[Cryptography] Yet another way to create Blockchain misery

John Levine johnl at iecc.com
Wed Jan 5 20:48:11 EST 2022


It appears that Phillip Hallam-Baker <phill at hallambaker.com> said:
>When we were building data centers for VeriSign, the size of our facility
>was usually limited by the available power. 15GW is 14,000,000 Amps at
>110V. That is a lot of 600A three phase hook ups.

Yeah.

About 25 miles northwest of where I live, a former coal fired power
plant in Dresden on Seneca Lake was rebuilt to use natural gas which
is arguably* OK, but most of the power is used for cryptomining. Since
the miners are physically at the power plant, getting the power to
them is no problem. The lake is deep and cold and provides cooling but
nonetheless the neighbors are not happy:

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/some-locals-say-bitcoin-mining-operation-ruining-one-finger-lakes-n1272938

The former Milliken plant in Lansing, right across Cayuga Lake from
me, is also in the midst of deciding what to do next, but Lansing has
a lot of people who work at Cornell and Ithaca college and are more
sceptical of the putative benefits of repowering and cryptomining.

R's,
John

* - Burning methane produces less CO2 than burning coal, but gas
production and transmission are so leaky that gas has a much worse
climate effect than coal, and claims that it is a "transition" fuel
are bogus. Bob Howarth at Cornell has been working on this for a
decade:

http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/howarth/publications/Howarth_2014_ESE_methane_emissions.pdf


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