SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
On Wednesday, the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) ruled that municipal power companies could charge higher electricity rates to cryptocurrency miners who try to benefit from the state's abundance of cheap hydroelectric power.
Over the years, Bitcoin's soaring price has drawn entrepreneurs to mining. Bitcoin mining enterprises have become massive endeavors, consuming megawatts of power on some grids. To minimize the cost of that considerable power draw, mining companies have tried to site their operations in towns with cheap electricity, both in the US and around the world. In the US, regions with the cheapest energy tend to be small towns with hydroelectric power. (Politico recently wrote extensively about the Bitcoin mining boom in Washington state's mid-Columbia valley, a hotspot for cheap hydro.)
But mining booms in small US towns are not always met with approval. A group of 36 municipal power authorities in northern and western New York petitioned the PSC for permission to raise electricity rates for cryptocurrency miners because their excessive power use has been taxing very small local grids and causing rates to rise for other customers.
[...] Ultimately, the PSC decided that municipal power authorities will be allowed to increase rates for customers whose maximum demand exceeds 300kW or whose load density "exceeds 250kWh per square foot per year."
Singling out a power-hungry industry for rate increases isn't without precedent. In Boulder County, Colorado, for example, marijuana growers are charged an extra $0.0216 per kWh because they use so much power to run grow lights, ventilation systems, and air conditioners for their plants.
Source: Ars Technica
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday March 21 2018, @11:26AM (10 children)
So they lacked tiered pricing and that was a problem, so they implemented it and that is a problem? Make up your mind! And back it up with something other than your bald opinion.
And tell me, what is your suggestion for tiered pricing that will work so much better?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 21 2018, @05:30PM (9 children)
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday March 21 2018, @06:37PM (8 children)
Except that it is. By pushing demand beyond what the cheap hydro can supply, the miners forced the local co-ops to resort to more expensive power from elsewhere.
That was clearly indicated in TFA.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 21 2018, @09:07PM (7 children)
I never said that utilities had to stick with a bad pricing model. What I've repeatedly opposed is ham-handed, punitive pricing merely because a subsidy got exploited in an unexpected way. This started off on the wrong foot and there's no indication that the utilities and regulator will stop meddling until the exploitation loophole goes away completely.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday March 21 2018, @11:32PM (6 children)
And closing the loophole is bad why?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @12:08AM (5 children)
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday March 22 2018, @12:34AM (4 children)
So you claim that a continuously variable rate based on overall demand, time of day, and season for everyone is LESS complicated than a simple power density surcharge where those who will have to pay it already know who they are?
You have an odd definition of complicated.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @01:06AM (3 children)
Yes. It's called a market for which pricing information already generates what you want to find out. And it doesn't come with the silly tragedy of commons problems associated with the artificially low prices of the current approach. Once again, keep in mind that the current "simple" power density surcharge is just a first move. Perhaps miners will move on, passing on that cheap electricity. In which case, this rule change becomes a permanent obstacle years or decades from now for a threat that has moved on. I think it more likely that they won't give up on the free money because of some silly rule. In which case, the infrastructure stress will still be present. At that point, it'll be more rules and perhaps more working around those rules.
So what is more complex? Doing it right the first time? Or creating permanent problems and obstructions decades from now because miners were a problem way back in 2018.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday March 22 2018, @03:26AM (2 children)
Wow. You ACTUALLY think that it's simpler that even if you know to the watt-hour how much power you will use, you can't tell what your bill will be? And that it's simpler to use a scheme that requires all new meters that not only measure the total power used in a time period, but record exactly when you use it?
The funny part is that your proposed "solution" doesn't even meet the objective of making the miners bear the entire extra cost of providing them such large amounts of power. Even funnier, you don't seem to understand that it's still the market at work. The miners are free to either pay the new price (presuming they remain profitable) and stay or move to where prices are more favorable to them. It's far closer to a market solution than other places that simply ban commercial bitcoin mining.
There is no magic market faery. Markets must be regulated and managed or things go to hell fairly quickly.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:43AM (1 child)
What extra cost? Let us keep in mind that a key part of the problem is that the utility was deliberately providing under cost power in the first place. Thus, the key party that should be bearing the cost of the scheme, the utility, is already bearing the cost of the scheme.
[...]
Yet it's a solved problem. Find out how they solved it, smart metering or whatever. And just do that.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:41PM
The extra cost of buying from the grid rather than relying solely on lower cost hydro for power. It's right there in TFA, they were NOT providing power below cost, they were just able to fulfill demand with lower cost local hydro. That has been pointed out several times, but you keep forgetting it because it provides a reasonable explanation for their current surcharge strategy and eviscerates your complaints.
They solved the problem by having surcharges for heavy power users that stress the local grid..