Bitcoin mining company buys Pennsylvania power plant to meet electricity needs

[mugeoncur]

If you want to make stuff up, I'd say I would keep the good families of PA safe by insisting their electricity plants are owned and operated by people with long track records of doing so safely.

If those sober, responsible, non-fly-by-night operators want to sell electricity to miners, that's between them and whatever regulatory bodies may exist.

I'd also add that when a new party appears offering to "clean up waste coal" or any similarly difficult civic matter at a price & terms that no more established & respectable operators can meet, I'd say that when a deal seems too good to be true, it often is.

The good families of PA are already safe using conventional power providers with no poisonous waste coal responsibilities. The bitcoin mining contracts relieve them of the additional expense disposing of the waste coal. How anyone could possibly imagine bitcoin miners cheating the rate payers in this business arrangement is beyond comprehension but is a great example of how bitcoin haytrehd interferes with reasoning ability.

 

[JamesBlond]

What a tremendous waste of resources.

I can't wait till the governments, one by one, make crypto illegal and stop this ridiculous waste. I don't care how they justify it. Whether they claim it's a ponzi scheme, money laundering, scam, etc. Just get it done before more money and resources are wasted.

The problem you have is why would Gov shut down something they setup.... if you think its not Gov you know nothing about the current world situation and live in a bubble

 

[Avro Arrow]

"According to Stronghold, who advertises their organization as an "environmentally beneficial and vertically integrated Bitcoin miner," the plant will burn Pennsylvania's waste coal to power on-site mining hardware located in shipping containers next to the plant."
The words "environmentally beneficial" should never be used to describe a coal-fired power plant. That's as dumb as Ford calling its turbo engines "eco-boost".

 

[Avro Arrow]

Of all the ways they could have used the potential of that plant, they pick the worst option possible.
Unbelievable.

Yeah and a coal-fired power plant doesn't have all that much potential to begin with. This is just another case of "profiting from pollution".

Consider it emblematic of the world's larger systemic problems that originate in the outdated and archaic leading economic system in the world. The only thing that matters is money. All else, including the destruction of the world's biosphere, be dammed, even if that means destroying the planet's ability to support life as we know it. Money reigns supreme above all else.

Yup, that's capitalism for ya. The more of a psycho/sociopath you are, the more you will be rewarded. I honestly can't believe people defend this crap.

Which means that it will, eventually, attract the attention of government regulators in all but the sh!thole countries.

Like the USA? The US government's idea of economic regulation is to turn a blind eye and stick their heads in the sand because that's what the lobbyists pay them for. Then, if popular opinion turns against it, the Republicans will do nothing while the Democrats will make some half-a$$ed attempt to make it look like they care and blame the Republicans for nothing getting done. That's how they manage to not do anything do everything in Washington unless it's something that a rich person wants. Only then do they get off of their collective posteriors.

Bitcoin Mining Council should reject the proposal.

As it will increase emission.

I'd be shocked if they gave a damn. They're capitalists after all and capitalists not giving a damn

Huh, have you ever taken a look at any online crypto community, especially private groups? They're havens of sociopaths and psychopaths.

Of course they are. Corporate boardrooms are also havens of psychopaths and sociopaths. These are the people who benefit the most from capitalism.
are the reason that we're in this environmental mess to begin with.

Get used to it, bitcoin despizers, bitcoin is good for the environment.

I'm not a despiser but NOTHING that uses electricity at that level is good for the environment. Hydro, Solar, Wind, Geo-Thermal and Tidal power is better for the environment than Coal, Oil or Gas but I wouldn't call it "good". As for nuclear, sooner or later, I guarantee you that there WILL be a radiation leak. Poor people will die and there will be no consequences for the people who got rich off of cutting corners on the radioactive waste containment. That's the American way.

Power generation should be owned by the people who use it and pay for the majority of the power usage.

Which is why the privatisation of power grids has NEVER been a good idea, as we saw in Texas.

Link? Interesting that some people will try to blame everything on a political party that had nothing to do with creating <your favorite issue to dislike here>

I wouldn't hold your breath. Even if you do get a link it'll probably be to something like "Info"Wars or the Inquirer.

The waste coal cleanup has to eventually be burned and paid for by somebody. Better to bill the world's bitcoin owners than the taxpayers of PA.

No, it's better not to have the waste coal in the first place. Coal hasn't been a necessity for well over 50 years.

I believe there's two kinds of people in this world: those that want to own a large crypto mining farm, and those that you would trust to run a large power plant.

Ain't that the truth!

So you would burden the struggling families of PA with extra electricity payments to clean up waste coal because you don't trust bitcoin miners. Thank God you have no say in the matter.

No, the rich families of PA who got rich from this plant being built should shoulder the burden. Of course, since Americans have this insane belief that the rich can do no wrong, this won't happen. It is what SHOULD happen however. Don't forget that the "struggling" families of PA elected the government who allowed this thing to exist in the first place so chalk it up to "state's rights". If they had elected the right people to begin with, they wouldn't be "struggling" as you put it but the American people are often their own worst enemy.

