How Bitcoin mining devastated this New York town:
When specialized ASICs optimized for crypto mining went on the market, a processor arms race began. Plattsburgh, in upstate New York, had some of the cheapest electricity rates in the country and crypto miners beat a path to their town to set up shop. In 2018 the town was receiving a major crypto mining application every week.
In January 2018, there was a cold snap. People turned up their heat and plugged in space heaters. The city quickly exceeded its quota of hydropower, forcing it to buy power elsewhere at much higher rates. McMahon says his Plattsburgh home's energy bill jumped by $30 to $40 a month. "People felt there was a problem but didn't know what to attribute it to," he says.
Once the town realized the energy burden of this new industry and the fact that it brought in very little in the way of jobs or tax revenue, they started regulating the industry by requiring funds up front, and they updated their building codes and noise ordinances. Mining farms now have little interest in their town and new applications have moved on to other locations.
From 2016 to 2018, crypto mining in upstate New York increased annual electric bills by about $165 million for small businesses and $79 million for individuals, a recent paper found. [...]
Economist Matteo Benetton, a coauthor of the paper and a professor at the Hass School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, says that crypto mining can depress local economies. In places with fixed electricity supplies, operations suck up grid capacity, potentially leading to supply shortages, rationing, and blackouts. Even in places with ample access to power, like upstate New York, mining can crowd out other potential industries that might have employed more people. "While there are private benefits, through the electricity market, there are social costs," Benetton says.
[...] . As long as mining is so profitable, Read warns, crypto bans just shift the harm to new locations. When China banned crypto mining in 2021 to achieve its carbon reduction goals, operations surged in places like Kazakhstan, where electricity comes primarily from coal. As a result, a recent study found, Bitcoin's use of renewable energy dropped by about half between 2020 and 2021, down to 25%.
Crypto's energy use is expected to be dumping an additional 32 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere per year by 2030, and everyone will pay the consequences for that regardless of where that CO2 is generated.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @03:33AM (1 child)
I can’t wait for this pyramid scheme to collapse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2022, @06:28PM
Yeah, but who knows when? The US Dollar has managed to survive without being backed by gold for nearly 100 years. Like all fiat currency pyramid schemes it will eventually collapse. Hopefully it will be in my day so my kids don't have to fight the roving gangs of statists who suddenly find their paper god is worthless...
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @04:17AM (1 child)
4 Men Gang-Raped, Killed and Ate a Protected Monitor Lizard
Forest officials in India are investigating four men who gang-raped, killed, cooked and ate a monitor lizard in one of India’s most protected forest reserves. It was the only monitor lizard in the park.
The incident took place on March 29 at the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve, in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. The forest’s camera traps, meant for tracking tigers, caught the accused men trespassing the reserve’s Chandoli National Park. Forest officials arrested the men between April 1 and 5, and found photos and videos on their phones of them gang-raping a monitor lizard, and then killing and eating it.
“I have never seen a crime like this before,” division forest officer Vishal Mali told VICE World News. “The men are in their 20s and 30s, and they appear to have done it for fun. There was no religious or black magic agenda.”
The men were identified as Sandeep Pawar, Mangesh Kamtekar, Akshay Kamtekar and Ramesh Ghag, all locals. They are charged under India’s Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972. A local court granted them bail last week.
India’s monitor lizards are endangered, and are a protected species by law. Violators may be punished with a seven-year jail term. A report by wildlife advocacy groups recorded 82 cases of sexual abuse against animals in India between 2010 and 2020. This was out of a total of 500,000 cases of animal-related crimes that include torture and killings.
Most recent cases of sexual abuse against animals include a man raping and killing a pregnant goat in southern India, and a 60-year-old man raping a female stray dog last year.
While the suspects are out on bail, Mali said the photos and videos of the incident have been sent to a forensic lab to build evidence for the case. Forest officials are also seeking legal advice on charging the accused under a law that criminalises unnatural sex between humans and animals. “Not only is this cruel, but there is a risk of zoonotic diseases from this kind of case. There are concerns of men carrying STDs and other infections from their act,” Mali said.
