News Environmentalists Shake Finger at Finger Lakes Bitcoin Mining

[Admin]

Environmentalists have opposed a Bitcoin mining operation in an abandoned power plant on Seneca Lake in New York.

Environmentalists Shake Finger at Finger Lakes Bitcoin Mining : Read more

 

[Phaaze88]

Just hah. Hah. HAH.

 

[InvalidError]

Even if a mining operation operates on 'green energy', there is nothing green about bumping the rest of the grid's load on other not-necessarily-green sources just to tout your own pseudo-green credential. Every GWh of hydro, wind and solar power that goes into mining is 1GWh less in renewable energy available to the rest of the grid.

 

[bigdragon]

I'm sure this plant is dumping tons of heat and e-waste too. The overall environmental impact goes way beyond CO2. Even dirty power plants contribute electricity to the grid, but this place just sucks up and wastes power. International leaders should have dealt with the cryptocurrency plague by now. Facilities like this mining operation shouldn't be allowed to exist.

 

[gdmaclew]

" keep countries like China from meeting their climate goals."

Now that's an oxymoron if I ever heard one.
China doesn't have any climate goals. They are building coal-fired power plants at a feverish pace and letting the rest of the world work like hell towards a goal that is unattainable.

 

[ThatMouse]

The good news is we haven't even started reducing CO2 yet! That's also the bad news.

 

[King_V]

" keep countries like China from meeting their climate goals."

Now that's an oxymoron if I ever heard one.
China doesn't have any climate goals. They are building coal-fired power plants at a feverish pace and letting the rest of the world work like hell towards a goal that is unattainable.

Kind of inaccurate, there. That's more what the US was doing, not China. To be more specific, from an article in September 2020: https://www.powermag.com/china-promotes-climate-goal-and-builds-new-coal-plants/

China relies heavily on coal-fired power, even as the country is among the world leaders in renewable energy. China leads the world in production of solar panels and wind turbines, and also is the world’s leading manufacturer of electric cars and buses.

The US?

U.S. Has No Carbon Goal

U.S. officials have not commented on Xi’s plan, and the U.S. has no announced goal to reduce GHG emissions. The U.S. is the world’s No. 2 emitter of GHG, though its emissions are about half those of China, which released the equivalent of 10 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere in 2018, according to the Global Carbon Project, which tracks global emissions worldwide.
...
U.S. President Donald Trump, who once described climate change as a hoax invented by China, has said he will pull the U.S. out of the Paris accord, although the earliest date that could happen is after this year’s presidential election. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden already has said he will recommit the U.S. to the Paris Agreement.

Biden, in an address on climate in July of this year, in which he announced a $2 trillion climate plan, said, “We’re going to reverse Trump’s rollbacks of 100 public health and environmental rules, and then forge a path to greater ambition. We’re going to get back into the Paris Agreement, and back into the business of leading the world.”

China pulls a lot of crap, but stick to blaming them for what they're actually doing, and don't project the US's actions on to China.


Thankfully, the 2020 election results mean we're going to actually have climate goals again.

 

[USAFRet]

Thankfully, the 2020 election results mean we're going to actually have climate goals again.

Even going back to the Kyoto accords, which the US did NOT sign for various good reasons....the US met and exceeded what would have been its goals.
Without officially signing on to it.

 

[King_V]

Even going back to the Kyoto accords, which the US did NOT sign for various good reasons....the US met and exceeded what would have been its goals.
Without officially signing on to it.

Clinton signed but could not ratify, as the Senate was not on board.

Bush then didn't even try, echoing the tired old GOP rhetoric of "It's going to cost too much and ruin our economy" which they continued touting for years. And they were wrong.

Comparing the actual US grid to the one predicted 15 years ago

Demand and carbon emissions are way down, renewables far more common than expected.

arstechnica.com

In 2005 (and for a number of years afterward), people frequently announced that reducing the carbon emissions of the grid would come at a catastrophic cost. That has turned out to be very wrong. Retail electricity prices (in 2005 constant dollars) went from 10.6 cents/kiloWatt-hour all the way up to... 10.7 cents/kW-hr. The projections had them falling slightly, so we're in worse shape than expected in this sense, but it's anything but a crippling rise in price.

So, if we exceeded what would've been our goals, then why didn't we sign? What WOULD have been our goals under Kyoto, and what did we do instead? What policies did we have in place?

 

[USAFRet]

Clinton signed but could not ratify, as the Senate was not on board.

The entire Senate. 95-0.
For good reasons.

Kyoto was simply a money transfer program.

The West (US, Europe) had to do a lot.
The other major GHG producers (Russia, China, India, Brazil) had to do nothing.
Even worse, allowed to increase, because...reasons.

If the goal is to actually reduce GHG, then do that. Write that into the thing.

Whatever...let's not gt too political about this. Not the place for it.

 

[Publio Emerson]

There is a cryptocurrency capable of solving this problem, Gridcoin (GRC) is able to use all this processing power waste in useful projects in which would be necessary sophisticated supercomputers

 

[danlw]

As much as I'd like to see wasteful crypto shut down, I wouldn't trust the government to do it. The old farts in congress would probably think "Oh, GPUs use all the power? Then cap their power usage at 25 watts!". And just like that the number of SM and RT cores gets reduced tenfold.

It would be awful... We'd have to go outside and start having real human interactions again... Maybe take up hobbies with physical assets like model railroads. But then they'd figure out how to mine crypto using model trains.

