Crypto Miners buying up entire power plants

[DorrisOpen]

Summary

 Some crypto miners are buying up abandoned or dormant power plants to power there mining operations. These miners are trying to cut out the middle man and power it directly.

 

Quotes

Quote

"As the energy demands of cryptocurrency mining garner increased scrutiny, some mining operations are cutting out the middleman and setting up shop inside existing power plants."

 

My thoughts

 This is vary interesting and exspected of the miners (in my opinion) because they want a more sable operation. I think this will grow with some right out building things to power there operations.

 

Sources

 https://futurism.com/the-byte/crypto-miners-buying-power-plants

[Guest willies leg]

Article is misleading, in New York, they already own and operate several old power plants, use them specifically for crypto currency mining, have been for a while.

Zero chance of NY banning it ever.

[DorrisOpen]

Ah ok

[TetraSky]

Oh cool. More fossil fuel power plants being powered back on just for the sake of mining virtual currency that people decided to attribute value to. Just what the world needed.

[Brooksie359]

Well this sucks. Unless it's renewable energy this doesn't seem like a good direction to be going in. Hopefully they put some solar panels up or something. 

[freeagent]

They just bury old solar panels, nothing really green about them. Kinda like electric cars. Terrible.

[WkdPaul]

47 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Well this sucks. Unless it's renewable energy this doesn't seem like a good direction to be going in. Hopefully they put some solar panels up or something. 

 

Part of if is just "crypto-scare" ;

Quote

For example, a crypto mining company called Core Scientific moved into an old Levi’s denim factory that had near-exclusive access to a nearby hydroelectric dam.

So IT IS renewables (in one instance). Also, the factory has an exclusive access to that hydro dam, it's possible that if the factory closed then the hydro damn would've too and so it's not electricity that could be used elsewhere, lots of old factories had their own power plant (though they would usually sell what they didn't use to the main grid, so it's possible that this plant could've turned into an electricity producer instead of supplying a mining farm, but the article doesn't give any details because crypto bashing drives a lot more clics, so it's speculation either way).

 

Still IMO it would've been better to revamp that hydro plant and connect it to the main grid instead of exclusively supplying that factory ! And I agree that burning gas and/or coal to supply a mining farm is top idiotic stuff !

[Murasaki]

5 minutes ago, overthe6r said:

The WHAT?

 

 

Geez how can somebody be so much obsessed with mining.

 

when its their "job" lol

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, TetraSky said:

Oh cool. More fossil fuel power plants being powered back on just for the sake of mining virtual currency that people decided to attribute value to. Just what the world needed.

Nowhere in the article does it say it is fossil fuel that are being used. 

In fact, the original source (Curbed) that the futurism article links to clearly states that they bought a hydroelectric dam.

 

This is just another example of the LTT forum having no idea what they are talking about and start seething with anger as soon as cryptocurrencies gets mentioned.

If you actually care about the environment like you seem to imply you do, then you should welcome these news with open arms. This is literally an old abandoned environmentally friendly power plan being powered on again to power cryptomining, rather than cryptomining being powered by other, dirtier power sources.

These are good news for the environment. More renewable energy using infrastructure that has just been sitting there doing nothing.

At least this particular news article.

 

5 minutes ago, Murasaki said:

when its their "job" lol

Not sure why you put "job" in quotes. It is their job, whether you like it or not.

[Jeppes]

7 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

 

Part of if is just "crypto-scare" ;

So IT IS renewables (in one instance). Also, the factory has an exclusive access to that hydro dam, it's possible that if the factory closed then the hydro damn would've too and so it's not electricity that could be used elsewhere, lots of old factories had their own power plant (though they would usually sell what they didn't use to the main grid, so it's possible that this plant could've turned into an electricity producer instead of supplying a mining farm, but the article doesn't give any details because crypto bashing drives a lot more clics, so it's speculation either way).

 

Still IMO it would've been better to revamp that hydro plant and connect it to the main grid instead of exclusively supplying that factory ! And I agree that burning gas and/or coal to supply a mining farm is top idiotic stuff !

Hydro dams are not exactly green energy as those have massive effect on ecosystems ocean wide. Fish populations grow smaller as coastal waters get less nutrients because dams stop sediment from getting through. Also huge impact because fish cant go past em upstream.

[Brooksie359]

26 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

 

Part of if is just "crypto-scare" ;

So IT IS renewables (in one instance). Also, the factory has an exclusive access to that hydro dam, it's possible that if the factory closed then the hydro damn would've too and so it's not electricity that could be used elsewhere, lots of old factories had their own power plant (though they would usually sell what they didn't use to the main grid, so it's possible that this plant could've turned into an electricity producer instead of supplying a mining farm, but the article doesn't give any details because crypto bashing drives a lot more clics, so it's speculation either way).

