[HN Gopher] Some locals say a Bitcoin mining operation is ruinin...
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Some locals say a Bitcoin mining operation is ruining one of the
Finger Lakes
Author : car
Score : 140 points
Date : 2021-07-06 14:40 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nbcnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nbcnews.com)
| eutropia wrote:
| What's fascinating to me about bitcoin is how much it shortens
| the chain of transmutation between electricity and money.
|
| A typical situation might involve a business or manufacturer
| taking power, raw materials, and labor to create something of
| value and sell it.
|
| With bitcoin, anyone with sufficient capital can simply exploit
| natural resources and turn it directly into money. It's a
| capitalist dream: remove nearly all labor from the equation
| leaving only capital and land (land in the Georgist sense being
| natural resource like coal, oil, land, water, etc). I think in
| this way it exposes market failures faster than anything else
| since the efficiency of capital-infused actors is so high...
| amelius wrote:
| > It's a capitalist dream
|
| Except it gets more difficult the more you (and others) mine.
| Nursie wrote:
| It certainly reinforces that externalities are not priced in to
| the current energy markets!
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| (moved to the other thread at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27749247)
| brabel wrote:
| > Bitcoin is driving people towards more environmental
| awareness.
|
| WHAT? What makes you think Bitcoin is driving anything other
| than speculation and greed?
| Huwyt_Nashi052 wrote:
| Profit. The cheaper your electricity, the higher your
| margins.
|
| The greenies won't care to admit it but Bitcoin has finally
| provided the motivation to pursue cheap, efficient,
| reliable renewable energy where all they've ever had to
| offer was financially-punishing "save the planet" vibes.
|
| Depending on the source, 50% (+-20%) of crypto mining is
| already powered renewably.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Absolutely. I have solar energy and I mine XMR with it.
| It's nice and clean.
|
| My country has an obnoxious "incentive" structure where
| the power companies aren't actually required to pay me
| for the energy I generate. They give me "kWh credits"
| which expire if unused for over one year. So I have no
| reason to generate more energy than I need.
|
| Cryptocurrency changed everything. It allowed me to sink
| my surplus energy production into proof-of-work. I get
| paid for it and get to support an amazing project like
| Monero.
| rspeele wrote:
| > The cheaper your electricity, the higher your margins.
|
| Isn't that true for _every_ user of electricity?
| ohhhhhh wrote:
| Theres a literal incentive for bitcoin miners to find the
| cheapest use of energy possible. Literally pushing the
| technology to find efficiencies
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| That was not well phrased, I apologize. The sentence should
| have been "These absurd scenarios involving Bitcoin are
| driving people towards more environmental awareness".
| Pretty much _all_ the mentions of Bitcoin I have heard
| within my social circle have been about the environmental
| impact. People think it 's absurd that we are literally
| converting energy into money!
|
| Does it sound more plausible / correct with that phrasing?
| amelius wrote:
| > These absurd scenarios involving Bitcoin are driving
| people towards more environmental awareness
|
| It is better to turn it around:
|
| Those with environmental awareness are shocked by the
| absurdity of Bitcoin.
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| And there are _a lot_ of people around which don 't
| "believe" in climate change.
| Huwyt_Nashi051 wrote:
| Profit. The cheaper your electricity, the higher your
| margins.
|
| The greenies won't care to admit it but Bitcoin has finally
| provided the motivation to pursue cheap, efficient,
| reliable renewable energy where all they've ever had to
| offer was financially-punishing "save the planet" vibes.
|
| Depending on the source, 50% (+-20%) of crypto mining is
| already powered renewably.
| data_spy wrote:
| I hate it when people claim jobs or work trump citizens rights. A
| minor example of this, why should developers and construction
| sites close sidewalks and car lanes?
| kristopolous wrote:
| The jobs argument can be made for just about anything. People
| use it when nothing else is valid.
|
| Everything creates jobs. Car crashes, wild fires, drug dealing,
| sex trafficking, aerial bombing campaigns, it means nothing.
| Exxon Valdez was the greatest job creator of any ship that
| sailed that year.
|
| When people say "jobs jobs jobs" just stop listening.
| Seriously, just walk away. They're saying it's of no value
| whatsoever and they have to fall back on perennial truisms
| frankbreetz wrote:
| The argument for closing roads and sidewalks is not "jobs,
| jobs, jobs" It is "You must perform on going maintenance of
| our infrastructure, or it is going to crumble and become
| unusable" Do you think people just close roads so someone has
| a job?
| kristopolous wrote:
| Nah. Closing roads is perfectly valid. Infrastructure is
| super important. Large construction can be dangerous and
| it's a great idea to block the public from hazardous risks
| (like moving giant beams suspended from cranes, an accident
| of that slipping and killing people sounds like a
| legitimate risk)
|
| I live in LA, roads get shut down for silly TV shows all
| the time and that's fine with me as well. Entertainment is
| important for people's happiness.
|
| Jobs arguments are scams though
| frankbreetz wrote:
| What is the alternative? Sometimes you must close a road or
| sidewalk in order to perform maintenance. This is an out of
| touch stance.
| data_spy wrote:
| The alternative, the business pays a fee per day for lane and
| sidewalk closures. I guarantee they will close the lanes and
| sidewalks less often and for shorter durations.
| undfg wrote:
| I don't know how it is where you live, but that's the way
| it works here. You pay a daily fee.
