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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 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.