News Historic Power Plant Decides Mining Bitcoin Is More Profitable Than Selling Electricity

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I find those still thinking that crypto has no future as naive as those still considering China as a non-factor.

Both are only going to get bigger and bigger. Although they are not necessarily related or mirror the same growth rate.

I'm not particularly a fan of them, but at the same time I'm not wearing horse blinders either.
 
Yuka said:
Interesting. Care to elaborate?
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The headline implies the plant stopped selling electricity in favor of mining. In actuality, they're only experimenting with mining, while still operating and selling power to the grid as normal. Just compare the quote in the article with the headline:

Article Text said:
He also said the plant "can actually make more money with bitcoin than selling the electricity to National Grid,"

"We’re just doing it on the side, experimenting with it. We're buying used servers."
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Article Headline said:
Historic Power Plant Decides Mining Bitcoin Is More Profitable Than Selling Electricity
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See the difference?
 
On one hand, it's not a bad thing for renewable power facilities with idle excess to use the excess power on controlled mining, helps pay for themselves and maintenance (if the execs are forward-thinking enough). It also results in a limit as to how far they can expand the mining operation, being as it'd be dependent on spare power being available and average seasonal effects (an issue more for wind and solar, but drought can affect hydroelectric).

On the other, it seems like a waste, considering they could also be putting that same energy reserves into battery storage systems for the rare freak storm, or long-term energy contracts with local charging stations or hydrogen production stations (both would sell too, just not as instantly as mined coin) guaranteeing power (or fuel) even in brownout scenarios.

Maybe a combination of the two could be agreeable? Spare excess electricity to mining to build up some cash reserves for operational and maintenance costs, and also to emergency reserve systems such as battery power plants or dedicated charging facilities.
 
TechLurker said:
On one hand, it's not a bad thing for renewable power facilities with idle excess to use the excess power on controlled mining, helps pay for themselves and maintenance (if the execs are forward-thinking enough). It also results in a limit as to how far they can expand the mining operation, being as it'd be dependent on spare power being available and average seasonal effects (an issue more for wind and solar, but drought can affect hydroelectric).

On the other, it seems like a waste, considering they could also be putting that same energy reserves into battery storage systems for the rare freak storm, or long-term energy contracts with local charging stations or hydrogen production stations (both would sell too, just not as instantly as mined coin) guaranteeing power (or fuel) even in brownout scenarios.

Maybe a combination of the two could be agreeable? Spare excess electricity to mining to build up some cash reserves for operational and maintenance costs, and also to emergency reserve systems such as battery power plants or dedicated charging facilities.
Click to expand...

All that renewable energy could be used on a house or factory that now has to use carbon.

Also most plants implement maintenance during low power periods because it allows them to take things off line.
 
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digitalgriffin said:
All that renewable energy could be used on a house or factory that now has to use carbon.

Also most plants implement maintenance during low power periods because it allows them to take things off line.
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Lol....you forgotten about their gas guzzling vehicles... Anyway is a joke that USA is even talking about environment. USA is the worst offender when it comes to carbon.
 
mogster said:
I'm surprised this didn't happen in Texas.
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I'm not sure at this point if Texas' power grid could handle industrial level mining.
We've seen it can't handle cold or heat ... or modernization, constructive criticism, future planning, redundancy in case of emergency, etc.
 
daworstplaya said:
What a waste of energy, what's even crazier is people BELIEVE crypto currency has value. 🙄
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Are you sure about that? Let's see you go back in time and buy just a few bitcoins for pocket change. And cash out today? You'd be singing a different tune, pal.
 
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escksu said:
I guess you don't even know that most of US companies set up their factories in China. and USA fuel guzzling vehicles waste more fuel than all other countries on this planet.... USA is really a plague to the world.
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Errr no, China is the world's biggest polluter, bar none. Go look it up.
 
Bitcoin's value is based on speculation and nothing else.

I've worked briefly in power distribution. There I learned that supply and demand needs to be balanced to keep the voltage and frequency steady. Demand varies throughout the day, and throughout the year, but it takes time, sometimes days, to start and stop a power station to meet changing demand.
Cryptocurrency mining has been proposed as a way to help balance the power grid ... but that would still be a stop-gap solution compared to storing power, which would be much more efficient.

Hydroelectric power stations start and stop faster than many other types of power stations, so doing this locally in such a power plant would not really accomplish much.
 
barryv88 said:
Are you sure about that? Let's see you go back in time and buy just a few bitcoins for pocket change. And cash out today? You'd be singing a different tune, pal.
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Yes, if he changed out his digital funny-money to actual US currency he'd be doing great. Bitcoin have no inherent value. They're nothing. They're not backed by anything. You can also spend a million dollars on a rare comic book - but it's still just a useless comic book.
 
AtrociKitty said:
The headline implies the plant stopped selling electricity in favor of mining. In actuality, they're only experimenting with mining, while still operating and selling power to the grid as normal. Just compare the quote in the article with the headline:



See the difference?
Click to expand...
And also, if you read the original article that Toms sources, it specifically states there was bad blood between the plant and the National Grid: “National Grid called me up the next day and said, we’re not going to honor this contract. And if you don’t like it, take it to the judge,”
 
jkflipflop98 said:
Yes, if he changed out his digital funny-money to actual US currency he'd be doing great. Bitcoin have no inherent value. They're nothing. They're not backed by anything. You can also spend a million dollars on a rare comic book - but it's still just a useless comic book.
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"No inherent value". Total BS from a noob that knows very little. First learn the word "decentralization" and what it means. And why it makes BTC the No1 most valuable asset in the world, bar none. Then you can attempt an argument.
 
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