Bitcoin Forum

What are your electricity rates? Mine is currently 8 cents / kWh

I think I will stop when it breaks even with eletricity. What are your rates at?

mine is 6 cents / kWh (Russia)

16,6 cents :-\

0,25€

I know we've had at least two other discussions on this, but the search function here's inadequate.

$.1192/kWh after fees/taxes. I'll stop mining briefly while I upgrade my rigs, if there's a service interruption in my electricity/Internet, and when I change residence again.

For the one miner I have at home $0.35/KWh - yeah that's not a typo - tier 3 in Southern California Edison - tier 5 is $0.48 plus penalty.  Welcome to the Socialist Republik of Kalifornia - the ass backwards state  :-[

For 8 months a year I am at my dorm college getting free energy! :D

I have to pay 0.25 € (about 0.3285 $), that's expensive but it's 100% eco-power, so it's OK.

Greetz
NetworkerZ

What do you mean by eco-power?
0.25 euro is 0.25 euro

he's paying to save the environment. Unlike Cali people who pay 40 cents to destroy the environment :P

Everyone who lives in Cali tells me it's 78 and sunny every day, all the time.  Why isn't that entire state covered in solar cells?

Because the un-subsidized ROI on solar power is very very low and power companies are only interested in the STUPIDEST form of solar power possible.  

Solar power is very expensive per kwh.  Yes solar panels have a limited lifespan, require some maintenance, and have components which fail.  No solar power isn't "free" even once installed.  Price per kWh = (usable lifetime kWh)/ (total cost including cost of capital).

The ONE saving grace for solar power is it doesn't need to be transmitted.  Roughly HALF the retail cost of electricity is transmission.  So if your power is $0.10 per kWh the generation is likely only ~$0.05.  If installed locally solar power only needs to compete with the $0.10 rate not the $0.05 rate. 

However power companies HATE decentralized power because they lose control and are paving the road to their obsolescence.  So what do power companies in CA do?    Build massive solar parks (at insanely high per kWh ammortized rates) in the desert (requiring decades of expensive enviro studies)  and then spend even MORE money to build transmission lines to bring that expensive power at even higher expense to where it is needed.  Even sillier, deserts are dusty so lots of time they need to build water pipelines to ensure they can keep the massive farms clean. :)

Solar power = potentially useful in niche areas although it will never be able to provide "baseload" power.
Massive solar parks which need to be transmitted = asinine.  <- this is CA "solution".

for those who want to get as much as they can, I suggest you look at the under volting threads here. Not only have they reduced power tremendously but they have also maximized their hashs per joule.

er screw that.. stop mining.. more coins for me!  ;D

When we buy electricity in Germany, we can choose if we want to have eco-power (solar, water, wind, ...) or usual power like coal or nuclear. If we choose eco-power we have to pay ~0.25 Euro and usual power is about ~0.17 Euro. Germany decided to close down ALL nuclear power station till 2022. The goal is 100% eco-power in Germany.


0.25 Euro is about $ 0.3285

Greetz
NetworkerZ

about 4 cents when it is warmer than -13 celcius, and about 14 cents when it is colder.

B/c solar will NEVER work, at least not now.
Every solar project has been subsidized heavily by Gov. And even so, they still go bankrupt.

This is what the nuclear power business wants you to believe. Look at Germany, it works very well ...

Greetz
NetworkerZ

LOLZ.  The Germany govt forces utilties to buy power at 300% of wholesale.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed-in_tariffs_in_Germany

Yup anyone can setup a solar power plant and utilties are required to buy solar @ 0.38 eurocents per kWh (over $0.50) despite the fact that there is plenty of power available much cheaper.    Without the subsidies it simply couldn't compete.

With enough "free money" I could make just about anything popular.  I could get you to burn your own poop if you got a check for $20 on each turd you burned yourself.  See "clean poop" technology works.

Still you are right all those billions and billions in "free money" (paid by ratepayers so essentially just a transfer of wealth from electrical consumers to those who own solar power arrays) results in a staggering 18 TWh of annual generation .... after 11 years of subsidies .... which is <4% of Germany's electrical consumption and <1% of total energy consumed.  

TL/DR version.  If all the power in Germany was produced by PV your electrical rate would be ~$0.50 per kWh.  The only reason your electric rate is "only" $0.20 - $0.30 per kWh is because of that "inefficient" nuclear, hydro and natural gas is bringing the average down.

If I had to pay 0.50 Euro I would pay it to save the enviroment. You guys in the US dont care about that yet, but you will do so in the future (or you will have to). Look how you live, look what you eat, look what cars you drive, etc. In 2022 we will be the ones who laughs about you, when you live in a country with 104 (2011) nuclear power stations ... I wouldn't live there. There is something that counts more then money.

