Bitcoin Forum

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/business/data-furnaces-could-bring-heat-to-homes.html?_r=1&hpw

Saw this and thought of you guys.

They probably got the idea from us.

I have a better idea; include a micro nuclear reactor (sealed, 10 MW range) for each block, and the additional waste heat could be used for dryers, hot water, heated driveways, walkways, heated roofs, gutters, etc.

The russians have actually built portable nuclear reactor, mounted inside large truck trailer. It was used in far north regions, syberia, yakutia.

Paranoid USA and western goverment will not allow such things today, they are afraid that nuclear material can be used by underground resistance and freedom fighters (terrorists).

My PC (desktop) has only 1 Radeon Hd6950 but when it's mining away,it can heat up my entire flat in less than 30 mins (and even then it's unconfortably hot).The card is heavily OC'd as well and can get a little noisy but that waste heat heats up my flat instead of using 2 more wasteful room heaters (provided by flat).The power use is just under 300W when mining from the wall.

Here's a headline for ya,1 computer heats up entire flat in 30 minutes. :-)

Here's a headline for you: some dude claims three 100-W light bulbs heat up his entire flat.

Reputable as any headline you read in the mass media.

That's not a fair comparison.  Much of that energy is converted to light.  How much light does a GPU produce?

Ok,so you're comparing me to the mass media.Fine,but to be honest it's not that big of a place so heating solely by a PC that mines bitcoins is plausable when it's not too cold.Also those results were obtained in mid-Oct in UK climate (slightly cold outside but tolerable just before things get Icy).

Now I'm not saying that this'll always be the case (of heating up the flat) as different parts of the world have different climates.Please understand that I was just having a sense of humour about something that is true for me but funny as well (as normally 1 PC doesn't heat up the entire flat this easily).

Much?  Incandescent lightbulb is about 2% to 3% efficient. :)

Back when I first started mining in my bedroom I woke up with night sweats from the heat, even with AC running. It was a small room but I couldn't sleep with the door closed.

I knew this really old weird guy named Neil who had a tiny little house and these MASSIVE handmade insulators on his doors, like the front and back of his doors had sheet metal protruding 6" on either side of all doors, I assume there was some foam or fiberglass inside there as insulation.  He slept on his kitchen floor and had the upstairs to his home sealed off.  I think his windows are insulated too.  He literally heats his house with three 100w bulbs, no joke.  I dunno about the cold winter nights though, but light bulbs do put off a great deal of heat.

Alright, I was being sarcastic as I didn't buy the story. The fact is, regardless of what percent of watt-hours of a bulb is converted to light vs. heat, it all ends up being heat (unless you want to be nitpicky about the fraction of light escaping through the window glass). Another fact is, unless you resort to extreme insulation and duct-tape engineering, and to sealing off windows and unused rooms, 300W just won't do much to heat up an average apartment.

Now that film2240 has provided some reasonable clarifications, I apologize if I sounded harsh, and we can move on. Whatever the power you are drawing from the mains will ultimately end up as heat in your room, coins in your wallet, and watt-hours on your electricity bill. I was contemplating using my rig to cure tobacco leaves, but never got around to trying it out.

Standard electrical heater: in the 1000W
Standard CPU: in the 60-120W
=> 10 servers = about 1 standard electrical  heater
So yeah, 40 servers (I think that's one of the figures from the article) is definitely a possibility to heat a small house in a temperate climate. Might be a bit noisy though. :D