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posted by janrinok on Saturday June 23 2018, @09:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the cost-of-making-money dept.

One of Canada's largest utilities is planning to make blockchain companies bid for access to electricity.

Hydro Quebec says it will set aside a 500MW block of power that will be reserved for companies that are "using cryptography as applied to blockchain technology." Access to that block will be subject to a bidding process and companies that want to operate their servers and miners will be required to make bids in order to get power.

The starting rate for the bids will be an increase of 1 cent per kilowatt hour above the current price.

The move is an effort by Hydro Quebec to get a handle on an explosion of blockchain related activity (read: cryptocoin mining) that has caused a power crunch in Quebec. The company said earlier this month that it needed to take emergency measures to limit consumption and that "demand exceeds Hydro-Québec’s short and medium-term capacity."

The process will not just be based on how much money companies are willing to spend. Hydro Quebec says it will also consider job implications in the bids, and companies that plan to hire people in Quebec and deliver higher paying jobs (calculated in payroll per MW) will get higher consideration.


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 24 2018, @02:03AM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 24 2018, @02:03AM (#697430) Journal

    Price and the ability to pay is not the sole allocation criteria. Especially when the utilities are government run.

    Vote buying also gets in the mix. My view is that technology will repeatedly find new ways to exploit the reckless creation of public goods and rent seeking. Most places don't have this problem with cryptocurrency mining, because they don't offer below market electricity. Similarly, most places don't have trouble with ride hailing services like Uber because their taxi services don't have sweet deals or Walmart because their stores don't enjoy rigid oligopolies.

  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday June 24 2018, @07:20AM (1 child)

    by frojack (1554) on Sunday June 24 2018, @07:20AM (#697478) Journal

    Man believes electrical energy generation is a rent seeking exercise. Wow.

    Maybe read up on the term?

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:25AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:25AM (#697486) Journal

      Man believes electrical energy generation is a rent seeking exercise.

      It's the other, reckless creation of public goods.