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A Coal Power Plant is Being Reopened For Blockchain Mining (cnet.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the this-is-fine dept.

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.

5 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Dirty money by HeckRuler · · Score: 4, Funny

    Huh, is this some sort of competition to find the dirtiest of money?

  2. Re:Yay Coal Power by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 4, Funny

    So not onlly are we going to waste tons of electricity, we're going to pollute now too.

    Coal is the future. Coal powered power stations, coal powered cars, coal powered politicians. Dissing coal will get you sent to the gulag.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  3. A new parameter for the Drake Equation by sinij · · Score: 4, Funny

    A think we need to update Drake equation and add a parameter for crypto mining.

    1. Re:A new parameter for the Drake Equation by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 3, Funny

      A think we need to update Drake equation and add a parameter for crypto mining.

      I didn't know he was into Math, but Drake might have to collect his Spotify royalties with a bitcoin wallet in the future:

      That means musicians like Drake, Justin Bieber, and Rihanna, who were Spotify’s most streamed artists last year, need to get comfortable with the idea that their royalties are going to be tracked on a blockchain—and maybe even paid out on one—before the fantasy of music on the blockchain takes shape.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  4. Re:Massive carbon tax would fix this by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Funny

    What do you mean these days? We were always proud of being in the big leagues of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the USofA when it comes to CO2 emssions per capita.

    Sure we've dropped the ball the last 4 years but we want to retake our place above the USA.