A Texas Town’s Misery Underscores the Impact of Bitcoin Mines Across the U.S.

[ABCbits]

FWIW, it's estimated that 59.9% Bitcoin mining use sustainable power on August 2023 report[1].

Yeah, I would really wipe my ass with Bitcoin Mining Council reports.
It's all clean and so on and when I open every company sec fillings all I see is buying gas powerplant here, coal powerplant there, tied to the grid, and one or two hydropower stations. And  I was curious why they stopped the reports, it's 2024 and the last data is from 2023..well seems like there was a congress inquiry on their power demand and sources after that mad bitch Warren threw a fuss about it so miraculously they've stopped with the estimations.
Take that 59% with a ton of salt, I would be amazed if it's 39% at best.

That's good point, i was wondering why they never release newer report. But other source such as https://ccaf.io/cbnsi/cbeci/ghg shows gas emission instead and haven't updated chart which show type of energy source since January 2022.

[mikeywith]

[quote author=mikeywith
If there was one downside to bitcoin it has to be the noise pollution and the huge power consumption. I'm really not sure that the world is better off due to bitcoin now that I've seen these downsides. I can't imagine anyone that is affected by the noise of these mining operations would like bitcoin at all. And I don't recommend they do either!

Unless you are too deep into the "green world" concept which I am not into, then power consumption is a net positive to the world, demand on power by bitcoin increases jobs, adds more value to the economy and in some cases even makes power a little cheaper.

You can simply verify the above by checking GDP vs Power consumption for any country, both move together.

As for the noise, it is not all that bad, out of the thousands of farms around, how many of them are stupidly built in a populated area? As for the farm in question, I would blame that State for it, if they can't regulate noise pollution to protect their people, they are dumb as hell, people are greedy by nature, it is not BTC's fault.

[philipma1957]

Now go have a look at that 300MW farm, thats 100,000 miners, you can't have them all facing a small area that you can control, they need to be spread, each miner can make up to 90db, noise level increases by 10 db everytime you 10x the noise source

1 miner does 90db
10 miners do 100db
1000 miners do 110db
10,000 miners do 120db
100,000 miners do 130db

If there was one downside to bitcoin it has to be the noise pollution and the huge power consumption. I'm really not sure that the world is better off due to bitcoin now that I've seen these downsides. I can't imagine anyone that is affected by the noise of these mining operations would like bitcoin at all. And I don't recommend they do either!

This is true.

I would love to see that company be forced to use liquid cooling .

If you really think about 300 megawatts of heat they could provide 300,000,000 x 4 = 1,200,000,000 btu of heat. My furnace has a 100,000 btu..

And it runs around 4 hours a day in the winter.  So 1,200,000,000/100,000= 12000 homes and X 6 = 72,000 homes could be heated with the wasted heat

So Texas is simply allowing wasted resources.   Just think of the fucking stupidity of the government of the USA.

Every major city in cold weather should have the mines.

Texas should truck ot ship oil to say Boston.  Boston already burns, thousands of gallons of oil to heat homes.

Burn the oil to run a  mine use liquid cooling and pipe the heat to homes.

If you mine doge which never runs out of coins and is the perfect small value p2p payment plan you could heat all of new England all of new york and Chicago.

Plus mine a double use of the fuel.

The solution is right there. This is why I hate both Trump Harris as neither one talks about this and this could work.

Instead mining crypto is the simple mis use of tools the way it is done now.

[ranochigo]

Maybe bitcoin needs to transition to something more environmentally friendly so that it doesn't cause so much noise pollution and fossil fuel useage. I can't be neutral about something like that. sorry.

Unfortunately it seems like you feel like because states don't have specific laws about being an a-hole to your neighbor, you can go ahead and do it and that's not your fault? actually you agree that these were shit companies acting bad. so good for you but it shouldn't take laws to stop a-holes from being a-holes.

We've been through this thousands of times and we've always come to the same conclusion that Bitcoin is not going to transition from proof-of-work to another algorithm. The idea is that the benefits is higher than the cost, but the negative externality is difficult to actually estimate. If you were to shift to something like Proof Of Stake, then Bitcoin isn't Bitcoin anymore and you run into the different issues about PoS.

Profit-maximizing corporations has historically exploited the community to their fullest wherever they go. Stopping Bitcoin miners from mining isn't going to stop profit maximizing corporations from trying to exploit whatever they can to maximize their profits. Effective policies will, and unfortunately rules and regulations are the only things keeping them in check. You may think that this is a whataboutism, but truth is no company actually gives a shit about ESG. They only care about money an governments are supposed to be the one to strike the correct balance.

If you want to address the issue once and for all, Texas should implement proper zoning laws and effectively address all of their concerns and issues. I get it, they're assholes but it certainly doesn't help trying to generalize the entire industry as one when there are a few bad apples.

[larry_vw_1955]

Unless you are too deep into the "green world" concept which I am not into,

i'm into not being forced to pay higher electricity prices because of people mining bitcoin.

then power consumption is a net positive to the world, demand on power by bitcoin increases jobs, adds more value to the economy and in some cases even makes power a little cheaper.

i don't think it increases jobs significantly (how many people want to work in a very noisy facility and bitcoin mining operations don't have any real labor costs or anything like a real warehouse) or adds any value to the local economies at all (no product produced) and it definitely doesn't make power cheaper:

When cryptominers come to town, local residents and small businesses pay a price in surging electricity rates.   

A new Berkeley Haas working paper estimates that the power demands of cryptocurrency mining operations in upstate New York push up annual electric bills by about $165 million for small businesses and $79 million for individuals—with little or no local economic benefit.

https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/research/power-hungry-cryptominers-push-up-electricity-costs-for-locals/

none of that should come as a surprise.

As for the noise, it is not all that bad, out of the thousands of farms around, how many of them are stupidly built in a populated area?

it seems like more and more of them are popping up all over the usa. anywhere they can put one they try to. if it can help them skirt the rules and do it secretively so much the better. but then people start complaining about the noise...

As for the farm in question, I would blame that State for it, if they can't regulate noise pollution to protect their people, they are dumb as hell, people are greedy by nature, it is not BTC's fault.

well BTC needs to be updated to be more environmentally friendly. you can't just have bitcoin mining facilities in every single city making tons of noise 24/7/365 but i guess that's what most people that are involved in bitcoin want.