4 ms·

NYC bathhouse is mining Bitcoin to heat its pools

krunck 3y ago
This is an excellent idea. A few other applications would use the heat for: greenhouses in winter(I think at least one person had done this) drying wood/lumber drying foods
- bcrl 3y ago
  Not really. A heat pump would use less energy for the same amount of heat.
  - npoc 3y ago
    What's the theory behind that? And even if true, what's the problem with using electricity if it's created cleanly?
    - bcrl 3y ago
      Heat pumps move heat from where it's not needed to where it's needed. Moving heat takes less energy than converting electricity directly to heat or as a side effect of performing a calculation. They're not a new technology either, with the principle discovered back in the 1850s. The air to air heat pump we're installing at my home works at outdoor temperatures down to -30C. Bitcoin doesn't do anything useful aside from burn energy. I hope Proof Of Work gets banned, as it's one of the worst examples of externalities ever created.
      - npoc 3y ago
        It's quite dividing, Bitcoin. Since I heard about it in 2012, I thought the same as you until I shorted it one morning in 2021 and started to learn more about it. By the end of the day I'd changed the short to a long position and now I see it was one of the most important inventions/discoveries in the history of mankind. In fact it's difficult for me to see a positive future for mankind without it. I guess the reason you see it as a waste is because you don't understand what's wrong with the current fiat currency and the terrible, profound effects it has on the world. I recommend reading "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by E Griffin. It will teach you more about the world than you could ever imagine. If money isn't proof of work, what is it?
      - rapjr9 3y ago
        Is there anything useful (besides Bitcoin) that can be done with precomputation? Perhaps training an LLM? So if you are going to be training an LLM why not heat a town with it? The world has an enormous need for computation and probably for precomputation as well. The waste heat should be harnessed instead of dumped into the environment directly. This could be kind of like SETI, but selling computation boxes for home heating rather than using spare cycles on computers that are running anyway. While it's not as efficient as using a heat pump, it would mostly pay for itself if someone purchases the computation and if you're going to compute anyway... Graphics rendering for movies might be another example. Network bandwidth might be an issue, though some tasks don't produce much I/O but do a lot of computation.
        npoc 3y ago
        Sure, you can heat buildings, water etc. The miners who can mine bitcoin the most efficiently (i.e. monetise any wasted energy the best) will win and the others will not be profitable and will go out of business. Miners are not location constrained like most energy users and are drawn to the cheapest energy sources around the world which tends to be otherwise wasted energy that no-one wants. If there's other demand for the energy it will be uneconomical for the miners to use, and they'll need to move elsewhere. Even if too many miners cluster in a certain location, their own demand will increase prices, forcing them to decentralise around the globe. So ultimately they end up spread around the world either using the energy no one wants and is otherwise wasted (i.e. ~free) or more expensive energy while efficiently monetising the by-products of mining (i.e. heat) They actually make otherwise unprofitable renewable energy sources, profitable, by offering a highly dynamic load that can monetise large amounts of unneeded (and unthrottlable) energy during periods of low demand (see the "duck curve"). Without this the solar farms etc could be unviable.
- ephbit 3y ago
  The heat might also be used in a direct air capture process to regenerate the adsorbent, realeasing the CO2.
Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
I'd rather something useful be done, but I suppose mining crypto has the side effect of possibly paying some of the energy costs back.
- npoc 3y ago
  Running Bitcoin is extremely useful - you just to learn more (far too much to explain here) to understand why
  - Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
    Any time someone tries to talk up cryptocurrency, in my mind, I just see some dude crying "please buy the crypto, I bought near an all-time high and now I'm holding a bag, please buy and push the price up, please, my wife is so upset with me, I lost the kids college savings!" Ya'll come up with these huge mental gymnastics about why cryptocurrency is so great and then move the goal posts every couple years to suit your fancy. First it was a currency and a great method of doing online payments without a company like PayPal getting in the way. But as the value went up, the network got busier, and transaction fees reached the 10s of dollars, ya'll decided it wasn't a currency, it was a store of value! But then it crashed from over $65K to under $17K and decided it wasn't a good store of value anymore, but I see now it's crept back up to $43K again.
    - npoc 3y ago
      Your loss, just trying to help and share the knowledge. I shouldn't bother.