 

Still IMO it would've been better to revamp that hydro plant and connect it to the main grid instead of exclusively supplying that factory ! And I agree that burning gas and/or coal to supply a mining farm is top idiotic stuff !

If they can get renewable energy to supply their mining then that would be great. Much better than the alternative. I agree though that it would be great if they could sell the excess capacity to the local grid. 

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

1 hour ago, Brooksie359 said:

Well this sucks. Unless it's renewable energy this doesn't seem like a good direction to be going in. Hopefully they put some solar panels up or something. 

Even if it is renewable energy being used, we're still talking about an opportunity cost. Renewable energy is a scarce resource. If we are using it for one thing, we are necessarily not using it for another. The pertinent questions are, "What is being powered by non-renewable energy now that otherwise could have been powered by renewable energy?", and, "Is the use of renewable energy on mining crypto a good allocation of our limited resources?".

[LAwLz]

16 minutes ago, Jeppes said:

Hydro dams are not exactly green energy as those have massive effect on ecosystems ocean wide. Fish populations grow smaller as coastal waters get less nutrients because dams stop sediment from getting through. Also huge impact because fish cant go past em upstream.

Yes but hydro dams are some of the cleanest alternatives we got.

All power sources have some drawback. Solar panels create "heat islands" which disturbs things like the wildlife nearby, they take up a lot of space which means installation might result in habitat loss and other ecological damage. Manufacturing has its own issues (like costing a lot and doing damage), and they need to be replaced.

 

Wind creates a lot of noise pollution which disturbs wildlife, requires a ton of area as well which is not available everywhere.

 

Hydro dams, like you said, can affect wildlife where they are installed although that (like solar panels) depends on where they are installed. 

 

 

We have to pick our battles. Personally, I'd love for nuclear power to become more popular and attract more investments and research, but if I can't get that then I'll be happier with hydro than let's say coal.

 

 

  

1 minute ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

Even if it is renewable energy being used, we're still talking about an opportunity cost. Renewable energy is a scarce resource. If we are using it for one thing, we are necessarily not using it for another. The pertinent questions are, "What is being powered by non-renewable energy now that otherwise could have been powered by renewable energy?", and, "Is the use of renewable energy on mining crypto a good allocation of our limited resources?".

The power plant the article talks about is old and abandoned. This is not some cryptominer "taking" renewable energy from some other industry.

The result of these news is that we have MORE renewable energy in the world.

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

The power plant the article talks about is old and abandoned. This is not some cryptominer "taking" renewable energy from some other industry.

The result of these news is that we have MORE renewable energy in the world.

Yup. You have successfully begun to answer one of the posed questions.

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

39 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Hydro dams, like you said, can affect wildlife where they are installed although that (like solar panels) depends on where they are installed. 

Actually, since this is a power plant that may have otherwise been dormant (although it also may have been reactivated for some other purpose), that brings up other questions. Are the environmental and ecological harms associated with the operation of the hydro-electric powerplant ethically justifiable based on the "work" that is being done by the crypto mining facility? What work done by that power would or wouldn't be ethically justifiable based on the associated harms of running the plant?

[dalekphalm]

2 hours ago, freeagent said:

They just bury old solar panels, nothing really green about them.

Just saying, this is factually incorrect. At least some solar panels are being recycled right now, and that's only poised to increase.

 

There's one such blog post about the processes used to recycle solar panels:

https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/2017/10/the-opportunities-of-solar-panel-recycling

 

It also includes breakdowns as to how much of the physical materials can be reused. In most cases, it's a significant portion of the materials.

2 hours ago, freeagent said:

Kinda like electric cars. Terrible.

Also electric cars are definitely the opposite of terrible. Old EV Batteries aren't just buried.

 

Hell, the battery has a *LONG* life left in it after it "dies" (meaning it's no longer suitable to power a car). Most of the time they're used as stationary battery storage for power plants to store excess power, or to store solar/wind power for use later.

 

Another common use is for things like the Tesla Power Wall.

[Brooksie359]

58 minutes ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

Even if it is renewable energy being used, we're still talking about an opportunity cost. Renewable energy is a scarce resource. If we are using it for one thing, we are necessarily not using it for another. The pertinent questions are, "What is being powered by non-renewable energy now that otherwise could have been powered by renewable energy?", and, "Is the use of renewable energy on mining crypto a good allocation of our limited resources?".

