Plattsburgh, N.Y to take legislative against crypto mining.

[mynameisjuan]

So as someone who lives in Plattsburgh I think I can put a little input on this. So yeah 2 months ago our rates shot through the roof literally doubling my electric bill. I mean in the summer I pay .03 per kwh which is insane to most cities, I while I dont think this is due to solely miners, I do think its impacting their grid. 

 

Yes, miners have skyrocketed in Pburgh because of the electric cost, almost everyone I know mines and working as a network engineer I can see big operations, we have 2 customers who bought out warehouses and have each around 400-500 Ant miners each (I had to install the connection). I even know a handful of people who moved from Burlington to mine even though its an hour commute to work every morning. 

 

I just wish they called for a ban rather that doubling my electric bill with no warning. 

 

 

[done12many2]

40 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

So as someone who lives in Plattsburgh I think I can put a little input on this. So yeah 2 months ago our rates shot through the roof literally doubling my electric bill. I mean in the summer I pay .03 per kwh which is insane to most cities, I while I dont think this is due to solely miners, I do think its impacting their grid. 

 

Yes, miners have skyrocketed in Pburgh because of the electric cost, almost everyone I know mines and working as a network engineer I can see big operations, we have 2 customers who bought out warehouses and have each around 400-500 Ant miners each (I had to install the connection). I even know a handful of people who moved from Burlington to mine even though its an hour commute to work every morning. 

 

I just wish they called for a ban rather that doubling my electric bill with no warning. 

 

 

 

At 0.03 cent per kwh, you're essentially 1/3 to 1/4 the national average. Even if it's doubled, you're still better off than most of the country. 

 

Lucky you. 

[leadeater]

6 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

 

At 0.03 cent per kwh, you're essentially 1/3 to 1/4 the national average. Even if it's doubled, you're still better off than most of the country. 

 

Lucky you. 

Mines 0.24 (USD) per kwh.

[mynameisjuan]

2 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

 

At 0.03 cent per kwh, you're essentially 1/3 to 1/4 the national average. Even if it's doubled, you're still better off than most of the country. 

Lucky you. 

.03 summer .09 winter. Yeah its damn low but over doubling it with no notice at all is still a dumb move. Right now its .26 which was a slap in the face. 

 

And I am sorry our electric is so low, but I would prefer cheaper electric when the city of Plattsburgh taxes are through the roof, average apartment cost are $900+, some of the highest gas prices in the country....Plattsburgh is essentially a tourist and college city, nothing here is cheap....let me enjoy my only thing that is. 

[done12many2]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Mines 0.24 (USD) per kwh.

 

Sitting at 0.105 (USD) here and I consider myself fortunate.  Go a few miles up the road into Maryland and I know some guys paying over 0.15 (USD).  

 

After hearing your costs, I'm taking the family out to dinner tonight to celebrate our good fortunes.    

[Donut417]

9 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

How is energy problems not a major issue in your eyes? 

Because the city doesn't own the utility. Simple as that. At least they dont here in Michigan. Also, where I live, the city doesn't have any regulation powers over the utility. The only thing the city does it manage water, and that is in terms of billing and maintaining the water mains. All of our water comes from the Great Lakes Water Authority. Only the state and federal government have the power to regulate power utilities. 

 

9 hours ago, leadeater said:

actually don't think zoning enforcement would be pushed back though. The only people that are likely to be effected by it would be people converting houses or other properties in non commercial or industrial areas which actually is a legitimate problem as far as power distribution is concerned. Even a person with a single mining rig with say 12 GPUs isn't actually a problem, it's the people with 5, 10 or 15 of these and then add another group of people doing the same close by etc.

 

Here though this looks more like just a cost thing going by the article, the local power production is being exceeded and they have to buy in power at much higher rates.

 

Every other business has to comply with zoning rules so mining actually shouldn't be exempt from this, the only issue is they tend to not actually be registered businesses. 

