News Energy use in a Kuwaiti city fell by over 50% after authorities cracked down on crypto mining

[Admin]

Over 100 houses are allegedly hosting crypto mining activities, with some of them using up more than 20 times the normal power consumption of the average Kuwaiti home.

Energy use in a Kuwaiti city fell by over 50% after authorities cracked down on crypto mining : Read more

 

[rluker5]

I think it must be 1MWh to mine a Bitcoin, not just make a transaction.
If it is just to make a transaction, we don't have the fossil fuels to waste on that.

 

[Pierce2623]

I think it must be 1MWh to mine a Bitcoin, not just make a transaction.
If it is just to make a transaction, we don't have the fossil fuels to waste on that.

Well you’re never guaranteed a coin…so it wouldn’t make much sense to put a power usage on that. It completely depends on landing on the correct hash before competitors. More power just lets you try more hashes in a given time period.

 

[TheyStoppedit]

Who cares? As long as they are paying their bill, let them

 

[Findecanor]

Eh... last time I checked how mined cryptocurrencies (such as Bitcoin) worked, "mining" was interlinked with transactions, so it was impossible to do "mining" without being involved in cryptocurrency trading.

By the way, in my opinion the culprits should be ground up and used as fertiliser to grow crops. Then at least then they would have added something good to the world and its ecosystem instead of leaching on it.

 

[USAFRet]

Who cares? As long as they are paying their bill, let them

somethingsomething Climate Change

 

[JamesJones44]

Who cares? As long as they are paying their bill, let them

Resources, resources, resources. People complaining about inflation, but then not caring about wasting resources on digital money is a contradiction (not singling you out, but I know people who think this way). If you waste resources on digital money, prices of those resource will go up due to scarcity (aka things that generate energy and the components that go into them), it's basic economics. Whether people want to believe it or not, there are more consciences to every action than just what appears on the surface.

 

[Notton]

Who cares? As long as they are paying their bill, let them

If they're causing blackouts, as the news suggests, then it becomes a societal problem, rather than an individual contract issue.
Kuwait is a hot place to live and if you don't have A/C, that can become a life or death situation.
IDK how electricity use is governed in Kuwait, but typically high power usage facilities, like servers and factories require a special contract and area to run. That special contract is there to guarantee infrastructure is built to handle the load.
Where as if you spread out a bunch of crypto mines in a city, that city might not have the infrastructure to handle the load because it was never designed for that.

 

[SomeoneElse23]

somethingsomething Climate Change

I consider this a political answer since "climate change" is a matter of perspective and is certainly debatable.

 

[newtechldtech]

Gas is cheap in Kuwait .. Bit coiners over there should use private Generators.

 

[USAFRet]

I consider this a political answer since "climate change" is a matter of perspective and is certainly debatable.

You may consider it "political".

I see it as...
Why the extra consumption of non-renewables, and pushing extra pollution/GHG/smog into the shared airspace.

 

[Alex/AT]

Why crack on it like that? Just pump up the cost of electricity i.e. over 1000-1500kW 10-100 times and it'll do.

 

[Jorsher]

Who cares? As long as they are paying their bill, let them

Now that's some complex thought there.

I live in Kuwait. It gets >120F every year. For a few months of the year, the lows are in the mid 90s, and it's not unusual to go entire days without the temperature dropping below 100. Most of us like having air-conditioning and to have our refrigerators operational.

Also, the energy/fuel is subsidized here with the intent of making energy more affordable for everyone -- not for making it profitable for a few people to mine.

somethingsomething Climate Change

Yes, the country that relies on the sale of fossil fuels is worried about climate change...

As for Wafra, some of the homes busted used over 100,000 kwhr in March. The power consumption for the area dropped from 85MW to 36MW from the crackdowns, despite the temperatures increasing. It's estimated to save the country 15M KWD ($49M USD) in energy subsidies over the next year.

To put 100,000 kwhr in perspective, I'm running a 64-core, >1PB server rack in my home, that uses less than 1,000 kwhr a month.