What you think they would stop mining if they didn't get their own hydro power plant? No they would simply be on the normal grid which is most likely not 100% renewable so this sure beats the alternative. 

[BuckGup]

You can tell mainstream news about crypto is just about hype because people were buying abandoned power plants in Russia back in 2012 for crypto mining so this isn't new at all. I'm more interested in the crypto mining operations that are using 100% nuclear as that is a great alternative to the outdated ACH 

[tikker]

22 minutes ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

Actually, since this is a power plant that may have otherwise been dormant (although it also may have been reactivated for some other purpose), that brings up other questions. Are the environmental and ecological harms associated with the operation of the hydro-electric powerplant ethically justifiable based on the "work" that is being done by the crypto mining facility? What work done by that power would or wouldn't be ethically justifiable based on the associated harms of running the plant?

This is going full circle lol. uses a lot of gray energy -> gets scrutinised for harming the environment by using gray energy-> mining farm uses green energy -> gets scrutinised for the impact of generating said green energy. Solution: humans should go extinct to stop energy usage, because no matter what the energy source will be we'll always find a way to question if we're "allowed" to use that energy for something

[TetraSky]

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Nowhere in the article does it say it is fossil fuel that are being used. 

Yes, I welcome the news of hydro power being used! But.

Straight from the article, right after the line about hydro : 

Quote

Others, like Greenidge Generation, simply bought a gas-burning power plant to directly power their operations

Natural gas IS fossil fuel. Even if it weren't natural gas and was instead something like biogas made from wastes, it will still create CO2(and CH4). Just not as much as coal or oil, but still about 50% of coal powered plants and a hell more than hydro.
They aren't the only ones who bought a gas burning power plants, because there's a lot more of those waiting to be grabbed in the US, than available hydro electric dams. Just have to look at new york, where Digihost bought a gas firing powerplants of 60MW. And that's just the ones in the articles. There's plenty more examples of miners buying other power plants out there.

 

And then, I also looked at the source material on Curbed and there's this nice little paragraph near the end
https://www.curbed.com/2021/07/crypto-currency-mining-old-power-plants.html

Spoiler

But hey, I'm sure all the miners who may move to these states after fleeing from china, are totally going to go the renewable route! I'm sure there's plenty more renewable power sources just lying abandoned in these states, totally no abandoned gas, coal or oil firing power plants that they have plenty of, no sir. 
 

Spoiler

North Dakota energy production

Quote

" About three-fifths of North Dakota's total primary energy production is in the form of crude oil. Natural gas accounts for almost one-fourth of the state's energy production, and coal makes up about one-tenth. Renewable energy, including biofuels, accounts for the remaining 5% of state energy output."

 

Wyoming energy production

Spoiler

Kentucky's main source is also coal(90% of it), oil and gas and while Texas fares a bit better, it's still not that great.

 

 

If they'd all actually buy old random Hydro dams that they found abandoned, GREAT.

But do you sincerely believe that they all will? We have one example of them doing so and more of them doing the opposite and the rest are more likely to just get it from the grid instead of spending a couple millions straight up buying a power plant like Digihost did in New York.

Where are miners more likely to go, a state that doesn't want them, or one that is welcoming them with open arms? And what's the main power generation of these states? Likely fossil fuel.

 

Call me cynical if you will, but I don't trust miners to make the best choice for the environment and I'm not sure why anyone would.

[freeagent]

20 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

At least some solar panels are being recycled right now, and that's only poised to increase.

What about the ones made in the last 25 years? Maybe now they are being kept out of landfills, but that wasn't always the case. Anyways, this thread is about crypto, not old panels.

[WkdPaul]

9 minutes ago, freeagent said:

Anyways, this thread is about crypto, not old panels.

You're the one that brought up the topic. Next time if you're not interested in discussing related subjects, don't bring them up.

[freeagent]

10 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

You're the one that brought up the topic. Next time if you're not interested in discussing related subjects, don't bring them up.

I was trying to stay on topic for once lol.

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

1 hour ago, Brooksie359 said:

What you think they would stop mining if they didn't get their own hydro power plant? No they would simply be on the normal grid which is most likely not 100% renewable so this sure beats the alternative. 

You make a good point, but allow me to rephrase it for you:

 

The environmental and ecological harms done by fossil fuel based power plants far exceeds those done by hydro-electric plants. Therefore, any and all fossil fuel power that is offset by new hydro-electric power would be justified. In the absence of the hydro-electric power, these miners would (arguably) be on the standard grid which relies heavily on fossil fuels, so this constitutes a harm reduction.

