[2019-08-23] Bitcoin Miners Are Heating Homes Free of Charge in Frigid Siberia

[bryant.coleman]

It sounds improbable, in many regions of Siberia as far as I know even there is no electricity. Besides, this whole heating thing sounds really weird.

Irkutsk is not like some remote village in Siberia. It is one of the largest cities in the Asian part of Russia, with a population of more than 600,000. It is connected to the rest of the world by the Trans-Siberian Railway, and at least two international airports. Also, one of the largest hydro-electric projects in the world is located nearby, in the Angara river.

Normally I would expect Siberian urban-dwellers to go for heating during the winter months using the abundant natural gas (Russia is the country with the maximum natural gas reserves) and nowadays gas pipelines are being extended even to the most remote villages. Electricity is cheap, but still  I don't think that it is more economical than using the natural gas.

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[anoufal]

To heat the home using mining farms? Is that really possible?

[Carlton Banks]

^^^

yes. miners are warm, and have fans

[Tonteus]

I think this is the way out of their situation. As far as I know many residents of Siberia have to heat the house with firewood

[stompix]

At least some of the miners are fairly noisy too. So I am not sure who is doing it really in the same place they live/sleep.
The news is probably paid news in order to advertise Hotmine company and its products. So it's not really about the miners we discuss about on the daily basis.

The miners don't have fans like the s9 or s17, they use passive cooling, the owner has a topic about them here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5152874.0

What the article fails to mention is the 1200$ price tag on that thing compared to a more powerful 1500W electric heater you can get for 50$ in Russia.
With the hash rate growing you will never get that money back. And with an average income of around ~450 for that city, I don't see them buying those like its Black Friday.

Rather than an efficient way to heat homes in Russia it's going to be probably sold more like a novelty in Europe or US.

Normally I would expect Siberian urban-dwellers to go for heating during the winter months using the abundant natural gas (Russia is the country with the maximum natural gas reserves) and nowadays gas pipelines are being extended even to the most remote villages. Electricity is cheap, but still, I don't think that it is more economical than using the natural gas.

There is little gas in east Siberia, most of it is in West Siberia about 2-3000 km away from the region and the major pipelines stop at Tomsk.
The Russian never developed their network in the east because it was so sparsely populated it made little sense to do it financially.

[Carlton Banks]

What the article fails to mention is the 1200$ price tag on that thing compared to a more powerful 1500W electric heater you can get for 50$ in Russia.

anyone using miners as space heaters is likely buying old less efficient miners at much lower prices than the latest models. professional miners should be happy to take almost any price for old miners, the old units are taking up valuable space in the warehouse mining farms that could be used for new efficient mining units. as long as Siberians (or Greenlanders/Finlanders/Norwegians etc) can get some money back from the electricity, it will seem like a win.

if they can really beat the price down on old miners, people using miners to heat their homes could make a profit, but getting a good price for an old miner is the key to that.

[Guardian.P]

I read the article and did not find a single word there about the volume of the working device. In my opinion, the project is weak because it is designed for one region. At night it is very cold and complete silence, and if it works loudly how to sleep?

[Kyraishi]

Haha, haven't checked out this section in months and the first article that catches my eye is this one and another 1 about the IRS. Amazing shit.

This is crazy innovative stuff from the Serbians, I always knew how much heat BTC mining created even with decent cooling, and had the idea of encasing an entire house in BTC miners and then never paying for heating, but never knew how affordable and viable such a set up would be, although would be a crazy idea.

I looked at the calculation and after a year of mining, you would probably make back everything + more (including electricity fees, GPU/miners, etc) with how much heating would cost.

Wouldn't be surprised to see such a thing being implemented in more European countries, maybe even China, if anyone is knowledgeable enough, they could save quite a lot of money from this.

[Vishnu.Reang]

There is little gas in east Siberia, most of it is in West Siberia about 2-3000 km away from the region and the major pipelines stop at Tomsk.
The Russian never developed their network in the east because it was so sparsely populated it made little sense to do it financially.

Are you sure about this? Because I have heard that the natural gas pipeline to China is almost 100% complete. The pipeline will run through Eastern Siberia, and will deliver natural gas to northeast China. If I am not wrong, there is already a crude oil pipeline running through that area. I know that East Siberia is sparsely populated... but a few years back they had this scheme of offering the citizens free land to move to that area... I don't know what happened to that...

[malevolent]

you mean the opposite; Belarusian government has barely changed for something like 40 or 50 years. That's stability, not instability

It's been ruled by Lukashenko for the past 25 years. I'd use a different word, 'unpredictable', the country is a dictatorship and you never know what 'smart' idea they (Lukashenko) will come up with, such as their recent parasite tax on the unemployed.

I heard that the Lukashenko regime is the last remnant of the former USSR. Also came to know that Belarus is the last country in the European continent, that still has the death penalty. But the people seems to be doing not too bad, at least when compared to the neighboring regions of Russia and Ukraine. After the collapse of the USSR, there was no large-scale demographic loss and unemployment remains low.

And the most important thing is that Belarus seems to be the most cryptocurrency friendly country out of the ex-USSR nations.

They're doing better than Ukraine, but worse than Russia. Compared to Russia they seem to be cryptocurrency-friendly, true.

