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A Texas Town's Misery Underscores the Impact of Bitcoin Mines Across the U.S.

33 points by thelastgallon 3y ago

anonzzzies 3y ago
Isn’t that type of noise pollution illegal? Here they would pop over with a db meter and if you indeed cannot normally talk, then it would not be allowed between 10 pm and 8 am at least without heavy fines. That would cut in their bottom line a lot that downtime, so they would need to figure out how to do it differently. I guess there are no such laws in those places?
- kelnos 3y ago
  The article addresses this; the fine for violating the state law is a meager $500. They pay it and go on with their day, continuing to violate it.
more_corn 3y ago
This article entirely misses the point. Bitcoin mining is being used by utilities to balance the demand curve. If you need 40gw at peak and 20gw in the middle of the night you have to do some juggling to make it work. If you guess wrong you get fined. Bitcoin serves as the emergency dump for power. They spin up and down as requested by the utility. That way the utility buys a steady stream and bounces the Bitcoin utility up and down making sure demand perfectly matches supply. It’s dumb but it works. And it makes power outages less likely because it allows for oversupply. It would be far more ecologically sensible to build a grid scale battery, but that costs money up front. Whereas the Bitcoin miners front all the hardware capital for the miners and it’s cash flow positive from day one. A more Texas solution would be grid tied battery packs in homes. If the homeowner and the utility split the cost both sides could benefit. Homeowner gets reliable power. Utility gets a flat demand curve and a more resilient grid. Add rooftop solar and the grid is even more resilient. Again, not saying Bitcoin is the right move, just suggesting that we consider the problem it is solving.
- gymbeaux 3y ago
  There's definitely something to be said for leveraging Bitcoin mining to balance off-peak demand with peak-demand, but the article doesn't mention anything about these mining operations shutting down for 1/3 or 1/2 the day (and of course, why would they?).
- kelnos 3y ago
  I don't buy it. Utilities had ways to deal with this before Bitcoin; this wasn't an unsolved problem before the miners showed up. The article talks about increased electricity costs for local residents due to mining. And the article doesn't mention anything about the mining shutting down during parts of the day and only running during off-peak hours. People interviewed don't directly talk about time of day, but the impression I got is that these are running 24/7.
infotainment 3y ago
Can we just blanket ban all crypto mining?
- krapp 3y ago
  The entire point of crypto is that it should be impossible for governments to regulate it or the markets it facilitates.
  - npoc 3y ago
    and in the case of bitcoin, it is impossible for the governments to regulate it.
    - krapp 3y ago
      Maybe? I think that remains to be seen because governments have only relatively recently taken crypto seriously enough to care. There's also the problem that most people (even most people using crypto) want some degree of regulation, so it's likely that regulated crypto will outpace the growth of unregulated crypto at least in the forseeable future.
      - npoc 3y ago
        I'm talking about the bitcoin network, not some government-controlled representative tokens. Government-controlled tokens (i.e. fiat currency) is why bitcoin was invented in the first place. And the growth in demand for bitcoin is evidence of what people want. The government cannot control the bitcoin network. They can either choose to embrace it or not.
        kelnos 3y ago
        > And the growth in demand for bitcoin is evidence of what people want. I don't think we can support that claim. Growth in demand can mean a lot of things. Since Bitcoin is still largely driven by speculators (not to mention scammers), I don't think we can assume that growth in demand is strictly due to people who want to use it as a store of value, or as a currency. > The government cannot control the bitcoin network. True, but they can make it difficult for people to use it, and penalize people who are found to be using it. That doesn't mean no one will use it, or that no one will get value out of it, but it does mean that it would be marginalized and of limited use to most people.
linkjuice4all 3y ago
Headline 5 Years From Now: A Texas Town's Misery Underscores the Impact of Training Large Language Models Across the U.S. All joking aside - I'm surprised more of these operations aren't switching to "legitimate" computing as a service. They've apparently optimized for running these workloads at low cost so why not just offer gpus-(or whatever the state of the art is for mining)-as-a-service?
- addicted 3y ago
  To be fair LLMs have already shown more productive use in the last couple of years than BTC has through its existence, which means applications are more likely to be run by responsible companies that will try and find better ways to get the power they need.
  - fullspectrumdev 3y ago
    I can’t buy drugs with an LLM.
- dixie_land 3y ago
  The farms might be running ASICs which are really good for nothing except (very specific) hashing
- wmf 3y ago
  They haven't fully depreciated the ASICs yet and they'd take a loss by selling them so they pretty much have to keep mining. AI wouldn't be a bad idea after mining collapses.
jakedata 3y ago
[flagged]
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  > generally the defense only works if the accused can show that while not in immediate danger of life and limb, they felt sufficiently credibly threatened by the victim to believe they were at continual risk of injury or death if they didn't strike first That doesn't seem very relevant? If the fans are bad enough, sabotaging the fans should be more than enough.
  - euroderf 3y ago
    Suicide drones ?
jaygreco 3y ago
From one of the links [1] in this article: > Prusak explained that one Bitcoin is equal to about $35,000 in U.S. dollars, adding that he doesn't have a specific number on how many Bitcoins the site is able to produce in a day. > "There's a lot of math, so I can't say we make 10 a day or anything like that," he explained. "I can say that they're worth about $34,000-$35,000, and we've got, you know, tens of thousands of machines running to do that." This really rubs me the wrong way because it’s patently untrue. It’s _very_ possible and in fact is quite easy to calculate the expected daily returns. Prusak might be dull, but I’d lean more toward deceptive. He just doesn’t want the locals to know how much he’s profiting at the expense of their comfort. [1] https://www.hcnews.com/stories/granbury-us-bitcoin-corp-erects-24-foot-soundproofing-wall,21717 https://www.hcnews.com/stories/granbury-us-bitcoin-corp-erec...
dtornabene 3y ago
This was actually a good piece on my hometown and bitcoin mining, lots more that could have been written just about this installation and this town but glad to see this bit of journalism
onyxringer 3y ago
While the noise complains might be legitimate, they probably affect a handful of people (just put Granbury Wolf Hollow in google maps - it's a middle of nowhere with handful of farms around), the rest is just a silly hit piece. In fact as much as mining Bitcoin might be considered useless by some, it does stabilize the grid around it. There has been bunch of hit pieces like that posted on HN today and in last few days, seems like a coordinated effort, possibly reaction to Bitcoin ETFs.
- kelnos 3y ago
  So we should shrug and not care just because only a smaller number of people are negatively affected? That's not how society should work. > In fact as much as mining Bitcoin might be considered useless by some, it does stabilize the grid around it. Did a couple searches around this, and didn't find the arguments there convincing at all. Reads more like apologia and rationalizing. Regardless, mining installations like this appear to be running 24/7, so they're not participating in any demand leveling.