The Sahyadri Tiger Reserve, which is spread across over 1,166 square kilometres (116,600 hectares), is governed by the Indian government, and encompasses three national parks. The Chandoli National Park is spread across over 300 square kilometres (30,000 hectares) and has wildlife ranging from tigers and panthers, to reptiles such as monitor lizards and geckos. There is no official census of animals in the park, but Mali said it has 30 animals per square feet.
India’s monitor lizard population is steadily declining because of poaching. Eating monitor lizard meat is common across South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and Africa. Reports of the reptiles being hunted for their meat are common in India even though it’s illegal. In 2016, an Indian forest official was arrested after serving monitor lizard meat at a party. Monitor lizards are also hunted to make traditional medicine.
Mali said that manually surveilling over 1,000 square kilometres of reserve area is challenging for forest guards, but there are plans of deploying a new special protection force. “We will get a team of 100 people who will guard the premises more efficiently,” he said.
-====== https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjb9xq/india-gang-rape-monitor-lizard-animal-abuse [vice.com]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @02:14PM
This could be misinterpreted as racist garbage. Vice needs to do better. This is how to fix:
There, now it is progressive instead of racist.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Captival on Sunday April 24 2022, @05:17AM (18 children)
So a town is "devastated" when all the people who came for the get quick rich scheme left? Wouldn't they just be back to the way they were before?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @05:33AM (1 child)
No, all the bitcoins were strip mined out of the ground.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2022, @06:30PM
I saw a video of some guy lighting his tap water on fire due to the ASIC poisoning in their water supply.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @07:09AM (10 children)
The claim is that the electricity became a lot more expensive in this town. Hitting it's residents, industry and businesses with significant cost increases.
With the miners gone, one would expect prices to come down again, but greed may prevent that from happening as fast as the increase. Also some damage will already have been done that may not be easily reversable.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday April 24 2022, @12:06PM (9 children)
I believe greed is written out of the electric rates by legislation. TFS says "buying power elsewhere at much higher rates." That should be a very temporary price increase.
Damage? Residential (winter in Plattsburg where electricity is cheap and we would assume home heating of the example bill is electric) power bill increased by $30 to $40 per month, can't imagine that baseline wasn't $200 per month for the example, so a temporary 20% increase during peak usage times... if that's "devastating" in a "not easily reversable" way to anyone, they're living too close to the edge / should be seeking assistance anyway.
However, Bitcoin and all proof of work mining based cryptocurrencies are some of the most environmentally irresponsible forms of speculation anywhere in the world today. To invest in something with a proof of work basis is to say "all I care about is making money for myself, I don't care at all about the future of our environment."
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @01:56PM (1 child)
If you invest in oil, why not bitcoin? Whatabout my tiny, green bitcoin mine that runs off its own wind power and isn't connected to the gird?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday April 24 2022, @05:06PM
Oil is not great, not even close, but it's a non-renewable resource, its days are numbered - even if that number is still too big.
Investing in "energy companies [yahoo.com]" today is usually a mix of fossil fuels exploitation AND development of renewable sources of energy.
BTC is a pure speculative play, speculating that the value bubble will grow faster than the massive cost of energy required to drive the trading system.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 24 2022, @11:26PM (6 children)
Which isn't saying much since financial speculation isn't notable for its impact on the environment. My take on this is make sure your pension or other fund isn't trading in this crap and find a real problem to worry about.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 25 2022, @02:57AM (5 children)
There is no product or commodity in cryptocurrency beyond the financial speculation. Financial speculation drives most BTC trades, not actual transactions of value. Every transaction consumes significant quantities of energy (100-1000x what a similar electronic banking transaction might consume). In BTC, speculation does equal energy consumption.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 25 2022, @05:26AM (4 children)
My take is that Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies serve as very important experiments on the use of distributed technology for economic systems. The mostly frivolous complaints about them do not.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 25 2022, @10:04AM (3 children)
You should grow some appreciation for things beyond your immediate physical view.