 

[Furbo]

Math doesn't math here.
Even if those 100 homes all used 20x the power, that would be 2.000 homes worth.
So 2000 homes represents 50% of Kuwait city energy needs?

 

[Jorsher]

Math doesn't math here.
Even if those 100 homes all used 20x the power, that would be 2.000 homes worth.
So 2000 homes represents 50% of Kuwait city energy needs?

Are you assuming that only the 100 homes they busted were mining? Also it's "a" Kuwait city's needs. Wafra is not much of a 'city', compared to areas north of the refinery.

This wasn't the first crackdown. I'm confident a number of people, seeing what was coming, proactively shut off their mining rigs.

I know it all made me a little nervous about my server stack.

 

[Math Geek]

It's simple really, worldwide can easily fix it. The "average " home uses x amount, go over and your rate raises as your use rises. They are there due to it being economically beneficial. 20 times the average house, should be 20 times the rate...

Now it's too costly to set up there, they go elsewhere until they can't go anywhere.

Same for those massive data centers sucking up massive amounts of local power. Average business uses x amount, so your data center uses 1,000 times that (or is it millions of times?) your rate is proportionally higher.

Problem solved

 

[Jorsher]

It's simple really, worldwide can easily fix it. The "average " home uses x amount, go over and your rate raises as your use rises. They are there due to it being economically beneficial. 20 times the average house, should be 20 times the rate...

Now it's too costly to set up there, they go elsewhere until they can't go anywhere.

Same for those massive data centers sucking up massive amounts of local power. Average business uses x amount, so your data center uses 1,000 times that (or is it millions of times?) your rate is proportionally higher.

Problem solved

A lot of solutions are 'simple' if you don't consider reality. Legislation has recently been in place to phase out the subsidies over the next few years so rates can reflect actual cost. The current rates of ~6 cents were set in the 60s. Legislation here, especially when it comes to removing benefits, is very slow.

I'm surprised nobody has suggested the 'simple' solution of building more power plants while ignoring the reality that they take years to plan, fund, bid, and build. Consumption has increased faster than generation due to climate-hoax increasing temps, population, and miners. This country is even slower with major projects.

Meanwhile, finding and shutting down miners, deters others and reduces consumption immediately -- just in time for summer.

 

[Math Geek]

so look at the stats then spend how much "raiding" the high users? vs looking at same data, and programming a rate schedule that raises based on usage pattern?

one of these is most likely easier and cheaper to implement.

if they were confiscating all the gpu's and destroying them as they are found, then i'd change my mind on the value of raiding them. but if they just gonna tell em to go away so they can just set-up elsewhere, then it's just passing the problem onto someone else down the road. waste of time.

i stand by my very simple solution

 

[ripbeefbone]

Who cares? As long as they are paying their bill, let them

years ago you'd be arguing for lead in gasoline as a gas companies right or asbestos as building material

 

[bill001g]

So like others I figured the math does not work out. There is no way 100 homes could drop the use of power in Kuwait city 55%

Like many of the article toms pays this author for it is basically just rewritten article from one of the news services. Not the first time he has made errors.

The key mistake is the title I suspect was rewritten as click bait. It is not kuwait city it is some very rural area near the border with saudi arabia. It seems it is more of large farming area than a city not sure how many houses total are there but 100 would be fairly large percentage but even that is hard to tell. When you try to use translated sources out of kuwait itself they use some other name for the "city" that is contained in the much larger al wafrah area. It also is hard to say if it is really a "house" or a group of commercial buildings that do things more than just mine crypto.

This seems more and more both the rueuters article and the one on toms are click bait, would have to get someone that can read articles in the native language to say how significant this "crack down" really was.

 

[LordVile]

I consider this a political answer since "climate change" is a matter of perspective and is certainly debatable.

That’s seems to be argument of people who don’t understand it, can’t think critically and also think that the fuss of the Ozone layer was a fad because it’s not mentioned anymore.

 

[LordVile]

So like others I figured the math does not work out. There is no way 100 homes could drop the use of power in Kuwait city 55%

Like many of the article toms pays this author for it is basically just rewritten article from one of the news services. Not the first time he has made errors.