33 points by thelastgallon 3y ago

Isn’t that type of noise pollution illegal? Here they would pop over with a db meter and if you indeed cannot normally talk, then it would not be allowed between 10 pm and 8 am at least without heavy fines. That would cut in their bottom line a lot that downtime, so they would need to figure out how to do it differently. I guess there are no such laws in those places?

kelnos 3y ago
The article addresses this; the fine for violating the state law is a meager $500. They pay it and go on with their day, continuing to violate it.

more_corn 3y ago

This article entirely misses the point. Bitcoin mining is being used by utilities to balance the demand curve. If you need 40gw at peak and 20gw in the middle of the night you have to do some juggling to make it work. If you guess wrong you get fined. Bitcoin serves as the emergency dump for power. They spin up and down as requested by the utility. That way the utility buys a steady stream and bounces the Bitcoin utility up and down making sure demand perfectly matches supply. It’s dumb but it works. And it makes power outages less likely because it allows for oversupply. It would be far more ecologically sensible to build a grid scale battery, but that costs money up front. Whereas the Bitcoin miners front all the hardware capital for the miners and it’s cash flow positive from day one. A more Texas solution would be grid tied battery packs in homes. If the homeowner and the utility split the cost both sides could benefit. Homeowner gets reliable power. Utility gets a flat demand curve and a more resilient grid. Add rooftop solar and the grid is even more resilient. Again, not saying Bitcoin is the right move, just suggesting that we consider the problem it is solving.

gymbeaux 3y ago
There's definitely something to be said for leveraging Bitcoin mining to balance off-peak demand with peak-demand, but the article doesn't mention anything about these mining operations shutting down for 1/3 or 1/2 the day (and of course, why would they?).
kelnos 3y ago
I don't buy it. Utilities had ways to deal with this before Bitcoin; this wasn't an unsolved problem before the miners showed up. The article talks about increased electricity costs for local residents due to mining. And the article doesn't mention anything about the mining shutting down during parts of the day and only running during off-peak hours. People interviewed don't directly talk about time of day, but the impression I got is that these are running 24/7.

infotainment 3y ago

Can we just blanket ban all crypto mining?