 

I could buy that. But it hangs on the self-interested agency of the miners. We as a society have the option to do better. We could decide collectively that the hydro-power be used to offset existing fossil fuel power, instead of using it to add new power consumption to the grid. In so doing, we would more greatly reduce the harms done by generating the power that we need.

 

(This is called "steelmanning" by the way. The opposite of a "strawman". I made the best version of your argument, before contradicting it.)

1 hour ago, tikker said:

This is going full circle lol. uses a lot of gray energy -> gets scrutinised for harming the environment by using gray energy-> mining farm uses green energy -> gets scrutinised for the impact of generating said green energy. Solution: humans should go extinct to stop energy usage, because no matter what the energy source will be we'll always find a way to question if we're "allowed" to use that energy for something

(and this is "strawmanning", you constructed an obviously weaker version of my argument so you could knock it down, because you aren't tough enough to handle my actual argument ).

 

You don't seem to follow the logic. I think you should take a closer reading of what I said:

2 hours ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

Even if it is renewable energy being used, we're still talking about an opportunity cost. Renewable energy is a scarce resource. If we are using it for one thing, we are necessarily not using it for another. The pertinent questions are, "What is being powered by non-renewable energy now that otherwise could have been powered by renewable energy?", and, "Is the use of renewable energy on mining crypto a good allocation of our limited resources?".

In case economics isn't your forte:

 

Opportunity Cost: The loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.

 

                Relevant question: What is the cost of using this energy for this purpose, rather than using it for the next best alternative?

 

Resource Allocation: The assignment of available resources to various uses. Resource allocation arises as an issue because the resources of a society are in limited supply, whereas human wants are usually unlimited, and because any given resource can have many alternative uses.

 

                Relevant question: Is powering this mining facility with our limited renewable energy the best allocation of our resources?

Quote

mining farm uses green energy -> gets scrutinised for the impact of generating said green energy.

I never actually scrutinized the generation of the energy. I merely posed the question:

Quote

Are the environmental and ecological harms associated with the operation of the hydro-electric powerplant ethically justifiable based on the "work" that is being done by the crypto mining facility?

Which you have not answered. Granted, it is a difficult question to answer.

[tikker]

1 hour ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

(and this is "strawmanning", you constructed an obviously weaker version of my argument so you could knock it down, because you aren't tough enough to handle my actual argument ).

Ad hominem much? I hoped the lol and would have conveyed it was meant as a joke, but ok jokes or sarcasm don't convey well over text. It's perfectly fine to evaluate the impact of resources. I just found it amusing that there is a mining farm running on some form of green, only to lead to the discussion whether it's worth the cost of that energy, but I'm game.

1 hour ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

What is the cost of using this energy for this purpose, rather than using it for the next best alternative?

What would the "next best alternative be"? Based on the information I gather it would appear the factory had near-exclusive access to it. Of course "near" means there may be options, but there may also be huge costs and other problems associated with repurposing it. We don't know what the options are and hence the "next best alternative" isn't obvious. It could be not doing anything at all with it if a plant not producing energy at all is less harmful than one that is. On the flip side, the alternative might be that they go back to burning coal, in which case you'd rather have them operating this dam.

1 hour ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

Relevant question: Is powering this mining facility with our limited renewable energy the best allocation of our resources?

This question really goes for anything that consumes power and I don't think there is an objective answer to this question. In an ideal world we would have thought a century ago "oh hey burning coal is quite bad, let's limit how much we use it and focus on finding better sources quickly". In reality, the world evolves and does what it does for better or for worse. From a pure energy and ecological point of view you may say no, but as you see sociologically it becomes more difficult.

1 hour ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

Are the environmental and ecological harms associated with the operation of the hydro-electric powerplant ethically justifiable based on the "work" that is being done by the crypto mining facility?

You can leave out the quotes. Work is work, whether you like it or not. That includes computers doing calculations. It tries to provide a transaction network alternate to our current financial system and it has become an investment for people as well and it makes them money. Are those ethically unjust? If you shut down crypto this instant, a lot lof people will lose a lot of money. Is that ethically justifiable? This question has a different, related perspective as well. Namely, is it ethically justified that we are destroying the planet just so we can play video games, watch movies and have 24/7/365 access to whatever we want? Why are we not allowed to use energy for crypto currencies, but are allowed to use an equal or greater amount just to quench our thirst for videogames? It's not a black and white situation of A is bad and B is good.