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A Coal Power Plant is Being Reopened For Blockchain Mining (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Sure, you could mine bitcoin on that old PC in your garage, or you could use a whole power station to do it. That's the idea behind the Blockchain Application Centre -- an Aussie tech initiative that will see one of the country's now-shuttered coal-fired power plants reopened to provide cheap power for blockchain applications. It's the work of Australian tech company IOT Group, which has partnered with local power company Hunter Energy on the project. According to The Age, Hunter Energy will recommission the Redbank power station in the Hunter Valley, two hours drive north of Sydney. Once the power plant is reopened (expected to be completed within 12 months), it will offer wholesale or "pre-grid" power prices to blockchain companies, allowing them to do things like mining cryptocurrencies, without having to pay retail power prices.
So not onlly are we going to waste tons of electricity, we're going to pollute now too.
As soon as they have an opportunity to enrich themselves they suddenly don't care about the environment...
This is so pointless. All that energy, and all those computing resources, for nothing. What the hell is wrong with people?
God damn it, this fucking insanity has to stop. Not only has it impacted my ability to upgrade to a bitch'n graphics card but now they want to poison the air I breath for this shit?
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Wasn't Buttcoin supposed to run on mostly extra production from chinese dams? No? Well I'll be darnt, so much for that canard.
This country has so much sunlight that melanoma is a major health concern.
If we let people use electricty "on demand" people might not understand the artificial scarcity of our resources.
The public school education system works very hard to educate people about how we shouldn't use anything and live in the woods.
Better to stop this so we can pat ourselves on the back without interruption.
This is like the 90's when slapping .com onto anything made it teh super awesome.
Then it became e-everything.
Then when it was i-everything.
Have we reached peak cryptocurrency yet? Because I don't give a fuck.
n/t
It's too bad Australia seems to be run by fossils these days though, so that won't happen.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Huh, is this some sort of competition to find the dirtiest of money?
All this stuff is speculation and it will crash again.
Happy landing.
Coal is Making Australia Great Again.
Every last bitcoin must be confiscated and the proceeds used to repair the environmental damage caused by Satoshidiots.
TFA is on a really bad website. Thank God for noscript. If you're one of the rare slashdotters who reads TFA, then get this add-on first.
That seems like a long time in blockchain time. . . Isn't proof of space supposed to take over at some point, in which case the demand for computational and power resources in this space will be dramatically decreased?
Then again, it is mid April, 2018 and I still cannot buy web storage hosted on file coin's network. . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
A think we need to update Drake equation and add a parameter for crypto mining.
I think the power company just wants to add "blockchain" to their name so the execs can cash out, but my quick back-of-napkin math makes me think it might actually work if they can fully sell it out. Assuming a 100MW plant, it would take US$25-40 million to get up and running, which would require $500/year/kW in rent for a 12-month payback, which equates to a US$0.05/kWh electricity savings to make it worthwhile.
But it seems like a lot of risk for something 12 months out before generating cash flow that is already a bubble.
Just think when the bubble bursts and the fad ends.
All the people who are gonna get their asses handed to them and the schadenfreude - I relish that .
They were warned. They all know of the Tuplip bulb craze and the dot-bomb craze. But the "it's different this time" mentality always gets some people.
This has got to be the most pants-on-head retarded nonsense I've heard yet. Is Australia vying for the title of 'most fucked up' with Florida or something?
This is like rolling coal orders of magnitude larger and more "in your face" asshole.
Now we know how civilization will end, when all the world resources are funneled into generating digital bits of vanity.
I guess we get to breathe it now. Awesome. What's the ETA on that giant meteor that is just supposed to just put us all out of our misery?
The headline suggests the power plant is being opened explicitly to fuel blockchain mining, but the article indicates only 5% of the power is expected to be used in blockchain applications. That would seem to leave 95% unaccounted for.
I used to joke that some video cards require you to bring your own power plant, but this is ridiculous.
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
HAW HAW!
You stupid fuckers' planet is headed for a special mention Darwin award!
oh wait...
crap.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
* Beanie Babies
* Cabage Patch Dolls
* Blockchain Mining
1880's to 1920's. You know the story: sweat shops, robber barons, child labor, Pinkerton, etc. The 1950's and 60's brought us great wealth, but we were also the only untouched first-world country after the war. Thus, we were able to afford some concern about pollution, conservation, welfare, civil rights and the like. Taxes were high and business was good... until the Oil Crisis in the 70's. We've been in trouble ever since.