You should also read "A Libertarian Walks Into A Bear". It's factual reporting, almost no mention of climate change or other global effects, just factual reporting of the local impacts in a small town from a bunch of people "staying out of each other's business" more than usual.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 25 2022, @01:20PM (2 children)
You in turn should understand that some of those non-immediate physical things are way over-hyped, such as the items on my list. It's awful hard to protect ourselves from imaginary dangers, unless we just ignore them (at least the parts that are imaginary).
Except that those libertarians didn't actually stay out of everyone's business, right? I've been aware of the drawbacks of hardcore libertarianism for a long time. It's not at issue here.
Reviewing this thread, I think we have another educational moment should you pay attention. This is just another hate on for cryptocurrency without regard for the alleged harm or the alleged cost. Basically, some New York town has a sweet deal with a neighboring power company as a common property - here, cheap electricity but only to a certain point. My bet is that it was probably something way back when to keep the locals from complaining about power facilities in the area.
Well, cryptominers came in and used it up (the "devastated" of the title that everyone is rolling their eyes about). My take is that the cat is out of the bag. This agreement won't continue to work without limiting how much cheap power is available to each. The overt manifestations like large buildings filled with mining hardware that made so much noise that the neighbors could hear it through the walls can be shut down and/or heavily regulated. The stealth installations in the back of your local restaurant or home garage can't be so easily controlled.
As to the evils of the mining, you mention speculation, energy waste, and environmental harm. My point remains that those are mostly imaginary and hyped ridiculously. Here, it's mostly renewable power being used up and upsetting some town's sweetheart deal with the local power company. There's no serious problem here. And in turn, it provides an intriguing snapshot into the state of the cryptocurrency industry - which turns out to be very flexible and very much in a rush. I'm willing to let the industry continue and see what comes of it as a very unusual experiment. Even if it ends in tears, I think we'll get far more value out of it than any harm it causes.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 25 2022, @02:41PM (1 child)
Sounds like additional over-hyping to me. Agreed: the story is undeserved crypto-hate mongering. However, crypto does deserve far more hate on-balance than it is currently getting.
There's nothing imaginary about a machine that:
1) consumes over 100 TW (over 0.5% of total global electric power production)
2) transfers large quantities of money among speculators, creating easy access to gambling in the homes and phones of anyone with internet access.
When talking about energy conservation, the primary question is: benefits vs usage. Normally, the cost of energy is a good proxy for benefit, but due to 2) the costs are distorted - people, particularly those vulnerable to impulsive financial risk taking (gambling), inflate the apparent value without actual benefits to themselves on whole. Some benefit, some benefit hugely, but the nature of the exchange is a close to zero-sum game minus the huge energy costs, which makes it a much less than zero-sum game when you cash-out all the players.
From your perspective. Your horizon of concern is selfishly short.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Monday April 25 2022, @03:12PM
I spoke of danger not a "machine". You have yet to mention a danger of cryptocurrency.
Wow, what a mangling of cost/benefit. First, you compare benefit to usage (that's benefit too right?). Then equate benefit with cost, while missing that the cost of electricity is usually much less than the benefit of electricity. That's why people use electricity in the first place.
And now we introduce a new imaginary danger, the lure of cryptocurrency to suck in all those compulsive gamblers. My take is that they would find some other gambling, if cryptocurrencies weren't there. Gamblers will gamble. Not much point to angsting over how or trying to force them to stop gambling.
You claim. I disagree. The big win here is a major test of a distributed financial system. And it does pretty well.
Prove I'm selfish here. I notice that you just make endless excuses whenever you run into something you don't like. I think that's selfishness right there. JoeMerchant doesn't like it, therefore here's all the bad things JoeMerchant just made up to confirm his dislike.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @07:11AM (2 children)
Many basement apartments became available for rent that day, and many, "Many Shubs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Sloar that day I can tell you." No community misses its incel Hikikomori when they have to move to lower priced electricity markets. Raises real estate prices, actually. And fewer dead cats.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @08:05AM (1 child)
Speaking of which, where is aristarchus these days? Haven't seen him post, lately.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @08:39PM
Friends please, let us heal the wounds within our community. Come together, we are all brothers and sisters that should look out for one another.
