Monday, May 29, 2018

Read this post first.

One bitcoin transaction now uses as much energy as your house in a week -- Motherboard, November 1, 2017. Bitbcoin's surge in price has sent its electricity consumption soaring.

Bitcoin mining guzzles energy -- and its carbon footprint just keeps growing -- Wired, December 6, 2017. Bitcoin is slowing the effort to achieve a rapid transition away from fossil fuels. What’s more, this is just the beginning. Given its rapidly growing climate footprint, bitcoin is a malignant development, and it’s getting worse.

That's a legitimate story; a legitimate concern. Look at this, over at the Associated Press:

New gold rush: Energy demands soar in Iceland for bitcoins.

Iceland is expected to use more energy "mining" bitcoins and other virtual currencies this year than it uses to power its homes.

And it goes on.

Now this from The Seattle Times. Wow: 

Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ suck up electricity, stress power grids in Central Washington.

Bargain electric rates are attracting digital currency entrepreneurs, but three public utilities districts are reassessing how they deal with the surging demand, and whether they should even try to keep up. Residential customers, meanwhile, worry that their rates will go up. Public hearings for rural electric utilities are rarely sellout events. But the crowd that showed up in Wenatchee two weeks ago for a hearing about Bitcoin mining in Chelan County was so large that utility staff had to open a second room with a video feed for the overflow.

The turnout wasn’t surprising. Chelan County, along with neighboring Douglas and Grant counties, has been at the center of the U.S. Bitcoin boom since 2012, when the region’s ultracheap hydropower began attracting cryptocurrency “miners.”

The scale of some new requests is mind-boggling. Until recently, the largest mines in Chelan County used five megawatts or less. In the past six months, by contrast, miners have requested loads of 50 megawatts and, in several cases, 100 megawatts. By comparison, a fruit warehouse uses around 2.5 megawatts.

Read that again:

The scale of some new requests is mind-boggling. Until recently, the largest mines in Chelan County used five megawatts or less. In the past six months, by contrast, miners have requested loads of 50 megawatts and, in several cases, 100 megawatts. By comparison, a fruit warehouse uses around 2.5 megawatts.

I can't get my mind around megawatts, but let's put that in perspective. Assume I have been giving my daughter (when she was growing up) an allowance of  $2.50 / week, and had been doing that for years. And then all of a sudden, with no explanation I started giving her $100 / week.

Wow.

And the bitcoin industry has barely gotten started.

Now add two EVs to every household in America.

What's the first thing you think of?

Yup, coal.

LOL.

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Notes For The Granddaughters

This may be one of many family photos I post over the next few days. Not sure.

This photo was taken on Thursday, May 17, 2018. I last spoke to him on Facetime, Friday, May 18, 2018,  Dad turned 96 years old earlier this year.

He had been up and around on his walker -- ambulating by himself -- up until a few days before this photo was taken. Then, it was discovered he had a broken pelvis of some weeks' duration. It must have been a "hairline" fracture but his nurse thought maybe a wheelchair was the appropriate thing to do until the bone healed. Dad never complained about the "fracture."