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I'm still waiting for the environmentalists to start going after the miners who seek out cheap energy and then gobble up tons of it just mine their crypto: htt

I'm still waiting for the environmentalists to start going after the miners who seek out cheap energy and then gobble up tons of it just mine their crypto: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/09/bitcoin-mining-energy-prices-smalltown-feature-217230 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/09/bitcoin-m... Today, a half-megawatt mine, Miehe says, “is nothing.” The commercial miners now pouring into the valley are building sites with tens of thousands of servers and electrical loads of as much as 30 megawatts, or enough to power a neighborhood of 13,000 homes. And in the arms race that cryptocurrency mining has become, even these operations will soon be considered small-scale. That is INSANE.

nonbel 8y ago
>"That is INSANE." Is it? What have you compared that to? At least some people like bitcoin/etc, who likes the new reddit layout that requires transferring 60x more data than necessary (using HN is an example of an environmentally friendly text-based site) just to track all their users clicks and mouse movements? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17671695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17671695
- onion2k 8y ago
  What have you compared that to? The utility of using half a megawatt of power for something else would be a reasonable comparison. That's the power required for ~300 average sized homes. That sounds like a lot to me.
  - nonbel 8y ago
    >"That sounds like a lot to me." It sounds like a lot because you are adding up energy used by many, many people all around the world. Lots of things "sound like a lot" when you do that. Why not do the same calculation for a few other things that people enjoy (gaming, porn, cat pics, posting to facebook/twitter, bars/drinking, holiday decorations, lawncare, etc)? All those activities are totally unnecessary wastes of energy.
Grangar 8y ago
Insane compared to what? The cost of traditional methods to consumers, or to society as a whole?
mikec3010 8y ago
It's wasteful, but probably no more than injection molding factories that make cheap plastic junk.

nonbel 8y ago

>"That is INSANE." Is it? What have you compared that to? At least some people like bitcoin/etc, who likes the new reddit layout that requires transferring 60x more data than necessary (using HN is an example of an environmentally friendly text-based site) just to track all their users clicks and mouse movements? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17671695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17671695

onion2k 8y ago
What have you compared that to? The utility of using half a megawatt of power for something else would be a reasonable comparison. That's the power required for ~300 average sized homes. That sounds like a lot to me.
- nonbel 8y ago
  >"That sounds like a lot to me." It sounds like a lot because you are adding up energy used by many, many people all around the world. Lots of things "sound like a lot" when you do that. Why not do the same calculation for a few other things that people enjoy (gaming, porn, cat pics, posting to facebook/twitter, bars/drinking, holiday decorations, lawncare, etc)? All those activities are totally unnecessary wastes of energy.

Grangar 8y ago

Insane compared to what? The cost of traditional methods to consumers, or to society as a whole?

mikec3010 8y ago

It's wasteful, but probably no more than injection molding factories that make cheap plastic junk.