This is crazy innovative stuff from the Serbians,

Wouldn't be surprised to see such a thing being implemented in more European countries, maybe even China, if anyone is knowledgeable enough, they could save quite a lot of money from this.

It's about Siberia (Asian part of Russia, not Serbia).

I read the article and did not find a single word there about the volume of the working device. In my opinion, the project is weak because it is designed for one region. At night it is very cold and complete silence, and if it works loudly how to sleep?

Check his website, it shows the dimensions of his miners. If it's in a different room it'll be like white noise if you get used to it. Some of his miners also use passive cooling.

[stompix]

anyone using miners as space heaters is likely buying old less efficient miners at much lower prices than the latest models. professional miners should be happy to take almost any price for old miners, the old units are taking up valuable space in the warehouse mining farms that could be used for new efficient mining units. as long as Siberians (or Greenlanders/Finlanders/Norwegians etc) can get some money back from the electricity, it will seem like a win.

Old miners?
At the current difficulty is we go back one generation to the s7 that thing has a 1/4 return on the electricity it consumes.
If you're going to tell me that a miner drawing 1300w and making somewhere from 70 to 80 Db in full load is an alternative and just as efficient as a normal 1000w heater....common, let's be objective and honest about it, not everything that is related to bitcoin is automatically better than everything we had till now.
Old miners are loud, inefficient when it comes to actual heating, inefficient it getting any rewards, this is why the proposed model is using a totally different way of releasing the hear.

if they can really beat the price down on old miners, people using miners to heat their homes could make a profit, but getting a good price for an old miner is the key to that.

You can get them for 40-50 plus shipping, same as a 700w to 1000w heater but without any damn warranty.
Are 10$ month worth the noise and the hassle? I doubt it for anyone living in Northern Europe.

~.

Are you sure about this? Because I have heard that the natural gas pipeline to China is almost 100% complete. The pipeline will run through Eastern Siberia, and will deliver natural gas to northeast China. If I am not wrong, there is already a crude oil pipeline running through that area. I know that East Siberia is sparsely populated...

Yeah, almost complete because the was no pipeline there.
I'm not going to post it, rather put the link since it's quite a big map:
https://www.gazprom.com/f/posts/15/301731/map-develop-2019-06-27-en.jpg.jpg

but a few years back they had this scheme of offering the citizens free land to move to that area... I don't know what happened to that...
 

The usual Russian bullshit propaganda

[bryant.coleman]

you mean the opposite; Belarusian government has barely changed for something like 40 or 50 years. That's stability, not instability

It's been ruled by Lukashenko for the past 25 years. I'd use a different word, 'unpredictable', the country is a dictatorship and you never know what 'smart' idea they (Lukashenko) will come up with, such as their recent parasite tax on the unemployed.

Good that Lukashenko remained in power during all these years. Else they would have ended up like Ukraine or Moldova, losing 20% of the population and civilians starving without proper food or heating. I am not very fond of dictators, but Belarusians don't have any other option when the alternatives are far worse. See what the Ukrainian politicians have done to their people. Authoritarian regimes within the former USSR (such as those in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan.etc) seems to have fared much better when compared to the "democratic" governments (Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia.etc). I heard that during the Donbass war, large number of Ukrainians came as refugees to Belarus, ready to work as farm labourers for $100 per month.

[malevolent]

Good that Lukashenko remained in power during all these years. Else they would have ended up like Ukraine or Moldova, losing 20% of the population and civilians starving without proper food or heating. I am not very fond of dictators, but Belarusians don't have any other option when the alternatives are far worse. See what the Ukrainian politicians have done to their people. Authoritarian regimes within the former USSR (such as those in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan.etc) seems to have fared much better when compared to the "democratic" governments (Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia.etc). I heard that during the Donbass war, large number of Ukrainians came as refugees to Belarus, ready to work as farm labourers for $100 per month.

Democratic countries like Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have been doing very well, Ukraine is screwed due to how closely integrated they were with Russia as a Soviet republic and the ties remained incestuously close after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

I don't know what kind of people in Ukraine would be willing to go and work abroad for $100 when they can easily find work as unskilled construction laborers or factory workers for $500 month with free accommodation in Poland.

[Vishnu.Reang]

Good that Lukashenko remained in power during all these years. Else they would have ended up like Ukraine or Moldova, losing 20% of the population and civilians starving without proper food or heating. I am not very fond of dictators, but Belarusians don't have any other option when the alternatives are far worse. See what the Ukrainian politicians have done to their people. Authoritarian regimes within the former USSR (such as those in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan.etc) seems to have fared much better when compared to the "democratic" governments (Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia.etc). I heard that during the Donbass war, large number of Ukrainians came as refugees to Belarus, ready to work as farm labourers for $100 per month.

Democratic countries like Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have been doing very well, Ukraine is screwed due to how closely integrated they were with Russia as a Soviet republic and the ties remained incestuously close after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

I don't know what kind of people in Ukraine would be willing to go and work abroad for $100 when they can easily find work as unskilled construction laborers or factory workers for $500 month with free accommodation in Poland.

I don't think you can compare the Baltic nations to the remainder of the ex-USSR. The Baltic nations were lucky to be included within the European Union, and they ended up receiving huge subsidies and every single resident qualified for the right to work across the EU. At least Russia had huge petroleum and natural gas deposits, so they avoided starving. On the other hand, Ukraine and Belarus doesn't have any such resources.