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Access to cheap electricity can make or break a cryptocurrency mining operation, and firms angling to strike it rich in an industry where delays can and will cost digital money will do just about anything to get it, as soon as they can.
The latest move in the quest for bargain-basement kilowatt hours, as quickly as possible: building out local power grids with bespoke electrical substations.
Canadian company DMG Blockchain is building what it hopes will be a fully-functioning substation near the Southern British Columbia town of Castlegar, which is electrified by hydro power. When I spoke to Steven Eliscu, who leads corporate development for DMG, over the phone, he told me that building the substation costs millions of dollars and required the company to build its own access road to haul equipment to the site. The goal: to plug it into the local grid and have it power DMG's expanded mining operations by September.
"At the end of August we'll go through a commissioning process where the utility will test everything as a completed substation and make sure that the town doesn't blow up when we flip the switch," Eliscu told me over the phone.
Source: MotherBoard
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 04 2018, @02:43PM (3 children)
You could look at catastrophes past.
Now, we need to understand that the fool who allows it to be known that he has tons of precious metals will soon be dead, and that the populace will divvy up the spoils. Judiciously guarded precious metals, secretly hoarded, and brought out in small amounts at opportune times is always respected. The fall of the Ottoman, the fall of the Iranian democracy, the French Revolution - pick any catastrophic event in human history. People who have access to precious metals before and during the catastrophe generally find the means to survive the event.
The legal currency may become worthless, but people who refuse that currency will often accept a few bits of silver, because it can be traded again in the future.
Expendable and consumable items, such as your laundry soap, can't be counted on, because it decays relatively rapidly. Not to mention, you might use some of it up yourself, and thus be unable to trade it again.
Human nature isn't going to change drastically in the future. If you can survive a catastrophe with some gold in hand, you are well set going forward.
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Saturday August 04 2018, @04:12PM (2 children)
I feel exactly the same way about my generator every time I break it out and run my house off it for a day to validate my emergency operating procedures and capabilities. I'm not going around saying "hey I got a generator right here come steal it!!!" but the g'damn generator is because it's loud and at night I'm the only one with lights on in the city if no one else has power. I'm not really sure what to do about that except keeping an armed sentry on it but then I can't do anything else if I have to be a sentry. That is going to be a serious challenge in a real nasty situation.
I was pondering this in my head and my conclusion was that it seems to be best at leaving someone in a strong position at the end of the mess - that does itself have a lot of value since being on top during recovery can be extremely lucrative and can start entire empires at the scale of nations or persons.
Being in a strong position at the end of the mess might itself be the saving grace - it is what allows a relatively valueless material to maintain value and continue to be currency.
Seems like that is still quite precarious though but it is hard to argue with history. I guess this kind of problem really depends on how long is it going to be bad. I'm not really well versed enough with economic collapses to know how that all plays out.
I do agree humans don't change very much if at all.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 04 2018, @05:24PM (1 child)
Noisy generator - I guess you don't have a basement? Basements are ideal. Park that noisy bad boy out of the way, remove the muffler, and buy enough pipe to run the exhaust up to the roof. At that end of the pipe, put a nice Harley-Davidson muffler. All the mechanical sounds of the generator are absorbed by the basement walls and the earth, while the muffler deadens that exhaust.
Or, you can dig a nice tornado shelter, and do the same thing.
A shed will help, but it won't be surrounded by nice sound deadening earth.
I can't help with being the only lighted house in the neighborhood, unless you want to invest in some stylish shutters. https://securitydirectuk.com/roller-shutters/commercial/solid-commercial [securitydirectuk.com] You'll be ready for the zombie apocalypse with those.
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Saturday August 04 2018, @05:38PM
Actually I just got a new Honda inverter generator with a dynamic RPM and it can be pretty quiet depending on load. When I had the generator powering only my ham radio room with a load of a few hundred watts I was able to talk to people with a radio while standing right next to it and they couldn't even hear it run over the microphone. If I put a 1.5kw oil heater on it and throw the switch it gets to be about as loud as my previous non-inverter static RPM unit.
I had considered doing an install in the basement but opted not to run an ICE indoors after I looked up what it takes when that is done industrially or commercially. I don't have anywhere near the venting in the basement that a professional install does and that seems like bare minimum due diligence. The idea of a leaking or broken exhaust system really concerns me especially for the specific use case of emergency operation.
That is specifically because there will wind up being a significant difference in operation during testing and during actual usage: runtime. While something like piping the exhaust out might work ok during testing when game time comes around and many times more hours are put on the system that won't actually have been tested. If there is a partial poisoning event during the emergency that will only make things much worse to deal with. I also looked and there is no commercial solution for home installs in a basement I could find. Seems pretty risky.
I did consider putting the generator in a dog house with something like pink wall insulation lining the inside - that lets it be outdoors, deaden some or all of the sound, and protect it from the environment such as rain. I had rejected it as not offering much increased security over chaining it to my hand rail outside but stealth does have benefit now doesn't it.
I think I'll re-evaluate the doghouse idea. Thanks!
Those shutters are awesome. I have blackout curtains but it is still pretty easy for little cracks of light to make it out and they stick out like a sore thumb at night.
Kind of reminds me of watching M*A*S*H when they need to go blackout.