| bombcar wrote:
| Because the fee isn't paid to them they don't notice or
| care.
|
| Much of the "solutions" provided for apparent existing
| problems _already exist_. Some kind of analogy to the
| Dunning-Kreuger effect is going on - any problem I don 't
| understand is simple.
| burkaman wrote:
| This is already how it works. Also, in the process of
| applying for a permit, the city will make sure your
| construction plan is reasonable and you're doing everything
| you can to minimize impact to the public. I think anywhere
| in the world with a functioning local government will be
| similar.
| bhickey wrote:
| > anywhere in the world with a functioning local
| government will be similar.
|
| Boston does not have a functioning local government. A
| developer in my old neighborhood blocked a sidewalk for
| three years without a permit. Public works issued them
| one $50 fine. The same developer also abandoned the site
| in an effort to pressure the zoning board to allow them
| to add floors to their plan.
| notJim wrote:
| Most places in the US do not have functioning
| governments, to be fair, including at the national level.
| NickM wrote:
| Ars Technica did a great piece about this a couple months ago:
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/private-equity-f...
|
| The gist is that a private equity firm bought a defunct fossil
| plant and are running it to power mining rigs directly, without
| any connection to the outside power grid. Apparently this allows
| them to do an end run around certain regulations and taxes which
| only apply to grid-connected power plants.
|
| The scariest part is that this is apparently insanely profitable
| for them. NY is pretty progressive and it would not surprise me
| if they crack down on this kind of thing, but other states or
| countries seem unlikely to do that.
|
| All the stories we've read lately about fossil plants shutting
| down due to being replaced by renewables could ultimately be for
| nothing if companies like this one buy them all up and restart
| them.
| chmod775 wrote:
| > NY is pretty progressive and it would not surprise me if they
| crack down on this kind of thing
|
| The notion that a government which regulates and 'meddles' is
| progressive, as opposed to being the former normal from which
| we have departed, is historical revisionism and propaganda
| disseminated by those who oppose this kind of government.
| [deleted]
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| > The scariest part is that this is apparently insanely
| profitable for them. NY is pretty progressive and it would not
| surprise me if they crack down on this kind of thing, but other
| states or countries seem unlikely to do that.
|
| And this is why you need a carbon tax.
|
| These clowns are basically making money by turning negative
| externalities into bitcoin. And the best way to deal with a
| negative externality is to tax the heck out of those folks and
| thereby either a) make the activity unprofitable, or b) use the
| resulting revenues to plow into mitigation efforts to offset
| the effects of the externality.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Why does the answer to everything have to be a tax that
| allows government to become even more bloated.
|
| If using computing power like this is so bad just make it
| illegal to use excessive computing power, why allow it but
| let the government scoop up the cream.
| jude- wrote:
| > Why does the answer to everything have to be a tax that
| allows government to become even more bloated.
|
| Because assholes exist who will gladly burn the planet down
| to make a buck.
|
| > If using computing power like this is so bad just make it
| illegal to use excessive computing power, why allow it but
| let the government scoop up the cream.
|
| Because enforcing an effective regime on capping the amount
| of power each US resident can use for computing is
| considerably _more_ difficult (and results in _more_ bloat)
| than just taxing emissions.
| [deleted]
| jandrese wrote:
| Carbon taxes have come up in Congress from time to time, but
| the fossil fuel industries are much too politically
| connected. The excuse is usually that if you tax carbon all
| you do is move the polluters offshore, and since CO2 is a
| global problem it doesn't solve anything. Global problems
| need global solutions, but our international treaty systems
| are insufficient to make progress on this pressing issue.
|
| People still try, Kyoto was a heroic effort, but at the end
| of the day the incentives to cheat are powerful and thus the
| level of trust is very low.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > The excuse is usually that if you tax carbon all you do
| is move the polluters offshore, and since CO2 is a global
| problem it doesn't solve anything. Global problems need
| global solutions, but our international treaty systems are
| insufficient to make progress on this pressing issue.
|
| Which is, of course, ridiculous.
|
| They bought a coal power plant in New York, because it
| already existed. They're not going to disassemble it and
| transport it to China because that wouldn't be cost
| effective, so the alternative is that it would remain
| offline.
|
| Likewise, if people buy electric cars or high MPG hybrids
| in the US because there is a carbon tax, that reduces the
| CO2 emitted by the US independent of what anybody else
| does. It doesn't require any international agreement; you
| can just do it on your own.
|
| "What about global effects," you say. But that goes the
| other way.
|
| Africa doesn't buy new cars by and large, they buy used
| cars exported from America and Europe. If the new cars
| people buy in America or Europe become electric then
| they'll still be electric when they're the used cars sold
| to Africa.
|
| Oil is a global commodity. If America burns less then the
| price goes down. Which makes it cheaper for other countries
| to independently enact a carbon tax. Which they have the
| incentive to do because they get brownie points, and their
| domestic population doesn't rebel against a change that
| only keeps the price the same, and it generates revenue at
| the expense of the (foreign) oil companies. The more
| countries do this, the easier it is for the others to do
| it, at the expense of oil net exporters like Saudi Arabia
| and Russia.
|
| Nothing about this requires an international agreement or
| any kind of cooperation from anyone. Just enact a carbon
| tax and pay the revenue back to the population as a
| dividend. It will be extremely popular as soon as everybody
| gets the first check and realizes that they get back more
| than they paid because some of the money comes from oil
| companies and other corporations (who receive none of the
| dividend).