With love and compassion,
APK
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @12:43PM (1 child)
No, the town was devastated by an invasion of foreign investors settling on their land and using up all their local resources. Thankfully, the realized the problem quickly enough to drive out the invaders.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday April 25 2022, @03:21PM
And all it took was 400 years!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @12:03PM (5 children)
$40 a month is nothing for an electricity bill, especially if they're using it to run their heaters. They want to try paying for it in the UK. More like 5-10 times that and rising.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @12:16PM (4 children)
Oh. They mean by between 30 and 40, not by 30, to 40. It is badly written.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @02:36PM
Or you're bad at parsing written english. I had no problem understanding what was being conveyed.
(Score: 3, Informative) by owl on Sunday April 24 2022, @04:33PM (2 children)
Quoting from TFA:
Normally, the English phrase "jumped by X a month" means that this was the magnitude of the increase. So the bill was $100, and was now $130 (or $140).
But that phrase, in English, does not mean "my bill was $30/month, now it is $40/month".
Of course, this above has to be filtered through the knowledge that what the reporter wrote out as text of a quote is very well different from the exact words that McMahon stated to the reporter. But what was published means the bill increased by $30 to $40 above whatever was the normal base rate (i.e., base+30...40). Which means JoeMerchant is correct, if a +$30/month increase breaks one's budget, then one was living way too close to the edge to begin with.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pTamok on Monday April 25 2022, @10:32AM (1 child)
Actually, parsing that sentence, the home's energy bill jumped by $30. After the jump, the bill was $40 per month. Therefore, before the jump, the bill was $10 per month. So the bill quadrupled (was 4 times a much), or went up by 300%.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2022, @07:20PM
Thank you.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @12:11PM (2 children)
When can we get a report on the carbon footprint of banking groups?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @03:03PM
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/esg-threat [zerohedge.com]
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday April 25 2022, @03:24PM
I couldn't hear through the foam and spittle on the link above.
Here's something that will actually increase the intelligence of the reader: SEC Proposes Rules to Enhance and Standardize Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors [sec.gov]
Answer: Yes
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @06:59PM (2 children)
rly? MIT review and energy is "kw" and not "kwh"?
still amazed at the " workx" our for fathers (and mothers) created that is resilient enough to still not have collapsed after "bitcoin.economics" was plugged into it ...
the whole "corona" fiasco kindda opened my eyes. i don't think that humans are inherently evil. now it could be that "the great decline" starting early 90s is acctually due to some external force, chemical or biological or sumething for which we have no test yet.
maybe the "settlement" in oil wells? maybe only the top 10% of any oil well is "fit for human consumption" and the rest has "complex nasties" when reacted with oxygen and nitrogen?
i dunno, but the "decay of infrastructure" and "culture" sure is hasted by this "digital waste ledger" thingy. i hope you are happy.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday April 25 2022, @03:26PM (1 child)
Describing things in units that are more familiar to the reader?
It would require at least seventeen football fields to contain all my outrage over this!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday April 25 2022, @03:29PM
Don't even get me started on how many bowls of cereal I now need to eat!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @10:28PM
Should have been: Bitcoin miners temporarily inconvenienced a town in New York.
Devastation would have applied something along the lines of, at least, an artillery barrage. Possibly with incendiaries.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday April 25 2022, @01:26PM
Plattsburgh is on the main rail and interstate connection between Montreal and New York, and it's on the shores of Lake Champlain. It's not a metropolis but it's a fine tourist town. They will be alright returning to their status quo ante.
Being that close to a big, cold body of fresh water might make them a candidate for server farms that need constant cooling. If they planned it well they might even win twice by using the heated water to warm public buildings or something. I think Toronto did something like that.
Washington DC delenda est.