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Satellites reveal heat leaking from largest US cryptocurrency mining center

159

"leaking" is the wrong word here - it implies some sort of inefficiency, process which is not working as well as it needs to. Leaky bucket, leaky faucet...

That's not the case here, that center is __dumping__ heat into environment - it is by design, all that electricity is being converted into the heat. By design, it's enormous electric heater.

3 days agoby theamk

So I don't have any context for this. The article says it uses as much power as 300,000 homes. Is that a little? Is that a lot? How much does one steel foundry use?

Edit: One steel foundry uses about 3,000 more than that, according to my napkin math

3 days agoby andai

Climate pollution on this scale should be rated a crime against humanity.

2 days agoby tempodox

This life is needlessly absurd.

Why does this even exist?

And yes, I get what mining is and I get what the blockchain does. I’m saying that proof of work is absurd.

2 days agoby e-dant

I always wondered if anybody has calculated how much of our global heating could be attributed, if any at all, to every electronic device, server, and engine outputting heat as a byproduct.

2 days agoby kanemcgrath

The article mentions Riot Platforms, but the image seems to show Bitdeer Technologies

They're pretty much adjacent, but the orientation of the buildings is different:

https://www.google.com/maps/place//@30.5678809,-97.0740152,2...

2 days agoby arprocter

Wow. Is there still enough money to be made in crypto to justify this kind of investment?

2 days agoby vondur

Can infrared energy be reflected like light? What would a good reflector be? (THEORETICALLY) Would a parabolic dish over this facility be able to focus the heat to a single point and, if so, what would the temp be? Is it additive? Like X joules of Y degrees over Z square meters focused down to 1 Sq cm?

2 days agoby mnemotronic

Some days I just can’t get over how we’re just the dumbest ##^*ing species to ever visit space.

Oh let’s look at what the humans are up to with their climate change problem. Oh wow they’ve got giant data centers at work on the problem. I guess maybe it’s worth the extra heat. Let’s see what they’re calculati— nope they’re just collecting and trading numbers.

2 days agoby Waterluvian

funny how somehow similar this image looks to that of a pc motherboard.

2 days agoby inatreecrown2

Technically any kind of datacenters, not just crypto, produces heat. Clouds, AI, banaking segment, etc.

2 days agoby t0bia_s

I learned about turning energy into useful work and having heat as a byproduct, but never thought about turning it into useless work

2 days agoby anArbitraryOne

> Satellites reveal heat leaking from largest US cryptocurrency mining center

That's how they call Area 51 now ?

2 days agoby hulitu

New business idea: can they mine crypto in my kitchen, it's an old house and the heating is uneven. Also there are whole countries that run on central heating where hot water is pumped from a central power plant like facility to houses and apartments. Probably inefficient, but something they could do.

2 days agoby sershe