| jandrese wrote:
| It's not too hard to imagine that there are
| decommissioned coal fired power plants in other parts of
| the world. Many were shut down when natural gas became
| cheaper than coal because they were too old or in a bad
| location for conversion to natural gas.
|
| > Oil is a global commodity. If America burns less then
| the price goes down. Which makes it cheaper for other
| countries to independently enact a carbon tax. Which they
| have the incentive to do because they get brownie points,
| and their domestic population doesn't rebel against a
| change that only keeps the price the same, and it
| generates revenue at the expense of the (foreign) oil
| companies. The more countries do this, the easier it is
| for the others to do it, at the expense of oil net
| exporters like Saudi Arabia and Russia.
|
| Or those countries don't enact a carbon tax and then
| start sucking up factories from countries that did.
|
| If every country enacted the same taxes then the question
| comes down to which country has the most lax enforcement.
| If the enforcement is all the same then you have a
| potential solution, but of course this is a huge ask in
| the modern world. It's hard to get competitors to work
| cooperatively. As long as people treat the world economy
| like a big zero sum game this problem is basically
| unsolvable.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > Or those countries don't enact a carbon tax and then
| start sucking up factories from countries that did.
|
| Then you can implement tarrifs on countries that refuse
| to implement carbon taxes.
| jandrese wrote:
| You can't because now they make all of your stuff. It's
| just as much political suicide.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Just a few years ago, the US put a tariff on tons of
| manufactured imports based on other concerns, and it
| didn't turn out to be the biggest factor in the impending
| political suicide.
| ericffr wrote:
| Unfortunately, no country would do it on its own, knowing
| that a neighbor could have an economic advantage. By
| making it a global problem with a global treaty, it makes
| everyone accountable. Like the Cold War weapons race:
| until the Arm treaty, it was going nowhere. Me and my
| neighbors driving an electric car won't make a difference
| until oil companies feel the pressure from international
| laws
| mirekrusin wrote:
| Wouldn't emitting CO2 in dense forest contribute to green
| mass gain?
| lrem wrote:
| Apparently only for a short time:
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ask-the-
| experts-d...
| jandrese wrote:
| Plants in general tend to be more water, mineral, and
| light limited than CO2 limited.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| NASA seems to say yes
| https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-
| fer...
| josu wrote:
| This isn't correct, they are carbon neutral.
|
| https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/greenidge-
| generatio...
| mikestew wrote:
| You're using their press release as a source? I can't tell
| if it's intended to be ironic or serious.
| henearkr wrote:
| Why would they operate out of a gas plant if they intend to
| be carbon neutral?
|
| Either they offset it by creating green electricity
| elsewhere, in which case they should be using that instead
| of gas in the first place, or either they are offseting
| using very slow "net-neutral" schemes such as agroforestry,
| in which case the harm they do will not be compensated
| until 30 years on.
| lordnacho wrote:
| I don't get why the law separates between connected and
| disconnected power plants? Seems a lot less simple than just
| saying "everyone who pollutes pays x".
|
| This is also why carbon tax is gonna be a disappointment.
| There are way too many rules surrounding it, when really
| there should just be one carbon budget that every firm can
| try to buy some of on equal terms.
| munk-a wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if the law dated back to
| electrification and specifically existed to grandfather in
| mills that had independent electrical supplies before the
| grid was established - like a textile mill with a water
| wheel that hooked the axle up to a generator.
|
| Remember too that AC vs. DC was very much up in the air in
| the early days of electricity so any early investors in
| generators would have to gamble on which standard would win
| for transmission and some of them would end up being
| incompatible with the grid unless they installed
| transformers. A sane government would want to allow those
| early adopters to keep using what they've got until it
| breaks and not penalize those companies for investing in
| new technology.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > I don't get why the law separates between connected and
| disconnected power plants?
|
| Assuming they made an exception for private plants that
| belong to a campus of some sort. Many airports,
| universitys, housing projects, water treatment facilities,
| prisons, data centers, etc, run their own power plants
| primarily for heating and cooling needs with the added
| benefit of 24/7 onsite power in case of a blackout. They
| may be grid tied and export some power but are not primary
| grid suppliers like a utility.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Why should those private plants get an exception? All you
| jave done is provide a "who", not a "why".
| jandrese wrote:
| Partially it is a scale thing. The state only has so many
| inspectors, so if you limit the law to large industrial
| users you don't need to have inspectors driving around to
| tens of thousands of tiny single-use boilers inspecting
| them for environmental requirements they would never be
| able to afford in the first place.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Then it seems like scale should be part qualifying for
| the exemption. In this case the power plant is absolutely
| at a large enough scale that it should be regulated.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > Why should those private plants get an exception?
|
| Ask the law makers who wrote it.
|
| > All you jave done is provide a "who", not a "why".
|
| The word "private" is the "why".
|
| If you want an analogy: Do you follow food safety and
| preparation laws or submit to inspection in your private
| kitchen before making yourself breakfast? No. Because
| it's private.
| shkkmo wrote:
| You analogy is completely inaccurate and flawed.
| "Private" commercial kitchens (e.g. on campuses)
| absolutely have to follow food safety regulations.