There is a possible silver lining here. If we can 1) consolidate bit coin mining, 2) have them use power plant scale amounts of power, then we have a new resource which is concentrated waste heat. Bit coin gives off waste heat but when distributed no center may be large enough to make practical recovery valuable. But if a whole power plant is devoted to this then a new scale may be emerging.
They need to think about how to co-locate thermal power intensive industries. Some things like smelting iron probably require even more thermal concentration than possible. But things like baking bread or raising shrimp or some chemical industry activities might need lots of low level heat. Perhaps, in a nice ironic cycle, one could power CO2 sequestration using the waste heat.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Blockchain DEEZ NUTZ!
Are (any) fiat-currency and (any) cryptocurrency really equivalent, as cryptocurrency fans claim?
For example, US Dollar and Bitcoin are really equals?
Value/validity/authorization of US dollar is provided/guaranteed by US Government (and in-turn whole US Public)!
Also, not to mention, US Dollars in any US Bank is insured by US Government!
What authorization/guarantee/insurance is behind Bitcoin? Nothing!
Sorry but that is the end of discussion then!
Why do you think Satoshi Nakamoto is really hiding his identity, if Bitcoin is really such a great innovation?
He is just someone does not like media/fan attention?
Or, could it be really because Bitcoin (and all cryptocurrencies followed it) are actually Ponzi Schemes?
(So he knew very well that law enforcement would come after him sooner or later?!)
If so-called cryptocurrencies are really good innovation, why they attract so many criminals/criminal activity?
Could it really be because, all cryptocurrencies themselves are scams, and that is why they attract all kinds of criminals/criminal activity?
If so-called cryptocurrencies are really currency, why no company/store can use Bitcoin as currency anymore?
Because the price of Bitcoin proved to be extremely unstable to use as a currency?
Would the result be different, if Bitcoin replaced by any other "cryptocurrency"?
Aren't all work the same way?
If so-called cryptocurrencies are really money; isn't people issuing their own money, illegal already, in all countries?
If so then, why they are still not banned in all countries?
Or, they are not actually virtual currency but virtual investment?
But, if they are actually investment, why we need/want them?
What would happen to world economy, if people invested in virtual investments, instead of real investments?
Or, all so-called cryptocurrencies are actually just a modified (made decentralized and paying variable interest) Ponzi Schemes?
(Price of cryptocurrencies would keep increasing in the long term (by their design), so it is equivalent of paying variable interest to all long term investors.)
As more and more people invest in cryptocurrencies, it will become harder and harder to ban their trading everywhere!
All cryptocurrencies need to be banned globally before it is too late!
Leftists are boogeymen created by conservative talk show hosts.
I'd actually say that Bitcoin is a product of libertarians. The sort that don't think our monetary system should be left to the government. And yeah, "how do deal with pollution" gets you a variety of answers from that crowd.
"We techies are so very environmentally responsib ... ooh, shiny bitcoin!"
this could catch on.
use a coal fired plant to mine enough bitcoin to finance building a SECOND coal fired plant. ... then with two power plants, it would only take 50pct of the time to mine enough bitcoin to finance a THIRD power plant as it took to build the second ... and then just a third as much time to finance the FOURTH ... ... pretty soon, we could cover all of australia in power plants
its like the Andromeda Strain "it'll grow and mutate, we'll never get rid of it"
Something fishy is going on here. Australia has some of the highest insolation levels of any developed country. It would be cheaper to build a new solar plant in the sunniest part of the country and run it for 10 years than it would be to restart an existing coal plant. Hunter Valley is a nice place to live, but bitcoin miners DGAF about that, they probably don't even live in the country.
I guess the only benefit to coal is it can run 24x7, but I have to think the biggest cost of bitcoin mining is the energy, not the equipment, so just buy 2x the amount of miners...
I smell some sort of government subsidy.
Film at 11
Won't help them
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"Coal is yesterday's game, right?"
- Yeah
"And Bitcoin is a Wild West of unsupported valuations, questionable players, and bizarre justifications."'
- Yeah?
"What if we combine the two. We take 2 bad ideas, and make them one. The bad parts of one will cancel the bad parts of the other, and we make out like bandits!!! It's genius!"