Im tell you. Go over to DSLreports.com. Ive seen pictures of people who have server setups at home, where it makes you think they are running a data center out of their house. Most of them are IT pros who build labs and stuff. I would have to venture to say that much of the equipment could use as much power as many mining rigs.  The other thing has mining been declared a business? Because if it has been, then where are the regulations associated with businesses? Such as having to pay payroll taxes and such. This would be an issues for the IRS and State tax authorities. So really until more powerful governments such as State and Federal weigh in, I dont see how a little old mayor can do anything. Because he would in fact have to prove mining is a business, and their are no laws of rulings that state it is. 

[done12many2]

1 hour ago, mynameisjuan said:

.03 summer .09 winter. Yeah its damn low but over doubling it with no notice at all is still a dumb move. Right now its .26 which was a slap in the face. 

 

And I am sorry our electric is so low, but I would prefer cheaper electric when the city of Plattsburgh taxes are through the roof, average apartment cost are $900+, some of the highest gas prices in the country....Plattsburgh is essentially a tourist and college city, nothing here is cheap....let me enjoy my only thing that is. 

 

No need to apologize. 

 

I live in the DC area (5th worse in the nation).  Very familiar with all things expensive.  Electricity is also our one break as they recently doubled sales tax.  People in this area commute 1 to 2 hours just so they can afford to live while working in DC proper.  

 

I wasn't trying to play down your situation with my fist post on the subject, I was trying to look at the good side, which is what I do for just about anything.  Example, my wife's car is sitting in the driveway at the moment because when she went to start it to go to work, she realized it had a flat tire.  2 good things came out of this.  My wife actually noticed an unsafe situation with her vehicle (huge deal) and it was due for the tires to be replaced (perfect timing).   Life is good man.   Mine on!  

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Im tell you. Go over to DSLreports.com. Ive seen pictures of people who have server setups at home, where it makes you think they are running a data center out of their house. Most of them are IT pros who build labs and stuff. I would have to venture to say that much of the equipment could use as much power as many mining rigs.  

I'm one of those people, I have 4 servers in total all dual socket each use a continuous 200W so 800W in total or two 290X's not power optimized. Servers don't really use that much power at all unless you load the CPU with something demanding but in a home lab that's very rare, the most demanding thing on mine is not lab related and that's Plex.

 

Our servers at work that have two E5-2690v4 in them running around 30 VMs each supporting a very large network use about 300W or so from memory, there are a lot of them but hey that's at work.

 

Anyway mining uses vastly more than general purpose servers do.

 

9 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

The other thing has mining been declared a business?

Anything can be a business, things aren't really identified as being a business like that. The issue comes when you are operating something that fits the definition of a business but you haven't filed the paper work and registered it as one. Mining operations may or may not fall under that requirement and even so would come down to a case by case basis of whats actually happening and also local laws and regulations.

 

For example me at home mining and making a profit from it is not a business, I should still declare the income on my tax forms. However if I'm full time operating a mining cluster of computers and that is my income and it pays for the maintenance and expansion of the mining cluster that could be required to be registered as a business, if legal requirements are there for that.

 

15 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Such as having to pay payroll taxes and such. This would be an issues for the IRS and State tax authorities. So really until more powerful governments such as State and Federal weigh in, I dont see how a little old mayor can do anything. Because he would in fact have to prove mining is a business, and their are no laws of rulings that state it is. 

Yea I have no idea, but it's starting to get noticed so I wouldn't be surprised if state authorities start knocking on people doors and making sure they are complaint with what ever they need to be. When things start getting big and making sizable amounts of money states and governments will want to make sure they get their cut, they always do .

[mynameisjuan]

17 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

 

No need to apologize. 

 

I live in the DC area (5th worse in the nation).  Very familiar with all things expensive.  Electricity is also our one break as they recently doubled sales tax.  People in this area commute 1 to 2 hours just so they can afford to live while working in DC proper.  

 

I wasn't trying to play down your situation with my fist post on the subject, I was trying to look at the good side, which is what I do for just about anything.  Example, my wife's car is sitting in the driveway at the moment because when she went to start it to go to work, she realized it had a flat tire.  2 good things came out of this.  My wife actually noticed an unsafe situation with her vehicle (huge deal) and it was due for the tires to be replaced (perfect timing).   Life is good man.   Mine on!  

