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There are some situations where mining Bitcoin is a very good application of energy that will otherwise be wasted. Here are two that come to mind: 1. Flared ga

There are some situations where mining Bitcoin is a very good application of energy that will otherwise be wasted. Here are two that come to mind: 1. Flared gas from oil wells. Natural gas is a byproduct of extracting oil from the Earth. In the past this was vented straight to the atmosphere, which is a huge waste of energy and causes horrible air pollution. Capturing this gas isn’t useful for many applications because it happens in remote areas, but if there’s a network connection it can be harnessed for mining Bitcoin. 2. Heat production for buildings and water. Most space and water heaters produce heat directly from their energy source (electricity or gas) without producing anything else of value. The primary byproduct of Bitcoin mining is heat, so it’s relatively straightforward to use mining hardware to produce, or at least augment, traditional heating elements. A company called Wisemining has a product called the Sato Boiler that does this now. Neither of these is specific to Bitcoin, because the general concept is running a computer at full load for an extended duration. Bitcoin mining just happens to be the most logical (and profitable) application of that concept at present.

bottled_poe 5y ago
I don’t mean to direct this at you individually (the sentiment is throughout these threads) - I can’t help but despair when a community of engineers lack the ability to come up with creative solutions for using surplus energy. There is always a better use of those energy sources than Bitcoin mining. Some ideas: Extracting co2 from air, electrolysis, desalination, etc.
- thinkmassive 5y ago
  As an engineer I find both ideas very innovative. Nobody is desalinating their own water at home using waste heat. Oil wells are often located in an area where it would make no sense to transport a bunch of water to desalinate (perhaps that's a good idea for sea-based wells though). I don't know enough about co2 extraction or electrolysis, only that those also don't sound like things people are likely to do at home.
amalcon 5y ago
I have no cogent argument with your first situation (there are some subtleties there that you omit, but it's basically correct modulo other uses for the energy). The second, however, is fundamentally inaccurate: > Heat production for buildings and water. Most space and water heaters produce heat directly from their energy source (electricity or gas) without producing anything else of value. The primary byproduct of Bitcoin mining is heat, so it’s relatively straightforward to use mining hardware to produce, or at least augment, traditional heating elements. A company called Wisemining has a product called the Sato Boiler that does this now. This is incorrect because a mining-based heater will be new and use electricity as its fuel source. You can't compare with an old electric heater because a replacement will obviously be new. You can't compare with hydrocarbon heaters, because you need to convert to electricity to run a computer. That means meaning we need to compare with a new electric heater. That comparison is unfavorable, however, because it will probably be based on a heat pump. Heat pumps have efficiency much greater than 100% (usually around 200%) by takng heat from the outside air or ground. A better example would be something like an electric oven, which typically does just use resistive heating. However, this sort of undermines the argument, since the energy spent on heating food isn't that much compared to things like residential and commercial heating.
- thinkmassive 5y ago
  Heat pumps are great! Unfortunately they can't be used everywhere. Check out the Wisemining Sato Boiler, it's an interesting way to augment an existing heater. There's nothing that makes the idea specific to Bitcoin mining. That's just the implementation they chose for their first product. The idea is to recapture heat generated by computation and use it for another purpose. https://www.wisemining.io/product https://www.wisemining.io/product
root_axis 5y ago
Besides personal profit, using excess energy to mine for bitcoin is worse than letting it be wasted since the increased hash rate contributes to the increased difficulty which drives the cost of mining up for the entire network.

bottled_poe 5y ago

I don’t mean to direct this at you individually (the sentiment is throughout these threads) - I can’t help but despair when a community of engineers lack the ability to come up with creative solutions for using surplus energy. There is always a better use of those energy sources than Bitcoin mining. Some ideas: Extracting co2 from air, electrolysis, desalination, etc.

thinkmassive 5y ago
As an engineer I find both ideas very innovative. Nobody is desalinating their own water at home using waste heat. Oil wells are often located in an area where it would make no sense to transport a bunch of water to desalinate (perhaps that's a good idea for sea-based wells though). I don't know enough about co2 extraction or electrolysis, only that those also don't sound like things people are likely to do at home.

amalcon 5y ago

I have no cogent argument with your first situation (there are some subtleties there that you omit, but it's basically correct modulo other uses for the energy). The second, however, is fundamentally inaccurate: > Heat production for buildings and water. Most space and water heaters produce heat directly from their energy source (electricity or gas) without producing anything else of value. The primary byproduct of Bitcoin mining is heat, so it’s relatively straightforward to use mining hardware to produce, or at least augment, traditional heating elements. A company called Wisemining has a product called the Sato Boiler that does this now. This is incorrect because a mining-based heater will be new and use electricity as its fuel source. You can't compare with an old electric heater because a replacement will obviously be new. You can't compare with hydrocarbon heaters, because you need to convert to electricity to run a computer. That means meaning we need to compare with a new electric heater. That comparison is unfavorable, however, because it will probably be based on a heat pump. Heat pumps have efficiency much greater than 100% (usually around 200%) by takng heat from the outside air or ground. A better example would be something like an electric oven, which typically does just use resistive heating. However, this sort of undermines the argument, since the energy spent on heating food isn't that much compared to things like residential and commercial heating.

thinkmassive 5y ago
Heat pumps are great! Unfortunately they can't be used everywhere. Check out the Wisemining Sato Boiler, it's an interesting way to augment an existing heater. There's nothing that makes the idea specific to Bitcoin mining. That's just the implementation they chose for their first product. The idea is to recapture heat generated by computation and use it for another purpose. https://www.wisemining.io/product https://www.wisemining.io/product

root_axis 5y ago

Besides personal profit, using excess energy to mine for bitcoin is worse than letting it be wasted since the increased hash rate contributes to the increased difficulty which drives the cost of mining up for the entire network.