Greetz
NetworkerZ

Which has nothing to do with nothing.

1) PV solar isn't that great for the environment.  It is made from a soup of highly toxic chemical and today 65% of it is made in ... China.  Yup those international bastions of clean manufacturing.

2) I would rather had 500 nuclear reactors than millions of acres of high cost PV panels.

3) Even if you are right it has absolutely nothing to do w/ the post you responded to which was about the ECONOMICS of PV SOLAR.

I have to agree with D&T here.

Nuclear is the way to go whether you like it or now. It is much better than anything available to us right now ( maybe except hydro ).

Low pollution and cheap prices FTW. Solar panels are a fail technology and always will be just like SSDs ( until the tech properly matures and they become viable ).

Say thanks to the petroleum lobbyists  ;D

Here in sunny south Fla,I pay .11 k/h & only 1 solar farm in Arcadia,Fla.WTF???

Wow, if it was up to me I would get rid of all of them...

Then you are way over your head.
Look at how much $$ the German gov't subsidize it.
After so much money poured in by the gov, solar power still cost you over 0.25 euro

Totally agree.
I first thought solar is the way to go, but after so much research..... i concluded..... solar will never work. The panels are not efficient, and we need batteries that are 100x more capable than today's batteries.

then you wouldn't be able to hash your coins.

In  quebec our elctricity is  made with water.

Sorry, he meant 94.8% is made with water.  ;)

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Énergie_au_Québec#.C3.89lectricit.C3.A9
(no english version for the data)

$0.20 kWh (Hong Kong)
in China Mainland, just across the border it's $0.11 kWh
I didn't even start mining yet so no idea when I will stop.

In my home country Austria (I work and live overseas) it's €0.2079 kWh, and people believe their energy is hydro ecause they have lots of mountains and rivers. If they'd bother to read the small print of their monthly energy bill, they'd actually see that only a third is hydro and lots of energy is imported.

How the Germans can decide to do without Nuclear power by 2022 is beyond my understanding. I guess they just had to give the people what they wanted to hear because they have enough problems on their hand already with the bad economy etc.

I will have a bag of popcorn from far away to see how that plays out. My bet is that they will reverse course or delay this for a few decades and then reverse course. Or just shut them all down and rely in imported (nuclear or fossil) power which doesn't really do any good.

In Austria at least, some studies have concluded that hydro won't be enough.

It's $0.11 per kWh here in VA.

Bought one of those kill a watt things to see how much power my PC draws but I still don't have any good mining GPUs to calculate with yet... I've been an nVidia guy but hoping to find some 5870's at some point.

$0.06 here in Michigan at home.  At the office though it's rolled into the utility payment so "free".

En 2009, l'électricité produite par la fission nucléaire ne constituait que 2,35 % de tous les approvisionnements d'Hydro-Québec

  Hmm true.  I'd have to take a look at the bill to see just how many extra charges there are ;).

Those who are opposed to nuclear need to do their research, it is the cleanest and most efficient power generation BY FAR. Forget all your old assumptions about waste, etc.

NEW nuclear plants are extremely safe and extremely efficient. I hope the US gets off their asses and hands some of the bribes back to the oil and gas industries and starts building reactors by the dozens.

Oh and UPGRADE THE DAMN POWER GRID! we lose more there than anywhere else.

Nonetheless, deregulated electricity is a joke, capitalism NEVER works when people HAVE to consume a product. It doesn't allow for proper interplay of supply and demand which is necessary to a truly free  market.

rant over. The US is just a stupid greedy nouveau rich kid most of the time. Doesn't know what it has or how to use it.

he's giving lots of power to the power company, so his nuclear energy proportion goes down to 80%. at least that is what they are selling as eco-power here in germany.


last time I was to LA I froze the entire night. F***king cold in CA!

You know what is even funnier.  Germany imports power from France ... produced by nuclear reactors.  France has lowest electrical costs in Europe, receives hundreds of millions a year in revenue by electrical exports and all the non-nuclear nations use nuclear power.

Funny thing is some of France nuclear reactors are right on the border so they are closer to the residents who vote against nuclear power (but still use it) than French citizens.  :)

I know. If the nuclear plant in Fessenheim explodes(one of those french-maintained, or shall I say unmaintained reactors that is likely to produce a disaster soon), I wont even feel pain about that.

My opinion is that cheap energy is a vital key to economic prosperity. I don't agree with all those environment nazis around here, I say use your PV panels if you like, but dont let me pay for it.