krapp 3y ago
The entire point of crypto is that it should be impossible for governments to regulate it or the markets it facilitates.
- npoc 3y ago
  and in the case of bitcoin, it is impossible for the governments to regulate it.
  - krapp 3y ago
    Maybe? I think that remains to be seen because governments have only relatively recently taken crypto seriously enough to care. There's also the problem that most people (even most people using crypto) want some degree of regulation, so it's likely that regulated crypto will outpace the growth of unregulated crypto at least in the forseeable future.
    - npoc 3y ago
      I'm talking about the bitcoin network, not some government-controlled representative tokens. Government-controlled tokens (i.e. fiat currency) is why bitcoin was invented in the first place. And the growth in demand for bitcoin is evidence of what people want. The government cannot control the bitcoin network. They can either choose to embrace it or not.
      - kelnos 3y ago
        > And the growth in demand for bitcoin is evidence of what people want. I don't think we can support that claim. Growth in demand can mean a lot of things. Since Bitcoin is still largely driven by speculators (not to mention scammers), I don't think we can assume that growth in demand is strictly due to people who want to use it as a store of value, or as a currency. > The government cannot control the bitcoin network. True, but they can make it difficult for people to use it, and penalize people who are found to be using it. That doesn't mean no one will use it, or that no one will get value out of it, but it does mean that it would be marginalized and of limited use to most people.

linkjuice4all 3y ago

Headline 5 Years From Now: A Texas Town's Misery Underscores the Impact of Training Large Language Models Across the U.S. All joking aside - I'm surprised more of these operations aren't switching to "legitimate" computing as a service. They've apparently optimized for running these workloads at low cost so why not just offer gpus-(or whatever the state of the art is for mining)-as-a-service?

addicted 3y ago
To be fair LLMs have already shown more productive use in the last couple of years than BTC has through its existence, which means applications are more likely to be run by responsible companies that will try and find better ways to get the power they need.
- fullspectrumdev 3y ago
  I can’t buy drugs with an LLM.
dixie_land 3y ago
The farms might be running ASICs which are really good for nothing except (very specific) hashing
wmf 3y ago
They haven't fully depreciated the ASICs yet and they'd take a loss by selling them so they pretty much have to keep mining. AI wouldn't be a bad idea after mining collapses.

jakedata 3y ago

[flagged]

Dylan16807 3y ago
> generally the defense only works if the accused can show that while not in immediate danger of life and limb, they felt sufficiently credibly threatened by the victim to believe they were at continual risk of injury or death if they didn't strike first That doesn't seem very relevant? If the fans are bad enough, sabotaging the fans should be more than enough.
- euroderf 3y ago
  Suicide drones ?

jaygreco 3y ago

From one of the links [1] in this article: > Prusak explained that one Bitcoin is equal to about $35,000 in U.S. dollars, adding that he doesn't have a specific number on how many Bitcoins the site is able to produce in a day. > "There's a lot of math, so I can't say we make 10 a day or anything like that," he explained. "I can say that they're worth about $34,000-$35,000, and we've got, you know, tens of thousands of machines running to do that." This really rubs me the wrong way because it’s patently untrue. It’s _very_ possible and in fact is quite easy to calculate the expected daily returns. Prusak might be dull, but I’d lean more toward deceptive. He just doesn’t want the locals to know how much he’s profiting at the expense of their comfort. [1] https://www.hcnews.com/stories/granbury-us-bitcoin-corp-erects-24-foot-soundproofing-wall,21717 https://www.hcnews.com/stories/granbury-us-bitcoin-corp-erec...

dtornabene 3y ago

This was actually a good piece on my hometown and bitcoin mining, lots more that could have been written just about this installation and this town but glad to see this bit of journalism

onyxringer 3y ago

While the noise complains might be legitimate, they probably affect a handful of people (just put Granbury Wolf Hollow in google maps - it's a middle of nowhere with handful of farms around), the rest is just a silly hit piece. In fact as much as mining Bitcoin might be considered useless by some, it does stabilize the grid around it. There has been bunch of hit pieces like that posted on HN today and in last few days, seems like a coordinated effort, possibly reaction to Bitcoin ETFs.

kelnos 3y ago
So we should shrug and not care just because only a smaller number of people are negatively affected? That's not how society should work. > In fact as much as mining Bitcoin might be considered useless by some, it does stabilize the grid around it. Did a couple searches around this, and didn't find the arguments there convincing at all. Reads more like apologia and rationalizing. Regardless, mining installations like this appear to be running 24/7, so they're not participating in any demand leveling.