 

[scavengerspc]

The plant had no potential. Burning waste coal produces less power with more costs. Bitcoin mining was the only way to get rid of the environmentally dangerous waste coal without costs to the local rate payers.

The point I was trying to make is what they are doing with that power.

 

[mugeoncur]

The point I was trying to make is what they are doing with that power.

They are doing the same thing with the power they consume that the banks and payment providers do with the power they consume. They use it to secure customer financial data on a ledger and provide value transfers. Except the bitcoin system does it more efficiently because it eliminates millions of carbon spewing people in the middle.

 

[Jimster480]

The good families of PA are already safe using conventional power providers with no poisonous waste coal responsibilities. The bitcoin mining contracts relieve them of the additional expense disposing of the waste coal. How anyone could possibly imagine bitcoin miners cheating the rate payers in this business arrangement is beyond comprehension but is a great example of how bitcoin haytrehd interferes with reasoning ability.

SO true, "gamers" are just rabid bitcoin hat3rz at this point in time. They literally cannot say anything good about anything related to bitcoin no matter how much it helps them. These people are doomed to slavery and tyranny.

 

[wiyosaya]

They are doing the same thing with the power they consume that the banks and payment providers do with the power they consume. They use it to secure customer financial data on a ledger and provide value transfers. Except the bitcoin system does it more efficiently because it eliminates millions of carbon spewing people in the middle.

All fine and dandy in a fantasy world, however, in the real world, they are not doing it for the banks. If they were doing it for the banks, there would be savings. As I see it, at this point, they are doing it, for the most part, for frivolous transactions which adds to the carbon spewing rather than subtracting from the carbon spewing.

So far in the real world, there is no guarantee that it will ever be done in a fashion that actually eliminates carbon spewing rather than adding to carbon spewing.

 

[wiyosaya]

SO true, "gamers" are just rabid bitcoin hat3rz at this point in time. They literally cannot say anything good about anything related to bitcoin no matter how much it helps them. These people are doomed to slavery and tyranny.

When the Bitcoin lovers actually start contributing to the betterment of the environment, rather than the detriment of the environment, (you know, we need the environment to be able to sustain all of humanity) then the high road is yours.

That has not happened yet. As I see it, you have no high road to take, and more likely that kind of person is the one that is doomed to slavery and tyranny, if not death.

 

[mugeoncur]

I'm afraid 1700kWh is the real amount here... it's just appalling...

1700kWh is a gross mis-statement of what's going on.

When the Bitcoin lovers actually start contributing to the betterment of the environment, rather than the detriment of the environment, (you know, we need the environment to be able to sustain all of humanity) then the high road is yours.

That has not happened yet. As I see it, you have no high road to take, and more likely that kind of person is the one that is doomed to slavery and tyranny, if not death.

Everything you know about bitcoin is wrong. Mining contributed 0.4% of the world's carbon footprint last year. 0.3% the year before, 0.2% the year before that and so on. So bitcoin's contribution to total carbon tonnage in the atmosphere after 100 years fossil fuel powered civilization is a miniscule 0.001% or barely measurable and having no effect at all on global temperatures.

Your idea that all bitcoin value transactions are frivolous is a product of the mainstream media failing to report on business use cases of bitcoin like for instance Microsoft using the bitcoin chain to trust anchor its ION decentralized ID management system. Or MIT using the bitcoin chain to authenticate its decentralized degree credential and transcript data. So bitcoin is functioning like the certificate authorities that websites use to authenticate web addresses.

Your knowledge of bitcoin is very superficial but it is also irrelevant since no court will ever allow the government to over-regulate a system that would put at risk so much personal data of millions of private citizens.

 

[StrikerRocket]

1700kWh is a gross mis-statement of what's going on.

Everything you know about bitcoin is wrong. Mining contributed 0.4% of the world's carbon footprint last year. 0.3% the year before, 0.2% the year before that and so on. So bitcoin's contribution to total carbon tonnage in the atmosphere after 100 years fossil fuel powered civilization is a miniscule 0.001% or barely measurable and having no effect at all on global temperatures.

Your idea that all bitcoin value transactions are frivolous is a product of the mainstream media failing to report on business use cases of bitcoin like for instance Microsoft using the bitcoin chain to trust anchor its ION decentralized ID management system. Or MIT using the bitcoin chain to authenticate its decentralized degree credential and transcript data. So bitcoin is functioning like the certificate authorities that websites use to authenticate web addresses.

Your knowledge of bitcoin is very superficial but it is also irrelevant since no court will ever allow the government to over-regulate a system that would put at risk so much personal data of millions of private citizens.

Yes, I'm aware of the authentication uses of blockchain algorythms, as for power consumption is there any reliable source of information on this? I don't know, but if you look at it, it *seems* to be a lot just to authenticate transactions, IDs or credentials. The TPM approach looks more efficient to me. Why not imagine hardware IDs that are impossible to counterfeit and that would be used to secure all transactions and all? I'm just trying to think here...