Re:Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity
by bialpio on Friday May 28, 2021 @11:15PM
(#27322754)
To summarize the part about efficiencies, by heating up your place with electricity instead of gas, the power plant needs to burn ~50% more gas (& so 50% more emissions) than you'd have to if you were to use your furnace. Intuitively, other fossil-fuel power plants will also cause larger emissions than you would locally (as they all start with burning stuff for heat & only then convert that to electricity with some losses, while you could stop there), but I haven't run the numbers. Thermodynamics is a b*tch.
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Re:Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity
by bluGill on Sunday May 30, 2021 @08:40PM
(#27338567)
Probably, though I live in an area where 50% of our electricity comes from the wind, so if the wind is blowing electric heat is far less CO2, while if the wind isn't blowing electric heat is far more.
Re:Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity
by bialpio on Monday May 31, 2021 @10:35AM
(#27344462)
In that case the problem becomes what other poster mentioned: it's a zero-sum game so you increasing your energy consumption takes green energy from someone else. Maybe if you mined only when you knew that the energy would be curtailed otherwise? Not sure how to know that though...