| bombcar wrote:
| The law likely didn't consider disconnected power plants,
| as why would such a thing exist? I guess the only reason
| before bitcoin is a self-contained power plant to run a
| self-contained facility, and even those (like a datacenter)
| are often grid tied with the power plant as a backup.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _The law likely didn 't consider disconnected power
| plants, as why would such a thing exist?_
|
| I think the point is that why would the law make the
| distinction anyway? Like why would it say "power plants
| connected to a power grid pay X tax"? Why wouldn't it
| just say "power plants pay X tax"?
|
| A sibling comment points out a reasonable explanation for
| why non-connected power plants might be exempt from tax,
| though.
| p1mrx wrote:
| I think this is an example of capitalism finding exploits
| in the legal system. We should try to patch this one
| quickly.
| gwright wrote:
| Capitalism isn't exploiting anything. People make the
| laws, people operate businesses.
|
| It isn't clear to me that these concerns are absent under
| any other system -- in fact I would argue that capitalism
| paired with a liberal representative democracy and strong
| individual rights is the best system for addressing any
| concerns.
| p1mrx wrote:
| I don't think capitalism is "wrong" for finding an
| exploit, but those liberal representative democracies
| should realize that turning retired power plants into
| miners is bad, and pass laws to prevent that business
| model from working.
| bombcar wrote:
| I don't think people realize how much of things like the
| tax code are basically code patches to law to fix
| exploitable bugs.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Probably because the owners, operators, and/or
| manufacturers of generating equipment lobbied to get
| excluded. It's the same reason why emissions regulations
| apply specifically to reciprocating engines only up to a
| certain threshold of displacement per cylinder: it exempts
| the products of Caterpillar.
| p1mrx wrote:
| Seems like a good opportunity for governments to tax their
| carbon dioxide emissions. It would be easier to get public
| support for a carbon tax that only targets "unproductive"
| sources.
|
| Edit: What if governments just imposed a carbon tax on all
| crypto mining? The legal framework necessary to support that
| could be extended to cover other carbon sources in the future.
| MithrilTuxedo wrote:
| Wouldn't it make more sense to tax fossil fuels as they leave
| the ground?
| p1mrx wrote:
| Yes, but I think Earth's general voting population is too
| short-sighted to support something like that.
| only_as_i_fall wrote:
| If all uses of a fossil fuel produces the exact same carbon
| output, but my understanding is that this is almost never
| the case.
| [deleted]
| DennisP wrote:
| Burning the same fuel is always going to produce the same
| amount of CO2. Here are the amounts, for various fuels:
|
| https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/co2_vol_mass.ph
| p
|
| You might get more or less usable energy out of it
| depending on your efficiency, but if you're less
| efficient you'll have to burn more fuel (hence paying
| more tax, directly or as part of the price of fuel if
| it's taxed at the source).
| Nursie wrote:
| But fuel is not the only use for those resources.
| only_as_i_fall wrote:
| But isn't it the case that
|
| A) petroleum products are used for other purposes?
|
| B) carbon capturing is used to various levels of
| effectiveness?
|
| C) there can be different levels of partial combustion?
| jandrese wrote:
| All of the fuel that is burned should release roughly the
| same amount of carbon.
|
| The stuff that is turned into lubricating oils, plastics,
| etc... will keep most of the carbon contained.
| nonfamous wrote:
| ... but will nonetheless pollute the environment in
| differently harmful ways.
| only_as_i_fall wrote:
| What about carbon capture?
| jandrese wrote:
| Mostly doesn't exist.
| jeffbee wrote:
| But if you did that then drivers would have to pay their
| fair share instead of pretending like bitcoin actually
| matters.
| pjc50 wrote:
| They quite often are, but not as much as is necessary. Oil
| tends to be taxed at refinement, but there's no such stage
| for coal.
| djrogers wrote:
| This seems rather fishy to me. First of all, they're currently
| running at only 18MW, and that lake has about 4 billion gallons
| of water in it. That's not enough energy use to produce a
| noticeable change in that much water.
|
| Second problem - there are literally no lake water temperatures
| in the article, either now or historical. The entire premise of
| the article seems to be that locals _feel_ that it 's warmer.
|
| I personally think this kind of power use for bitcoin mining is
| wasteful and should be heavily taxed, but c'mon man - how about
| the reporter does a _little_ bit of journalism?
| ww520 wrote:
| There were some discussion among people who want to invest in
| solar farms. A major hurdle is the interconnection into the grid.
| There're lots of regulation and large fee to transmit electricity
| through the gird. From the people who have done it, they just
| chose not to connect to the grid but sell the electricity
| directly to the local users, like a local plant. It's quite
| lucrative with all the tax credits and the sales of green credits
| while the electricity income was minuscule in comparison. The
| limitation is they have to be near some major electric users and
| totally relying on the few users.
|
| With bitcoin mining, it's possible to run a solar farm to mine
| the coins while disconnected from the grid. I'd imagine it's
| quite competitive without all the interconnected fees.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| How can you sell solar power to local users without connecting
| to the grid?
| tzs wrote:
| > The power plant, Greenidge, which is being closely monitored by
| the Department of Environmental Conservation, is allowed to suck
| in 139 million gallons of water and discharge 135 million gallons
| daily.
|
| What is the rationale for the suck in allowance being 4 million
| gallons a day higher than the discharge allowance?
| etrautmann wrote:
| Evaporation?
| tzs wrote:
| That seems like a reasonable explanation for why they might
| have less water to discharge than they sucked in, but I don't
| understand why it would be written into the limits of what
| they are allowed to suck out and discharge.
