4 ms·

- Unless I seriously misinterpreted the news, the significant chunk of hash rate cut due to this blackout is all coal. - Until hydro and other renewables cover

by oefrha 6y ago

- Unless I seriously misinterpreted the news, the significant chunk of hash rate cut due to this blackout is all coal. - Until hydro and other renewables cover all electricity needs, crypto mining hogging hydro just pushes other non-crypto power demands to fossil fuel.

seanmcdirmid 6y ago
Technically speaking, western China has a lot of renewable power and not as much demand for it as eastern China. If they were mining in western China to take advantage of lower rates, and that energy can’t be transmitted East anyways, then it might make sense (or they could just move some industry from eastern China to western China to take advantage of renewables, or get that UHV grid working so they can move renewable electricity East to where it’s needed).
- powerapple 6y ago
  The government has put out policies to encourage industry to move to western China. It is not so much about energy, it is mainly to deal with the imbalance of development between western China and eastern China (more so Northern China and Southern China). As far as I can recall, there was power shortage a few months ago, and I have suspected bitcoin mining would contributed to some of it.
- kaba0 6y ago
  It doesn’t matter where it is used up, the point is that it is unnecessary work taking a huge amount of energy, that could be used for better things. Even using up purely renewable energy makes every other industry rely more on non-renewables, so it is a lose-lose either way.
  - disruptalot 6y ago
    Maybe with the simplistic perspective that Bitcoin has a value that you can calculate. Energy usecases are worth what energy they use. Energy exists in a mostly free market and that's the best way to determine value. Everything else is conjecture.
    - kaba0 6y ago
      Or, we don’t live in a fictional world where infinite growth exists. Useless energy expenditure is useless and objectively bad.
      - trhway 6y ago
        >we don’t live in a fictional world where infinite growth exists. we do. One just need to see the world beyond their own planet. >Useless energy expenditure is useless and objectively bad. your comment cost some energy to be expended. Basically most of computer use by humans is a useless energy expenditure, yet somehow some people single out crypto.
        kaba0 6y ago
        > we do. One just need to see the world beyond their own planet. Heat death of the universe would like a world with you. And before you say that it is so damn far we should not care about it, meaningful space travel is similarly so. We should save our own planet because a goddamn apocalyptic Earth after ww3 is still a more livable place then any planet in the Solar system. Also, is being globally connected to each other with comparatively less energy expenditure bad? How about hosting free educational resources, but even just fun things? It is not comparable to hashing random numbers for proof of work levels of useless.
        trhway 6y ago
        >meaningful space travel is similarly so as i already said - that is mainly because we fail to see the world beyond our planet. >It is not comparable to hashing random numbers for proof of work levels of useless. you find something not important to you and declare it useless. Other people do seems to value the planetary-scale decentralized consensus at like a $1T.
        kaba0 6y ago
        > as i already said - that is mainly because we fail to see the world beyond our planet. Well, closer to the Sun it is way too hot, further away it is way too cold. There are also tiny problems like not having an atmosphere, too great or too small gravity, or small details like not having a solid surface, but sure, which planet would you like to travel to?
  - seanmcdirmid 6y ago
    If energy is portable, sure. If not, then it might make sense to mine where energy is abundant and not put to better use. Eg plant a satellite with solar cells close to the sun just to do crypto currency mining? Maybe not crypto, but perhaps some other computations that don’t require too much bandwidth to transmit results.

by oefrha 6y ago

seanmcdirmid 6y ago

Technically speaking, western China has a lot of renewable power and not as much demand for it as eastern China. If they were mining in western China to take advantage of lower rates, and that energy can’t be transmitted East anyways, then it might make sense (or they could just move some industry from eastern China to western China to take advantage of renewables, or get that UHV grid working so they can move renewable electricity East to where it’s needed).

powerapple 6y ago
The government has put out policies to encourage industry to move to western China. It is not so much about energy, it is mainly to deal with the imbalance of development between western China and eastern China (more so Northern China and Southern China). As far as I can recall, there was power shortage a few months ago, and I have suspected bitcoin mining would contributed to some of it.
kaba0 6y ago
It doesn’t matter where it is used up, the point is that it is unnecessary work taking a huge amount of energy, that could be used for better things. Even using up purely renewable energy makes every other industry rely more on non-renewables, so it is a lose-lose either way.
- disruptalot 6y ago
  Maybe with the simplistic perspective that Bitcoin has a value that you can calculate. Energy usecases are worth what energy they use. Energy exists in a mostly free market and that's the best way to determine value. Everything else is conjecture.
  - kaba0 6y ago
    Or, we don’t live in a fictional world where infinite growth exists. Useless energy expenditure is useless and objectively bad.
    - trhway 6y ago
      >we don’t live in a fictional world where infinite growth exists. we do. One just need to see the world beyond their own planet. >Useless energy expenditure is useless and objectively bad. your comment cost some energy to be expended. Basically most of computer use by humans is a useless energy expenditure, yet somehow some people single out crypto.
      - kaba0 6y ago
        > we do. One just need to see the world beyond their own planet. Heat death of the universe would like a world with you. And before you say that it is so damn far we should not care about it, meaningful space travel is similarly so. We should save our own planet because a goddamn apocalyptic Earth after ww3 is still a more livable place then any planet in the Solar system. Also, is being globally connected to each other with comparatively less energy expenditure bad? How about hosting free educational resources, but even just fun things? It is not comparable to hashing random numbers for proof of work levels of useless.
        trhway 6y ago
        >meaningful space travel is similarly so as i already said - that is mainly because we fail to see the world beyond our planet. >It is not comparable to hashing random numbers for proof of work levels of useless. you find something not important to you and declare it useless. Other people do seems to value the planetary-scale decentralized consensus at like a $1T.
        kaba0 6y ago
        > as i already said - that is mainly because we fail to see the world beyond our planet. Well, closer to the Sun it is way too hot, further away it is way too cold. There are also tiny problems like not having an atmosphere, too great or too small gravity, or small details like not having a solid surface, but sure, which planet would you like to travel to?
- seanmcdirmid 6y ago
  If energy is portable, sure. If not, then it might make sense to mine where energy is abundant and not put to better use. Eg plant a satellite with solar cells close to the sun just to do crypto currency mining? Maybe not crypto, but perhaps some other computations that don’t require too much bandwidth to transmit results.