Oh, btw, I'm also in with the shut down our nuclear plants people. But I see it from another point of view. IMHO we NEED to put those old plants off the grid, since they are old, inefficient and insecure. Instead germany should put it's money into NEW, SAFE, EFFICIENT nuclear plants, instead of fighting some battle for people that smoke way too much weed and oppose everything they dont understand.

Little sidenote edit... do you know why the french plants are that close to the german border? When they built those things, those frog-eaters made wind calculations. The plants have been built with the intention that if any of them has a nuclear accident(from radioactivity being released into the air to *BOOM*) the fallout hits germany instead of france. Those rags are good neighbours, arent they?

I agree.  We have same problem in the US.  We really do need to shut down reactors but it is really only viable if you replace it with more nuclear unless the goal is to take a giant step backwards and burn even more fossil fuels.

It has taken Germany 11 years and massive subsidies (wealth transfer) to acheive 18 TWh of solar generation.   In the US the "newest" (aka late 1970s technology) reactors acheive 95% capacity factor (produces 95% of theoretical output annually).

18 TWh * 1000 / 24 / 365 / 0.95 = ~ 2GH.  A pair of modern Gen III+ nuclear reactors (the kind China is building 20 a year) would produce more power per year than 11 years of subsidies in solar power has produced.

Alternatively, if the US tried to do what Germany did w/ solar power to replace nuclear power, 11 years from now we could take 2 (out of 204) nuclear reactors off line.  Most people have no concept of how much power it takes to keep us in the modern world.

Forget cost most people simply don't have enough roof for more than 4 or 5 KW.  5 KW getting an avg of 5 hours of peak sunlight per day can keep a single 1 KW rig running 24/7/365.  What is someone going to do if they need 10 rigs or 20?  Rent 20 roofs? That is just Bitcoin mining.  Now think about an aluminum smelting plant, auto assembly plant, or google datacenter.

maybe we would be better off if we lowered our consumption of electricity in general...in quebec, if you have an old fridge, th electric company will give you 60$ if you throw it away. 60$ to throw your old frigde away, they will come and pick it up.

just because we can pay for the electricity/gas/water does  not mean we should be wasting it.

I have 2 young girls and in each of their rooms they have little girly lamps...my girlfriend insists on keeping them on, even during the day because it makes the rooms look nice...but no one is home... ???

dude, you are in the wrong forum. bitcointalk.org is probably the only forum in the world where wasting massive amounts of energy is promoted.
Besides that, I cannot replace my fridge, it comes with the rental contract(embedded into the kitchen). But however, I'm putting out 2 kilowatts in mining energy, and an upgrade to 5 is coming(have to see how to get those 16A failsafes replaced with 25A ones). do you really think I care about a light or something?

not to mention that our socialist government is now telling us that we are forbidden to use fucking edison light bulbs, but have to use those energy saving crap ones that put out dirty light and need 30 minutes to reach their final brightness.

I mean, if you want to save energy, that is fine with me and it's a noble concept, but it cannot be that the government tells me how much energy I may use and what I may use it for. this is not soviet russia(yet)

Besides that, I have really considered installing solar panels over here, since electric companies have to pay you off for PV generated electricity that you use yourself, which makes mining cheaper than when I buy the cheapest electricity on the market. Not to mention that my entire flat now has 0.0$ cost for heating the place.

i do not see mining as a waste of energy. we are using the power to make the computer work to make us money...

Well, I guess if you go to a bank to request a loan for rig expansion and tell them exactly this, they'll probably notify the SEC about a new ponzi scheme.

Point is, the waste of energy is debatable. But energyconscient people surely see mining as the greatest waste ever. And again, there is the special place of germany, or even southern CA, where people are currently barely profitable with mining, however I didnt shut down my rigs at $3/coin either, since I dont mine for personal bargain(I have enough coins I mined at diff<10000), but to support the project.

Then again, the question to me is where do you draw the line?

People mining with FPGAs would probably say that GPU mining is a hell of energy wastage.
GPU miners would say the same about nvidia miners(yes, they exist, and modern nvidia GPUs come close to radeons, the thing is that the mining comparison table in the wiki is put up from idiots that mine on CUDA devices with radeon-optimized OpenCL miners, which are known to be between 100 and 300 % slower than the same code in CUDA on them).
And finally, NVIDIA miners would say energy waste at CPU miners.

so where would you draw the line?

No they don't.  Show me a single Nvidia card which is (just to be sporting) within 50% of what a AMD card (your pick) can get in terms of MH/W and MH/$.

