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At first I was going to ask why the city was sticking its nose in people's private business and why they care what they're using that electricity for. But it se

At first I was going to ask why the city was sticking its nose in people's private business and why they care what they're using that electricity for. But it seems that they aren't doing it for that reason, and residents are being pretty severely negatively affected. On a side note, the city's goal was to use cheap electricity to lure industry to town, and their policy did exactly what they tried to. Seems like they didn't exactly plan out what would happen if they succeeded.

Scoundreller 9y ago
Quebec has done the same thing with cheap hydroelectric and aluminum production. Instead of selling th energy for a pretty penny to the NE USA, they sell it below-market to preserve a small number of jobs in the industry since it’s highly automated. $300 000 to preserve each job per year https://www.iedm.org/3341--300-000-per-job-each-year-for-35-years-subsidies-for-aluminum-producers-benefits-that-dont-add-up https://www.iedm.org/3341--300-000-per-job-each-year-for-35-...
crazygringo 9y ago
> and their policy did exactly what they tried to. In a way. Obviously their goal was growth: to attract industry whose wages and hopefully some profits would go back into the local economy. That's not going to happen with Bitcoin mining. If 200 local jobs had been created, then the story would be different.
- adrianmonk 9y ago
  They were probably looking for a specific type of growth (one that includes jobs) but failed to specify. Oops, but lesson learned. But there's also a second issue: even if the bitcoin operation had brought jobs, it still used enough power to raise everyone's electric bills by $100-200 a month. That's huge, and it's not obvious that it's even worth it. Of course, you can argue that if a business had high labor costs, it never would have expanded as much as or as quickly as the bitcoin mining businesses did.

Scoundreller 9y ago

Quebec has done the same thing with cheap hydroelectric and aluminum production. Instead of selling th energy for a pretty penny to the NE USA, they sell it below-market to preserve a small number of jobs in the industry since it’s highly automated. $300 000 to preserve each job per year https://www.iedm.org/3341--300-000-per-job-each-year-for-35-years-subsidies-for-aluminum-producers-benefits-that-dont-add-up https://www.iedm.org/3341--300-000-per-job-each-year-for-35-...

crazygringo 9y ago

> and their policy did exactly what they tried to. In a way. Obviously their goal was growth: to attract industry whose wages and hopefully some profits would go back into the local economy. That's not going to happen with Bitcoin mining. If 200 local jobs had been created, then the story would be different.

adrianmonk 9y ago
They were probably looking for a specific type of growth (one that includes jobs) but failed to specify. Oops, but lesson learned. But there's also a second issue: even if the bitcoin operation had brought jobs, it still used enough power to raise everyone's electric bills by $100-200 a month. That's huge, and it's not obvious that it's even worth it. Of course, you can argue that if a business had high labor costs, it never would have expanded as much as or as quickly as the bitcoin mining businesses did.