4 ms·

> I'm basically just swapping some of my natural gas heat out for a few hundred watts of electric heat Except now you have to compare efficiency of your natura

> I'm basically just swapping some of my natural gas heat out for a few hundred watts of electric heat Except now you have to compare efficiency of your natural gas system vs efficiency of the power plant + electric heater. Chances are that energy efficiency of the power plant + an electric space heater (which is what you're turning your PC into) is smaller than the efficiency of your furnace. Quick googling comes up with energy efficiency of 60% for natural gas powered plants, while I don't think you'll be able to buy a gas furnace that has efficiency smaller than 80% these days... IIUC, the only way you can mine without worrying about energy usage is if you have electric space heaters in your home - then it doesn't matter if you turn on the PC or the heater. Or if you own solar panels and you are producing more than you are not able to use (or sell).

bialpio 5y ago
To summarize the part about efficiencies, by heating up your place with electricity instead of gas, the power plant needs to burn ~50% more gas (& so 50% more emissions) than you'd have to if you were to use your furnace. Intuitively, other fossil-fuel power plants will also cause larger emissions than you would locally (as they all start with burning stuff for heat & only then convert that to electricity with some losses, while you could stop there), but I haven't run the numbers. Thermodynamics is a b*tch.
- bluGill 5y ago
  Probably, though I live in an area where 50% of our electricity comes from the wind, so if the wind is blowing electric heat is far less CO2, while if the wind isn't blowing electric heat is far more.
  - bialpio 5y ago
    In that case the problem becomes what other poster mentioned: it's a zero-sum game so you increasing your energy consumption takes green energy from someone else. Maybe if you mined only when you knew that the energy would be curtailed otherwise? Not sure how to know that though...

bialpio 5y ago

To summarize the part about efficiencies, by heating up your place with electricity instead of gas, the power plant needs to burn ~50% more gas (& so 50% more emissions) than you'd have to if you were to use your furnace. Intuitively, other fossil-fuel power plants will also cause larger emissions than you would locally (as they all start with burning stuff for heat & only then convert that to electricity with some losses, while you could stop there), but I haven't run the numbers. Thermodynamics is a b*tch.

bluGill 5y ago
Probably, though I live in an area where 50% of our electricity comes from the wind, so if the wind is blowing electric heat is far less CO2, while if the wind isn't blowing electric heat is far more.
- bialpio 5y ago
  In that case the problem becomes what other poster mentioned: it's a zero-sum game so you increasing your energy consumption takes green energy from someone else. Maybe if you mined only when you knew that the energy would be curtailed otherwise? Not sure how to know that though...