NVidia has always had lackluster integer performance CUDA or not.

take a stock clocked GTX590 for example. it uses about 370W on full load, and with my own cuda miner, it puts about 470MH/s. with pocl it's just under 200.
given that the 590 is comparable to a 6990(price, wattage, dual-GPU), I'd say it meets your bet!

Shenanigans.
Code or it didn't happen.
And a 6990 will still smoke those numbers.

Revitalize the american economy AND secure our energy needs. build 20 new reactors a year while taking as many offline. While doing so, upgrade the ENTIRE electrical and IT infrastructure. This would create millions of jobs and secure our future for decades.

would love that, but you have to see the costs too. a new reactor costs about 4 billion dollars. and lets not even start with the grid...

banks STOLE over 3 trillion or at least the FED did, i think that would have been an nice start.

So $4B each * 20 reactors would be $80B annually.  Price likely would drop if you built 20 identical reactors year after year for a decade.  Most reactor parts are custom built on site but you could gain economies of scale by having component factories if there was certainty in future demand.  China is doing this now.  They have a factory which makes steam generators.  Giant massive components being factory built because you need 4 per reactor and China knows they will be building a couple hundred reactors.

Sure $80B is some real money but  to put it into perspective US GDP is $14,580B.  The Apollo program in today's dollars is about $170B so it isn't impossible it just requires political and social will which is currently lacking.

Imagine in a decade your could replace 104 ancient oddball reactors all custom built and no two exactly alike with 200 standardized higher efficiency, passively safe Gen III+ designs based on year 2000 technology.   In the process you could almost triple the amount of nuclear energy being produced and even accounting for electrical demand growth over that time increase nuclear's share from ~20% to almost 50%.  Over 2000 TWh.  It puts the 18 TWh "solar victory" in Germany into context.

Yeah I think we can call BS on this one.

GTX 590 doing almost 500 mhash/s ? LOL

thats because you dont under stand nuclear power, its actually one of the cleanest and safest power generation methods around.

Actually i would be willing to bet if you took even hydro electric, and looked at every damn that ever failed and the numbers of people killed by the resulting floods, or the amount of ecological damage done by flooding massive valleys you would find that its far worse than the 2 largest nuclear accidents in history... which as far as i know are the only ones to cause any kind of measurable damage to the environment. (Chernobyl, and fukushima).

some people really just dont understand how bad the other options really are.

kinda like the morons buying electric/hybrid vehicles thinking they are saving the world.  the over all cost and damage to the environment caused by the manufacture of the batteries that go into those vehicles far outweighs the costs of fuel in the lifetime of a reasonable car (especially you fucking lucky ass europeans with your great selection of diesel vehicles!)

that said.. Nuclear all the way.. fuck if they would let me i would pay to have a mini reactor put in my home.. great source of cheap, safe power

Actually i would be willing to bet if you took even hydro electric, and looked at every damn that ever failed and the numbers of people killed by the resulting floods, or the amount of ecological damage done by flooding massive valleys you would find that its far worse than the 2 largest nuclear accidents in history... which as far as i know are the only ones to cause any kind of measurable damage to the environment. (Chernobyl, and fukushima)[/quote]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

No need to guess a single hydro electric damn failure eclipses both disasters.  

The single worst disaster in the history of power generation is a hydro-electric dam failure.  The Chinese admit to 171,000 casualties, 5.9 million buildings destroyed, and 11 million displaced person but many put the estimates closer to double that.

Now to anyone reading, how many specials, documentaries, news stories, and fictional references have you seen on Chernobyl?  Had you even heard of Banqiao before today?  Think mass media not science might have something to do with "anti-nuke" movement. (BTW the term "nuke" wasn't an accident.  nuke = slang for nuclear weapons.  so use "nuke" to describe fission reactors to link images of mushroom clouds in the public's mind).

what about the leftover radiation that will be there for the next few centuries? and the radiation that spreads across the world...I think thats why I am against nuclear power. when a dam breaks people can rebuild, and there is no radiation. It does not affect the whole world. I trust that candians are taking care of their nuclear power stations, but am not as trusting with other countries, but then again what the hell do i know. all I do know is that radiation affects the world and does way more damage.

as for the question of wasting the electricity and where do you draw the line, I guess I draw my own line where I am comfortable. I am running a few gpu and would like to swap over to FPGA as soon as possible, and there are many reasons. the 2 most important is the fact that they take less power to run, and require less equipment One motherboard can have more hashing power using fpga's, than gpu's. and no need to update the home electricity.

I am not saying anybody is right or wrong, these are just my thoughts...for me.