|
| If they were to take 139 MG one day and only 2 MG were lost
| to evaporation, so that they had 137 MG left over, I fail to
| see the logic in saying that they can only put 135 MG of that
| back into the lake.
|
| That's effectively saying that if they take their limit of
| 139 MG per day, then they are required to net drain the lake
| by 4 MG per day.
|
| I'd have expected the limits to be of the form: You can take
| up to X per day, you can put back up to what you take, and
| you must put back enough so that the net taking for that day
| is less than T.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Changing the temperature of the water that drastically is
| potentially lethal to all sorts of species. It screws up when and
| where they breed, lay eggs, have access to cool water to cool off
| in, what plants grow (that is part of a complex ecological web),
| and might provide an opportunity for growth of harmful bacteria.
|
| Here's an article from November about the plant and trout
| fishing. https://fingerlakes1.com/2020/11/14/fish-arent-biting-
| on-sen...
| xwdv wrote:
| In the old days at least we got something of value to society in
| exchange for pollution. Now we get nothing.
| sadfasf122 wrote:
| lol
| thedudeabides5 wrote:
| Don't worry folks, uncle @jack says bitcoin is good for the
| environment so nothing to see here
| jandrese wrote:
| Bitcoin is many things, but "good for the environment" has
| never been one of them. Staggering inefficiency has always been
| a fundamental part of the design. Back when it was a nerd
| curiosity nobody cared too much, but now that it is a major
| industry the pollution can no longer be overlooked.
| coolspot wrote:
| OP refers to Twitter CEO (@jack), who said that "Bitcoin
| incentivizes renewable energy"
|
| https://twitter.com/jack/status/1384903902907314176?s=21
| wesleywt wrote:
| I wonder if you drove your car today. Or bought apples from
| South America.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| Bitcoin is explicitly designed to be worse and worse the more
| people buy into it. Say what you want about importing apples
| but they arnt explicitly designed to eat all available power
| and hardware as a stated goal.
| rspeele wrote:
| What if they were though?
|
| There are 6.25 apples farmed every 10 minutes. Adding more
| orchards does not produce more apples or make the apples
| better, but whoever builds the biggest orchard has the
| highest chance of getting the 6.25 apples to grow on their
| property. The apple orchards now consume 1/200th of the
| earth's arable land.
|
| An apple is $33,000 and not even very good to eat, so
| mostly they are traded symbolically on exchanges with
| little reason to actually take delivery.
| silexia wrote:
| Proof of work cryptocurrency is an absolute environmental
| disaster and should be banned.
| [deleted]
| plank_time wrote:
| Biden needs to make Bitcoin illegal. It would instantly increase
| electricity capacity in many parts of the US and it would stop a
| large part of the money laundering that is going on in the US
| including ransom ware.
|
| Why they haven't yet made it illegal but made online poker
| illegal is beyond me.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/ByenE
| jlizzle30 wrote:
| Why does this article not have the temperature change of the
| water?
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Because journalism. Can't let data get in the way of a good
| story.
| iamben wrote:
| Buying carbon credits is like a corporate greenwashing get out
| jail free card, isn't it? "Hey, no need to hate us! We're buying
| carbon credits!"
| scotty79 wrote:
| It's a mechanism that uses market to let the economy and its
| participants know what actual costs of co2 emissions are
| instead letting them operate on assumption that they cost zero.
|
| I wouldn't mind if sugar manufacturers would have to buy 'sugar
| credits' for emitting sugar into the human population.
| lozenge wrote:
| But it doesn't use the actual cost of CO2 emissions.
|
| Nor does it "balance out" emissions by removing CO2 in one
| place and allowing CO2 emissions in another place. It
| actually works off schemes that reduce the amount of CO2
| emitted compared to a hypothetical.
|
| So, it's like me saying I've made "savings" by not buying a
| coffee every day, even if I never actually bought coffee in
| the past.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| Putting "actual" in quotes. Estimating the cost is insanely
| difficult.
| scotty79 wrote:
| You are right, the only thing it comunicates is that there
| actually is some cost.
| nightski wrote:
| They do. The government controls all sugar production in the
| U.S. They control how much can be grown, imported, and
| exported. It is a very unique commodity in that sense. I've
| worked in the industry for 10 years now.
| jandrese wrote:
| This is the fundamental problem with carbon credits. There is
| currently no wide scale production system for scrubbing CO2
| from the atmosphere. Because of this, the price of the carbon
| credits is set arbitrarily by politicians. It's meaningless.
|
| A carbon market only works if there are sellers. Companies
| that sequester carbon for X dollars per ton so producers need
| to buy enough credits to cover their emissions. There could
| even be competition as people find more efficient ways to
| remove carbon from the atmosphere. Currently the whole thing
| is a big game that nobody takes seriously. It is a game
| because if we actually priced in the cost of scrubbing CO2
| from the atmosphere using current technologies no fossil fuel
| industries would be competitive. It would threaten the gravy
| train for people like Rex Tillerson, so it's a nonstarter
| politically.
| brippalcharrid wrote:
| It's like indulgences, for the remission of venial sins. The
| buyer is delivered publicly a clean bill of moral health, and
| the seller gets to build some new chateaus, estates and
| cathedrals.
| deviledeggs wrote:
| Hear me out, I don't buy this. NY would have never approved
| operating a power plant that did such damage to the lake.