Well you did rustle my jimmies a little lol

 

Im sure in the DC area you pay a lot more than I do. I was just talking about compared to average. Yes, we might be up to a 1/4 of the cost for electric, but we make up for it way more in other parts. 

 

Its nice to brag about cheap electric when most the time im crying at every other bill I get! 

[jagdtigger]

On 3/12/2018 at 2:39 PM, leadeater said:

I'm one of those people, I have 4 servers in total all dual socket each use a continuous 200W so 800W in total or two 290X's not power optimized.

My "whole" network(the gear in my room) runs on that much lol... (1 router, 1 AP, 2 switch, 3 NAS, and my ryzen sever running at idle[idk about loaded consumption, never checked])

 

/EDIT

Actually the whole thing only eats ~180W...

Edited March 13, 2018 by jagdtigger

[MadyTehWolfie]

On 3/9/2018 at 5:47 PM, DoctorWho1975 said:

A huge amount of money is not an illusion.

It is if I can't buy something as basic as a soda with it. That and buying things with currency that's just randomly made up sounds pretty retarded to me. Why any business are treating it seriously is beyond me.

[done12many2]

15 minutes ago, MadyTehWolfie said:

It is if I can't buy something as basic as a soda with it. That and buying things with currency that's just randomly made up sounds pretty retarded to me. Why any business are treating it seriously is beyond me.

 

By your logic, gold, silver and diamonds are also an illusion.  Ever tried to buy a Coke at Walmart with a gold nugget?  There are more retailers excepting Crypto over precious metals so it must be less fake, right?

[JCMPTech]

On 3/9/2018 at 5:41 PM, 19_blackie_73 said:

that's insane
instead of saving energy and resources, these miners give a shit about their environment and just waste energy for an illusion. If everything would come out of renewable energy, that wouldn't be much of a problem, but I bet that most of the juice comes out of coal and other, non-regenerative resources

There you go assuming, I lived in Plattsburgh NY, I now live 45 miles from their in Chateaugay NY.  Between Altona, Ellenbergh, Chateaugay, and Malone  NYSEG has grown their number of windmills from under a dozen, to just shy of a THOUSAND.  Offering incentives to the large farms here to allow them to install the windmills on their property.  Plattsburgh NY while it has it own municipality for electric, that just means the city maintains the lines and equipment in the city, NSYEG still provides their power at a much lower kwh rate.

[mynameisjuan]

13 minutes ago, JCMPTech said:

There you go assuming, I lived in Plattsburgh NY, I now live 45 miles from their in Chateaugay NY.  Between Altona, Ellenbergh, Chateaugay, and Malone  NYSEG has grown their number of windmills from under a dozen, to just shy of a THOUSAND.  Offering incentives to the large farms here to allow them to install the windmills on their property.  Plattsburgh NY while it has it own municipality for electric, that just means the city maintains the lines and equipment in the city, NSYEG still provides their power at a much lower kwh rate.

My uncle up by Ellenbergh has about ~40 windmills on his farm property and NYSEG offers quite a bit to be on your property. The thing every time I drive up to Malone half the windmills are not even running because the power they are currently putting out is plenty. No excuse to raise cost when they dont hit close to capacity.

[JCMPTech]

8 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

My uncle up by Ellenbergh has about ~40 windmills on his farm property and NYSEG offers quite a bit to be on your property. The thing every time I drive up to Malone half the windmills are not even running because the power they are currently putting out is plenty. No excuse to raise cost when they dont hit close to capacity.

Your rate hike has nothing to do with that though, Plattsburgh, Tupper Lake, Lake Placid, all get their municipal back end from NSEG or National Grid, as the old contracts expire, the city as a whole gets a rate hike on the new contract.  The new contract initially seems a bit higher, but you have to take into account the rate is typically locked for the durration of the contract, but NYSEG and National Grid direct customers see smaller incremental increases over the same period of time and end up paying much more per kwh.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

A good initiative.

[mr moose]

17 hours ago, done12many2 said:

 

By your logic, gold, silver and diamonds are also an illusion.  Ever tried to buy a Coke at Walmart with a gold nugget?  There are more retailers excepting Crypto over precious metals so it must be less fake, right?

