the problem: New users pay the average price, but new capacity has to be built at the marginal cost.
- Viper007Bond 11y agoWashington and Oregon sell a lot to the SW. Google just built a big data center here near a dam from a huge city for power reasons.
- lmm 11y agoReally limited capacity? They run aluminium smelters in Iceland, I can't imagine bitcoin mining requires more power than that.
- maaku 11y agoAt that price point, yes. Maybe the problem has been not enough power required... I don't know. I just know that most bitcoin companies in Iceland have moved or are moving to get cheaper power elsewhere.