|
| Notice they mentioned "surface temperature". Many lakes are
| naturally stratified in summer. Especially lakes deep for their
| size. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_stratification
|
| Indeed, Seneca lake is very deep, and naturally thermally
| stratified in summer:
|
| > Because of Seneca Lake's great depth its temperature remains a
| near-constant 39 degF (4 degC).[3] In summer the top 10 to 15
| feet (3.0 to 4.6 m) warms to 70-80 degF (21-27 degC)
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_Lake_(New_York)
|
| I think crypto mining is a huge waste of energy. But this article
| has an ax to grind. A simpler explanation for warm surface temps
| is a warmer than usual summer.
|
| Indeed, NY state has had two major heat waves already this year
| jandrese wrote:
| I wonder if part of the problem is that they are maybe water
| cooling the datacenters full of cryptominers? So not only is
| there the waste heat from the power plant as originally
| designed, but also the waste heat of its entire energy output
| is being dumped into the lake instead of being distributed
| around town.
|
| I do suspect that this is a surface temperature problem. Lakes
| form thermal gradients pretty easily so if they are only
| heating the top layer this power plant could noticeably warm
| the water even if it is producing nowhere near enough heat to
| warm the entire lake.
|
| I can't argue against the take that this whole thing is just
| killing the planet for a profit.
| henearkr wrote:
| 27degC doesn't "feel like a hot tub", so currently it must be
| higher.
|
| The thermal conductivity of water makes that even a temperature
| a few degrees cooler than the body temperature feels
| refreshing, which is not the case right now according to the
| witnesses.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| How different is this from Cornell's lake source cooling plant?
| Opponents of that made the same sorts of claims, but afaik were
| never able to prove that lake temperatures were any different
| once you get more than a few yards away from where the water
| was released. E.g.:
| https://fcs.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/2020-06/Final_FA...
| deviledeggs wrote:
| It's not different :)
|
| Water can absorb enormous amount of energy. And releases huge
| amounts as it evaporates. And the lake is in contact with
| massive land surface that also absorbs ton of energy.
|
| The deeper parts of Seneca lake are isothermal with regional
| ground temperature, so there's clearly no problem with heat
| dissipation
| godelski wrote:
| Honestly, even if they did then blaming bitcoin doesn't seem to
| be the right thing to blame. Blame the plant regulations. I say
| this agreeing that mining is a huge waste of energy. But going
| after bitcoin is like blaming a junky and giving the dealer a
| free pass.
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| (Ported from the duped thread [1])
|
| I think it's kind of good that these absurd scenarios involving
| Bitcoin are driving people (in the larger sense of companies and
| governments) towards more environmental awareness.
|
| If you think about it, the entire system is just as absurd as
| Bitcoin. Business pollute the environment we live in, and then
| get to brag to shareholders about "delivering value", "increased
| revenue margins", and "efficiency" that they later get rewarded
| by the stock market for.
|
| The green company that makes a slightly lower profit, but takes
| care of the environment falls out of the index to be replaced by
| the polluter that either does the bare minimum, or actively
| breaks laws and treats fines as the cost of doing business. The
| market rewards rapacity over environmentalism.
|
| Well, Bitcoin is even more efficient, it's directly burning coal
| and converting it into money that the market will _also_ pay for!
|
| The (hopefully) good outcome of this is that it will drive
| corporations and governments to take a breath, and formulate
| policies that prioritize the long-term health of the environment
| over short term priorities like jobs and the economy.
|
| -------------------------------
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27749932
| mistrial9 wrote:
| +1 here on this analysis ; four or five decades of stupid
| capital investment and population explosion plus plastics -- no
| contest ! I literally mean this.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Bitcoin has commodified wasting resources for money.
| ohhhhhh wrote:
| Saying it's a waste is like putting a moral qualifier on the
| use of energy - and for the purpose and affect that this
| decentralized monetary system can have on the world is
| definitely worth it in my eyes. People dont make a fuss about
| using 2 clothes dryers and 24/7 christmas lights that use
| more energy, but hey that's an _approved_ use of energy.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Luckily Christmas lights lit 24/7/52 don't generate xmas-
| coins.
|
| Morals or not. We will see if Ethereums "proof of stake"
| will be able to solve anything.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| Proof-of-Waste (PoW) is quite accurate.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| And if you solve the general problem, you solve the specific
| problem.
|
| Is this a story if there is a carbon tax and as a result the
| profit-maximizing activity is to mine Bitcoin by building wind
| turbines?
| swiley wrote:
| This. Bitcoin mines were not the first to dump heat into
| natural bodies of water, but their number makes the damage and
| need for regulation obvious.
| jonfw wrote:
| Hot tubs are pretty warm. That'd be an extraordinary amount of
| energy. Would be interested to see data, measuring water
| temperature is pretty easy
| stretchwithme wrote:
| How wasteful crypto is depends on how its energy consumption
| compares to the energy consumption of the traditional banking
| system.
|
| What is the energy consumption of armed trucks anyway? How much
| energy is required to build a bank branch?
|
| Sure, the transaction charges are tiny with Bitcoin and storage
| is free. Is that an indicator of the differences in total energy
| consumption once the mining is over?
|
| Also, what is the total energy consumed by coping with fiat
| currency's inflation? Probably should include that.
|
| I think some hyperinflation events also contribute to wars
| happening. These use energy too.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| But BTC does not replace the banking system. The banking system
| does way way way more than simply hold money in accounts and
| send it places. I could sort of buy this argument for something
| like Ethereum that is truly programmable, but even if BTC
| completely takes over and no other currencies exist then there
| will still be banks and bank branches.