The key mistake is the title I suspect was rewritten as click bait. It is not kuwait city it is some very rural area near the border with saudi arabia. It seems it is more of large farming area than a city not sure how many houses total are there but 100 would be fairly large percentage but even that is hard to tell. When you try to use translated sources out of kuwait itself they use some other name for the "city" that is contained in the much larger al wafrah area. It also is hard to say if it is really a "house" or a group of commercial buildings that do things more than just mine crypto.

This seems more and more both the rueuters article and the one on toms are click bait, would have to get someone that can read articles in the native language to say how significant this "crack down" really was.

It’s is actually a city but it is one that’s suffered rapid population decline since the 90’s so the population is very low into the low thousands or hundreds

 

[jp7189]

It's simple really, worldwide can easily fix it. The "average " home uses x amount, go over and your rate raises as your use rises. They are there due to it being economically beneficial. 20 times the average house, should be 20 times the rate...

Now it's too costly to set up there, they go elsewhere until they can't go anywhere.

Same for those massive data centers sucking up massive amounts of local power. Average business uses x amount, so your data center uses 1,000 times that (or is it millions of times?) your rate is proportionally higher.

Problem solved

Farms use a lot of power and don't make a lot of money. Many small producers are zoned residential. Do you make an exception for them? Or penalize them for producing food? ..and then what about this and then that.. and suddenly you have more exceptions than not and a bureaucratic nightmare.

 

[Math Geek]

Farms use a lot of power and don't make a lot of money. Many small producers are zoned residential. Do you make an exception for them? Or penalize them for producing food? ..and then what about this and then that.. and suddenly you have more exceptions than not and a bureaucratic nightmare.

here's where you show a lack of understanding for what "average" means. every single business is included in figuring the "average". so the small mom and pop store brings it down, while the middle sized walmarts and such bring it back up. the super users will also bring it up a lot more for sure, especially a large mining business with thousands of cards. so the way that math works and specifically the way "average" is computed, even something like a walmart type store would still likely fall under the average and not see a rate increase. i highly doubt a farm uses that much electricity and many actually already generate their own power using wind, solar and biodiesel made from waste products around the farm.

same goes for what the article is talking about which is homes. even a large home would not use the power of a mining set-up. the largest estates might bump above the overall average of the homes of the city, but i don't really care if they get penalized a bit for having 15000 sq ft homes to heat and cool 😛

and again, they are still not going to get anywhere near the usage of the miners. spend tons of money raiding and possibly prosecuting and such, or just price them out of the area. you can get with this or you can get with that.......

one of the actual problems with using "average" is actually a plus in this use case. the "median" in this case would largely benefit the large users, while the "average" would benefit all but the largest users, again in this use case.

 

[jp7189]

here's where you show a lack of understanding for what "average" means. every single business is included in figuring the "average". so the small mom and pop store brings it down, while the middle sized walmarts and such bring it back up. the super users will also bring it up a lot more for sure, especially a large mining business with thousands of cards. so the way that math works and specifically the way "average" is computed, even something like a walmart type store would still likely fall under the average and not see a rate increase. i highly doubt a farm uses that much electricity and many actually already generate their own power using wind, solar and biodiesel made from waste products around the farm.

same goes for what the article is talking about which is homes. even a large home would not use the power of a mining set-up. the largest estates might bump above the overall average of the homes of the city, but i don't really care if they get penalized a bit for having 15000 sq ft homes to heat and cool 😛

and again, they are still not going to get anywhere near the usage of the miners. spend tons of money raiding and possibly prosecuting and such, or just price them out of the area. you can get with this or you can get with that.......

one of the actual problems with using "average" is actually a plus in this use case. the "median" in this case would largely benefit the large users, while the "average" would benefit all but the largest users, again in this use case.

Wait am I to understand you're proposing an average across all entities, not split them in to buckets like residential, commercial, industrial (as they do today)? So, in your perfect plan you'd average a 800sqft single bedroom condo with a 1GW aluminum smelter? How does a multi-building complex work..e.g the 1100 acre Fab 21 complex?