- What if the bad parts don't cancel? What if they actually reinforce each other?
"It doesn't matter! We get out early and let the suckers go down with the ship! It's a can't lose proposition!"
- Tell me more...
Just like President Pence wants!
Will they have the necessary CO2 scrubbers and sequestering technology to make it pass the Australian pollution regulations? Or is it that this Anti-Science intelligence deficit disease (ASIDD) is just as contagious over there as it is here in the US?
Is this article from The Onion? Coal-powered Bitcoin may just be the pinnacle of the human capacity for assholery.
Bitcoin is now leftist libertarian? Back in 2016 it still was not merely right, but "extreme right": The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism
(No, I haven't RTFB either. With a title like that? Pfft.)
Race to the bottom.
Don't worry guys, this is most likely Clean Coal!
Even the cleaner more efficient ones replacing older dirty ones?
Windtroll back again
Or you could just ask the US why per capita it's just about the dirtiest country there is, and ask them to shoulder some of the burden and caut their use in half down to Chinese levels or cut 80% and drop to Indian levels.
But no, blaming Chinese coal is much better for your bosses and your feelings of smugness.
oh fuck me - the IdiOT Group, offshoot of the young liberals
the neoliberal hard right goons have found another excuse to keep coal going
sounds like a brain fart
want to make money while your sitting around being an entitled, fucking yuppy, we've got fake money
need something, but you're too fucking stupid to do it yourself, we've got slaves for hire
fucking selfies, make me a drone in clear plastic, then I'll be excited
Go well
Please mod this up so we can all get some laughs watching APK chase his own tail like a feral hedgehog.
How can you be so anti-coal and yet not know the first things about it?
Is it the same as how you are so anti-China and don't know the first thing about that either?
So not onlly are we going to waste tons of electricity, we're going to pollute now too.
Don't get too smug, US coal exports to Europe have *doubled* to make up for the power shortfall from the decommissioning of some nuclear plants to appease environmentalists.
The "happy medium" is "close down coal plants as fast as we possibly can" because "close down coal plants as fast as the science says we should" is bloody impossible with the pea brained Coalition in power.
This left vs right thing you think you see is "people who understand science and the effect of CO2 on our future civilisation" vs "people who think science is a conspiracy and we can pollute forever".
The carbon tax that Abbott killed was the best legislation we had in this area. That numbnut is the most dangerous person the parliament has ever seen. He's still wrecking our environmental laws. If Turnbull didn't have Abbott biting his arse all day we'd have a carbon tax again.
BTW, the carbon tax legislation compensated low income earners. It made nobody at all homeless. The only people who think poor people should be homeless are the right wingers who think poor people deserve being poor.
So Smith must have the air that he breathes poisoned so that Jones can get rich.
The creatures outside looked from the USA to Australia, and from Australia to the USA, and from the USA to Australia again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
This is a classic "pump and dump" scheme. David Gerard has the background detail, and an analysis that is far better than what I can give.
Short version: hype and noise, sound and fury, all in the name of people trying to pump up a penny stock so they can cash out.
Well lets see, Tesla put in a mega battery block that seems to have met demand for a month. Well, as usual, Musk comes up short.
There are soft coal mines in China that do this already, as the marginal price of soft coal is so low that there is no profit from trying to delivery it from the mine. They could push the power to the grid, but chinese regulators actually have been getting on the case of coal power plant operators to install exhaust scrubbers (note install, it seems many do not actually activate the scrubbers due to plant parasitic power cost). These ghetto mine operated coal powerplants thus don't feed the local grid and thus are somewhat invisible from the regulators, thus no exhaust scrubber install, just a skeezy boiler and some cases a piston driving a generator rather than a steam turbine. Pairing this up with bitcoin production, which puts profits technically out of the reach of internal currency controls, is a game winner, and many chinese saw this quite some time ago as a kind of electrical power arbitrage, and executed.
Hahahaha I get the LAST LAUGH @ u - You got downmodded despite your request & have to EAT IT I laugh @ U over it too, lmao!
APK
P.S.=> You WASTE OF LIFE do-nothing "ne'er-do-well" NO TALENT & no life UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous clowns are losers & you KNOW it - it's all you can manage to do (just as you have here, proving it)... apk