|
| The discussion of inflation and wars is just fantasy. Everybody
| in the world using BTC isn't going to end standing armies.
| 40four wrote:
| If I may offer a little critical thinking, to a very biased,
| alarmist piece. This it seems very clear this is hit piece. It
| throws around some big numbers and a quote from some local, and
| comes up very short on analysis, and very big on leading readers
| into a particular conclusion.
|
| Firstly, using lakes to cool power plants is not unusual or
| uncommon. They don't really make that clear, and it feels like
| they want the reader to think this is nefarious. To me the title
| of this should be something more like "Residents forgot the lake
| gets warmer when the power plant operates".
|
| As far as the 135 million allowed to be discharged into the lake
| daily, it is an incredibly small amount compared to the size of
| the lake. According to Wikipedia, the volume of the lake is 3.81
| cu/miles of water. A quick search tells me 1 cu/mi =~ 1.1
| trillion gallons. Okay, some more rough math gives us a total of
| about 4.2 trillion gallons in the lake of which 135M gallons is
| something like 0.000032% of the total volume.
|
| So my point is that when the article throws a figure like 135M
| gallons at you with no context it _seems huge_. But when you look
| at it in context, 3 one hundred thousands of one percent of the
| total, I have a hard time imagining that has any measurable
| impact on the lake whatsoever. I 'm sure the quoted resident that
| lives very near to the plant had noticed the warmth, but anywhere
| else on the lake?
|
| On top of this, the plant is under strict scrutiny by the
| regulators, and they appear to be operating withing the limits
| outlined by said regulators. So if there is anyone to get mad at
| here it's not the plant operators, it's the Department of
| Environmental Conservation.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| They should provide free heating to locals in winter.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Your own numbers lack a great deal of context and your comment
| seems far more biased than this article. The article avoids
| making any conclusions about the effects on the lake while you
| seem quite happy to jump to conclusions with insufficient data
| and bad math.
|
| Edit: My own stance would be that we should wait to until we
| have the data on how much warming is happening at the various
| layers of the lake and then use that data assess the
| regulations governing the power plant. In the meantime, we
| might look at bringing the regulations for disconnected power
| plants in-line with grid power plants.
| kens wrote:
| I'm not a fan of starting up power plants for bitcoin mining,
| but I agree with your analysis. I did the same calculations
| before finding this thread, so I'll point out that it's 0.0032%
| not 0.000032% (you need to multiply by 100 for percent).
| 40four wrote:
| Thanks, I did the calculation quickly & admittedly didn't
| double check, so I'll take your word on it.
|
| But the point stands true. This will certainly warm the lake
| in the local vicinity, where the quoted resident came from.
| But to slant this warming story as if it will effect the
| whole ecosystem of the lake is silly & inaccurate.
|
| It's a _really_ big lake. I'm more used to seeing smaller,
| man made lakes for this purpose. My old hometown has one, and
| yes the water was warm. But that didn't stop anyone from
| canoeing & fishing in it.
|
| And I must point out, a detail that gets buried in this story
| is the power plant was not repurposed as natural gas and
| started back up with the sole intention of mining Bitcoin. It
| was intended to provide extra electricity during peak usage
| hours in the summer. The Bitcoin mining is basically a 'side
| hustle'.
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| > On top of this, the plant is under strict scrutiny by the
| regulators, and they appear to be operating withing the limits
| outlined by said regulators. So if there is anyone to get mad
| at here it's not the plant operators, it's the Department of
| Environmental Conservation.
|
| Actually, the correct answer is: both.
|
| There's a difference between what's legal and what's moral or
| ethical.
|
| It is clear, at least to me, that emitting large quantities of
| CO2 into the air, and heated waste water into a lake, for the
| sole purpose of enriching oneself mining cryptocurrencies, is
| simply immoral. It is a classic example of the tragedy of the
| commons.
|
| The regulations clearly do not adequately limit this kind of
| activity.
|
| So we should be angry that the laws don't reflect our values.
|
| And we should be angry that these folks are taking advantage of
| that fact to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of
| us.
| doublejay1999 wrote:
| > It is clear, at least to me, that emitting large quantities
| of CO2 into the air, and heated waste water into a lake, for
| the sole purpose of enriching oneself
|
| i agree, but that would make bitcoin mining merely the most
| recent addition to a very, very long list of immoral
| endeavours undertaken for the sole purpose of enriching
| oneself.
| [deleted]
| ohhhhhh wrote:
| We as a society deem it a fair use of energy to have dryers,
| and christamas lights all year long, which use more energy
| that a decentralized monetary system that brings sovereign
| banking to the masses. Before letting this story and all the
| other propaganda make you angry (intended) actually look what
| bitcoin IS, how it works, and what problems it solves in the
| world. A comparison that always comes to mind is like someone
| saying that the internet is a big waste of energy.