 

[daworstplaya]

Cryptocurrency is a plague that needs to be shut down. The sooner governments ban it the better. Waste of power and destruction of our environment and for what? So that people can get rich of a ponzi scheme? It does nothing, it solves nothing. The sooner it goes away the better.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Governments could levy a property tax on it, which I would see as something favorable for governments as:

• They get money from it
• They can, at least indirectly, track who has crypto

Of course, people could just not report it, but if they get hit with a tax audit and are found out they have crypto, wellll.

 

[mrv_co]

So the only real news here is that they are planning on taking the operation public. The plant was converted to Natural Gas from Coal in 2017 and they've been running it to supply intermittent power to the grid, while transitioning to crypto mining as that became more profitable. New York is probably a little too pearl-clutchy for this sort of thing, but this is the sort of operation that Texas should consider to prop up their renewable sources when they freeze, fail and/or threaten to bankrupt their residents with preposterously high electric bills.

 

[ufo43615]

It makes zero difference what they do with that old power plant. Manmade global warming does not exist. It is a pseudoscientific Lysenkoist cult promoted for solely political purposes.

 

[drivinfast247]

Thankfully, the 2020 election results mean we're going to actually have climate goals again.

Good! Now maybe someone can punish those damn volcanos for releasing so much ghg, and ash into the air!!

 

[Co BIY]

Popping the bubble is the real solution.

While there is some value in the block-chain concept and some value in e-currency it is nowhere near this crazy level.

 

[escksu]

Residents in USA, you have absolutely NO RIGHT to even talk about wasting power or emissions.....

Go read this:

https://www.nrdc.org/resources/home...-huge-amounts-electricity-when-not-active-use

You fuel guzzling vehicles? That even worse.....

https://ourworldindata.org/per-capita-co2

 

[USAFRet]

Residents in USA, you have

Lets not go into off topic into rants against other countries.

 

[InvalidError]

Residents in USA, you have absolutely NO RIGHT to even talk about wasting power or emissions.....

The USA/NA is far from having a monopoly on standby power draw. A similar study in Germany concluded that standby power accounts for about 10% of a typical household's utility bills despite having some of the highest electricity rates in the EU. That's the cost of practically everything having electronic power switches for convenience and integration with the rest of feature creep in modern appliances. For the manufacturers, it also means they can isolate the low-voltage HMI from everything else, making it easier to meet safety regulations. It also makes everything more vulnerable to power surges that won't be covered by the warranty for more frequent replacements.

 

[digitalgriffin]

Kind of inaccurate, there. That's more what the US was doing, not China. To be more specific, from an article in September 2020: https://www.powermag.com/china-promotes-climate-goal-and-builds-new-coal-plants/


The US?



China pulls a lot of crap, but stick to blaming them for what they're actually doing, and don't project the US's actions on to China.


Thankfully, the 2020 election results mean we're going to actually have climate goals again.

You do realize most of those panels you speak of are sold to the usa and europe because they have the market on rare earth metals needed for panels. So it's easier and cheaper for them to make them than anywhere. And why American backed startups like solara failed to gain ground. But china also has very laxed environmental regulations when it comes to mining. Farming also has very lax regulations. If you see what happens at shrimp farms you would never eat at red lobster again.

If you look at carbon footprint, china by far exceeds any western nation. And their growth rate in carbon footprint is the highest because their need for power is growing at a faster rate per capita than the rest of the world. China is moving from agriculture to fully industrialized. Add to this the sheer size of their population they're the worst offenders.

Although india isnt far behind. They aren't as industrialized. One of the main sources of dirty air emissions in india is bikes and dung stoves. (That's right poop stoves. Poop burns)

 

[Why_Me]

Kind of inaccurate, there. That's more what the US was doing, not China. To be more specific, from an article in September 2020: https://www.powermag.com/china-promotes-climate-goal-and-builds-new-coal-plants/


The US?



China pulls a lot of crap, but stick to blaming them for what they're actually doing, and don't project the US's actions on to China.


Thankfully, the 2020 election results mean we're going to actually have climate goals again.

Climate goals? lolz

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapie...in-reducing-carbon-emissions/?sh=7ddfc17a3535
The U.S. Leads All Countries In Reducing Carbon Emissions

https://www.breitbart.com/national-...er-in-2020-as-the-rest-of-the-world-combined/
China Built Three Times as Much Coal Power in 2020 as the Rest of the World Combined

https://www.mining.com/chinese-companies-build-700-coal-plants-outside-china/
Chinese companies to build 700 coal plants in and outside China

 

[brian532]

I'm sure this plant is dumping tons of heat and e-waste too. The overall environmental impact goes way beyond CO2. Even dirty power plants contribute electricity to the grid, but this place just sucks up and wastes power. International leaders should have dealt with the cryptocurrency plague by now. Facilities like this mining operation shouldn't be allowed to exist.

Lets not stop there. I think air conditioners are a waste. I have been to Florida and Texas and never wanted to turn one on so lets get rid of those energy wasters. Hair driers, pool heaters, car washes too. No one really needs those things. Let the environment dry everyone's hair. The biggest eco disaster are phone books and disposable diapers. Phone books went out on their own but lets get rid of all diapers, if you really want to make a difference. I have no idea how all these cpu cycles run the bit coin world but if I want to run a server and am told I can't then we need to look at everything.

 

[King_V]

Good! Now maybe someone can punish those damn volcanos for releasing so much ghg, and ash into the air!!

THOSE VOLCANOES KNOW WHAT THEY DID!!!