I think you'll find it's pretty easy to find buyers for gold and other precious metals.   In Australia most pawn shops and jewelers will buy it.   Hell there are probably more recycler's who pay for aluminum and copper than there are retailers that accept crypto.  

 

Not trying to take anything away from crypto, but commodity supply/demand and all that guff have a larger effect on the market/economy than most people realise. 

[done12many2]

5 hours ago, mr moose said:

I think you'll find it's pretty easy to find buyers for gold and other precious metals.   In Australia most pawn shops and jewelers will buy it.   Hell there are probably more recycler's who pay for aluminum and copper than there are retailers that accept crypto.  

 

Not trying to take anything away from crypto, but commodity supply/demand and all that guff have a larger effect on the market/economy than most people realise. 

 

 

Absolutely agree, but not exactly what I was talking about. 

 

My comment was in response to a comment about crypto being an illusion because you couldn't walk into a store and buy a beverage with it.  We can't conveniently or consistently buy items at a grocery store or Walmart here in the US with gold nuggets OR crypto, but I wouldn't call either an illusion because of it.  Maybe that's different in most of the world, but I doubt it.  Pawn shops and retail jewelers here in the US also buy gold, but that's not where I pick up my groceries or sodas.  

 

I agree that precious metals and many things for that matter are easier to sell than crypto.  I'm simply saying that crypto or any other commodity require just a tad bit of leg work in order to use it on a daily level.   

 

I mine, buy, and sell crypto every single day.  From that, I deposit United States Dollars to my bank account (no illusion, it's real).  Then I use my widely accepted credit card (primarily for the reward/cash back points ) to buy all the soda I want from any retailer that accepts that form of payment.  Seems to be a great deal more of them than any accepting crypto or gold.

 

[Donut417]

Just read they banned mining. Good luck to that town. I personally feel the city council over stepped their authority but thats up to a court to decide. 

[mr moose]

3 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Just read they banned mining. Good luck to that town. I personally feel the city council over stepped their authority but thats up to a court to decide. 

It would be interesting to know just what power the council has in that situation.  I know here in Australia councils can block developments if they don't align with the greater benefit of the area.  E.G building a rendering plant next to a housing estate.     But I suppose just like all councils they can be corrupt and stupid and look sideways when it's too much effort.

[Canada EH]

On 3/11/2018 at 9:30 PM, DrMacintosh said:

By that logic Bill Gates could buy all the drinkable sources of water

Actually big bottling companies are doing that right now.

[Donut417]

3 minutes ago, mr moose said:

It would be interesting to know just what power the council has in that situation.  I know here in Australia councils can block developments if they don't align with the greater benefit of the area.  E.G building a rendering plant next to a housing estate.     But I suppose just like all councils they can be corrupt and stupid and look sideways when it's too much effort.

They have power to do things. He in Michigan our Energy is managed sorta on the State level with Utility commissions. City's can dictate using zoning and building codes, but thats about it. Some cities around us do have some stupid rules however. For example Canton MI, doesn't allow signs above a certain height . So all the signs for businesses are on ground level. 

[Donut417]

1 minute ago, Canada EH said:

Actually big bottling companies are doing that right now.

Nestle....... 

[Canada EH]

4 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Nestle....... 

Yes

 which is swiss

I was thinking of a NE USA company, something Springs, green label. Ah yesss Poland Springs. Poland Maine. Ahh yessss Nestle owns them too.

[NoRomanBatmansAllowed]

On 3/10/2018 at 12:18 AM, Brooksie359 said:

Using an large amount of resources to accomplish something very small is a waste no matter how you look at it. 

What is small? What is large?

 

The only concrete way of measuring something is that if you can use resources, and you can generate a profit, then it's worth it. 

 

If you look in the grand scheme of things, a person's life is just 1 in 7 billion. The black death killed ~150 milion, which is just more than 0.1% of all estimated births.

 

That profit might not have to be pieces of paper that we just decide is worth something, it might not even have to be crypto transactions to your account.