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| > We as a society deem it a fair use of energy to have
| dryers, and christamas lights all year long, which use more
| energy that a decentralized monetary system that brings
| sovereign banking to the masses.
|
| It... really doesn't. It brings wild speculation to a few.
| And ransomware to many.
|
| But banking? To the masses? Hah! Sorry, no. That would
| imply Bitcoin is useful for, you know, actually engaging in
| day to day monetary transactions. It'd imply large numbers
| of commercial and government interests to be willing to use
| Bitcoin as a medium of exchange. It'd imply a stable,
| reliable, regulated, insured location where people could
| store their wealth confident that it wouldn't be stolen.
| It'd require reversible transactions to deal with fraud,
| fat fingering, and so forth.
|
| Basically, it'd require Bitcoin to be something completely
| different than what it is.
|
| > look what bitcoin IS, how it works, and what problems it
| solves in the world.
|
| I have. I've been watching it for ten years now. And it's
| still just yet another speculative "asset" with no merit as
| either a currency or a store of value due to, among many
| many things, its massive volatility.
|
| As a form of digital gambling, though? Unparalleled!
|
| > A comparison that always comes to mind is like someone
| saying that the internet is a big waste of energy.
|
| And if all the internet was was a giant digital slot
| machine, they'd be right.
| dj_gitmo wrote:
| This is shameful either way, but per the NBC article it sounds
| like they will need a few years to be sure the lake is warming:
|
| > A full thermal study hasn't been produced and won't be until
| 2023, but residents protesting the plant say the lake is warmer
| with Greenidge operating. Greenidge recently published average
| discharged water temperatures from March 1 to April 17, during
| the trout spawning season; they were around 46 degrees to 54
| degrees, with differences between inflow and outflow of 5 degrees
| to 7.5 degrees.
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/some-locals-say-...
|
| But apparently they plan to expand this business model.
|
| > In March, Greenidge said its Bitcoin mining capacity of 19
| megawatts should reach 45 megawatts by December and may ramp to
| 500 megawatts by 2025 as it replicates its model elsewhere.
| Larger gas-fired plants in the U.S. have capacities of 1,500 to
| 3,500 megawatts.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| I read the whole article looking for some indication as to the
| mechanism by which the power plant or mining operation are
| warming the lake. If there is one, it's not in the article. I
| assume offloading waste heat from the power plant and/or mining
| operation? That would have to be one hell of an operation to
| noticeably change the surface temperature of a lake that big. I
| wonder if anyone has anything more granular than "feels like a
| hot tub."
| josu wrote:
| Not sure about the lake temperature, but the energy company just
| announced that all their bitcoin mining operations are carbon
| neutral.
|
| https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/greenidge-generatio...
| henearkr wrote:
| Sounds like a joke.
|
| They are literally operating out of a gas plant...
| yodelshady wrote:
| Oh boy, fermi estimation time! Big caveat: all of the below
| assumes ideal mixing, which is not a given at this scale at all.
| So I'm not rubbishing the residents. (Nor disputing the idiocy of
| burning 45 MW to "mine" numbers for that matter.)
|
| From wiki, the lake has a volume of 15 km3, or 15 trillion
| litres. The daily discharge of 135 million gallons is ~ 600
| million litres. So, per day, it's cycling about 40 parts per
| million. Alternatively, you'll cycle the volume of the lake once
| every 67 years at that rate.
|
| That same discharge is ~ 7000 litres per second, which will
| require 30 MW to heat by one degree Celsius. It's listed at at
| most 45 MW, so one and a half degrees rise, unless any of the
| water is evaporated, which it quite possibly is (after all, more
| is licensed to go in the plant than come out. I wonder if they
| have some scheme where a small volume of water is heated to a
| point where evaporation matters, then it is mixed back in?).
|
| Once again, the locals _may_ be noticing, but only if very
| significant stratification is occurring. Water is _good_ at
| dissipating heat.
| hexane360 wrote:
| Running 45 MW of miners != Producing 45 MW of energy !=
| Producing producing 45 MW of waste heat. First you have to
| consider the thermodynamic efficiency of the power plant. With
| a ~40% efficiency, 1 W of produced heat wastes 1.5 W of heat.
| Then you have to consider the overhead for running the miners.
| Ballpark, about half of the energy probably goes to HVAC.
| Furthermore, that 45 MW of mining power is also eventually
| getting released as heat, some of which may be returning to the
| lake.
|
| Overall, 45 MW of bitcoin produced could mean 135 - 180 MW of
| waste heat.
| gkfasdfasdf wrote:
| So putting it all together, assuming no evaporation and ideal
| mixing, at its current max rate of 45MW it would take 67 years
| to raise the lake temperature 1.5 degrees Celsius?
| slownews45 wrote:
| I think cooling rates may increase as lake temperature
| increases. That said, over 67 years may be just in the noise.
| not2b wrote:
| It's quite likely that the real situation isn't anywhere close
| to ideal mixing, especially since warm water is lighter and the
| deep part of the lake might not be mixing efficiently with the
| warm discharged water. Then the surface water might be warming
| much more than your calculation suggests, to the point where
| locals are noticing a major difference.
| slownews45 wrote:
| If this is a critical issue it probably wouldn't be overly
| difficult to spend some energy to pump in from a colder /
| deeper part of the lake if that is the concern, then heat and
| dump on the top. May be actually COLDER still than existing
| surface waters.
| avisser wrote:
| The Finger Lakes are famously deep as well. Seneca averages
| 291' with a max depth of 618'
| ilamont wrote:
| This isn't the only crypto mining setup causing problems in rural
| New York state. A few firms set up shop near the St. Lawrence
| river in the northern part of the state to take advantage of
| cheap hydropower and rent. Locals complained that their
| electricity rates were being jacked up, which resulted in a slew
| of new rules at the municipal and state level.
|
| https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/40458/202...
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