This is an excellent idea. A few other applications would use the heat for: greenhouses in winter(I think at least one person had done this) drying wood/lumber drying foods

bcrl 3y ago
Not really. A heat pump would use less energy for the same amount of heat.
- npoc 3y ago
  What's the theory behind that? And even if true, what's the problem with using electricity if it's created cleanly?
  - bcrl 3y ago
    Heat pumps move heat from where it's not needed to where it's needed. Moving heat takes less energy than converting electricity directly to heat or as a side effect of performing a calculation. They're not a new technology either, with the principle discovered back in the 1850s. The air to air heat pump we're installing at my home works at outdoor temperatures down to -30C. Bitcoin doesn't do anything useful aside from burn energy. I hope Proof Of Work gets banned, as it's one of the worst examples of externalities ever created.
    - npoc 3y ago
      It's quite dividing, Bitcoin. Since I heard about it in 2012, I thought the same as you until I shorted it one morning in 2021 and started to learn more about it. By the end of the day I'd changed the short to a long position and now I see it was one of the most important inventions/discoveries in the history of mankind. In fact it's difficult for me to see a positive future for mankind without it. I guess the reason you see it as a waste is because you don't understand what's wrong with the current fiat currency and the terrible, profound effects it has on the world. I recommend reading "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by E Griffin. It will teach you more about the world than you could ever imagine. If money isn't proof of work, what is it?
    - rapjr9 3y ago
      Is there anything useful (besides Bitcoin) that can be done with precomputation? Perhaps training an LLM? So if you are going to be training an LLM why not heat a town with it? The world has an enormous need for computation and probably for precomputation as well. The waste heat should be harnessed instead of dumped into the environment directly. This could be kind of like SETI, but selling computation boxes for home heating rather than using spare cycles on computers that are running anyway. While it's not as efficient as using a heat pump, it would mostly pay for itself if someone purchases the computation and if you're going to compute anyway... Graphics rendering for movies might be another example. Network bandwidth might be an issue, though some tasks don't produce much I/O but do a lot of computation.
      - npoc 3y ago
        Sure, you can heat buildings, water etc. The miners who can mine bitcoin the most efficiently (i.e. monetise any wasted energy the best) will win and the others will not be profitable and will go out of business. Miners are not location constrained like most energy users and are drawn to the cheapest energy sources around the world which tends to be otherwise wasted energy that no-one wants. If there's other demand for the energy it will be uneconomical for the miners to use, and they'll need to move elsewhere. Even if too many miners cluster in a certain location, their own demand will increase prices, forcing them to decentralise around the globe. So ultimately they end up spread around the world either using the energy no one wants and is otherwise wasted (i.e. ~free) or more expensive energy while efficiently monetising the by-products of mining (i.e. heat) They actually make otherwise unprofitable renewable energy sources, profitable, by offering a highly dynamic load that can monetise large amounts of unneeded (and unthrottlable) energy during periods of low demand (see the "duck curve"). Without this the solar farms etc could be unviable.
ephbit 3y ago
The heat might also be used in a direct air capture process to regenerate the adsorbent, realeasing the CO2.

Sohcahtoa82 3y ago

I'd rather something useful be done, but I suppose mining crypto has the side effect of possibly paying some of the energy costs back.

npoc 3y ago
Running Bitcoin is extremely useful - you just to learn more (far too much to explain here) to understand why
- Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
  Any time someone tries to talk up cryptocurrency, in my mind, I just see some dude crying "please buy the crypto, I bought near an all-time high and now I'm holding a bag, please buy and push the price up, please, my wife is so upset with me, I lost the kids college savings!" Ya'll come up with these huge mental gymnastics about why cryptocurrency is so great and then move the goal posts every couple years to suit your fancy. First it was a currency and a great method of doing online payments without a company like PayPal getting in the way. But as the value went up, the network got busier, and transaction fees reached the 10s of dollars, ya'll decided it wasn't a currency, it was a store of value! But then it crashed from over $65K to under $17K and decided it wasn't a good store of value anymore, but I see now it's crept back up to $43K again.
  - npoc 3y ago
    Your loss, just trying to help and share the knowledge. I shouldn't bother.