Question Has anyone stopped mining out of concern for others affected by the power outages?

[tajoh111]

Currently millions are without power and there has been atleast 30 deaths due to these power outages. People are burning personal items to stay warm and that has resulted in carbon monoxide and dioxide deaths.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-storm-texas-power-winter-1.5917588

Power is being diverted from other states and even Canada that can supply power to those states are are experiencing these power outages.

So has anyone stopped mining or taken a break from it out of concern for those effected?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Power is being diverted from other states and even Canada that can supply power to those states are are experiencing these power outages.

I think this thread qualified as P&N, personally, but I thought that Texas, had largely "isolated" their power grid (potentially in a bid for succession), and as well, did not upgrade/modernize/weather-proof the components of their isolated grid, even though the federal gov't told them to.

Entirely their problem, self-created, IMHO.

Edit: I should add, I'm heating my apt. WITH my miners, why should I turn off my heat, just because other people don't have heat? "Equal-suffering" is a Republican idea, IMHO. (Like going without health insurance personally, so that you can force other people not to be able to afford health insurance.)

 

[Kenmitch]

grabs popcorn....Waits for temperatures to rise!

 

[WhiteNoise]

I don't mine. But if I did I'd keeping mining. I'm not in Texas. I grew up in NE PA and at times had no heat in the winter due to being poor. My entire family survived no problem.

 

[JimKiler]

I think this thread qualified as P&N, personally, but I thought that Texas, had largely "isolated" their power grid (potentially in a bid for succession), and as well, did not upgrade/modernize/weather-proof the components of their isolated grid, even though the federal gov't told them to.

Entirely their problem, self-created, IMHO.

Edit: I should add, I'm heating my apt. WITH my miners, why should I turn off my heat, just because other people don't have heat? "Equal-suffering" is a Republican idea, IMHO. (Like going without health insurance personally, so that you can force other people not to be able to afford health insurance.)

Totally agree and Ted Cruz's comments about California's power problems last year being caused by leftist policy is hilarious now. What is Ted's response to his tweet last year? I am not sure but apparently he is too busy in Cancun to let us know.

What is not hilarious is all the suffering and deaths. So that is two strikes for Texas. The first being Enron causing CA blackouts for their profit twenty years ago.

 

[Leeea]

Power is being diverted from other states and even Canada that can supply power to those states are are experiencing these power outages.

The problem is Texas is on its own power grid, separate from the rest of us. There is no way for the state I am in, California, to send power in any meaningful amount to Texas.

Texas did that on purpose, to avoid federal regulation associated with preparing for cold weather events. Their choice, their consequences. Biden will do everything he can for them, which is only right and competent. There is no way for the rest of us to help them by reducing our consumption.


With the prices where they are now, I am mining and continue to mine with my old gaming graphics cards. If anything, I feel I am helping reduce the demand for mining cards ever so slightly, improving my chances of ever being able to buy that 3080/6800xt I want.

But what really needs to happen is for eth to switch away from the proof of pollution system. At least I live near a massive wind mill farm.


edit: If the federal government issues a suggestion for people outside of affected areas to reduce power I will certainly do so. However, as things stand I do not believe doing so would be of any benefit.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Currently millions are without power and there has been atleast 30 deaths due to these power outages. People are burning personal items to stay warm and that has resulted in carbon monoxide and dioxide deaths.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-storm-texas-power-winter-1.5917588

Power is being diverted from other states and even Canada that can supply power to those states are are experiencing these power outages.

So has anyone stopped mining or taken a break from it out of concern for those effected?

Why would anyone stop mining just because somewhere there was a poorly managed power grid that failed? You do know that happens every day around the world right? Just because it finally happened in a "1st World Country" and made the news doesn't change the fact that it happens every single day. If anything, this means that all the miners in that location are not mining, and you have a chance to get a higher return on your own mining since there is less competition.

Now that all said, if you can't feel the sarcasm in my above, you need to know how I feel about it. Personally I think all mining should stop, as all you are doing is wasting electricity creating an artificial resource that only has "value" because people think it has "value". Block-chain based coins are meaningless and valueless in so many different scenarios that it is pointless and just a drain on the overall economy. Think about it, sand has more actual value because sand is something physical, sand will still exist if the internet no longer exists, or the electricity fails. Sand can be used to make glass or concrete mix, or mortar, or fill bags to help prevent flooding, or stop bullets. What can a bitcoin do for you if you no longer have a computer or phone? How many other new coins will it take someone else simply "inventing" to flood the market that attempts to have an artificial scarcity when no such scarcity exists as every day a billion new types of coins can be created and put on the market? It is all pointless and only worth value until people realize it isn't worth value.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

My answer is simple

 

[Muadib]

Hell no! I don't live in Texas, and most of the state is on their own grid. They have no one to blame but themselves.

 

[chrisjames61]

TBH this is just a silly question. That being said I can see that it is well meaning. Every miner in the world could go offline and it would not help the problems in Texas.

 

[Leeea]

TBH this is just a silly question. That being said I can see that it is well meaning. Every miner in the world could go offline and it would not help the problems in Texas.

That is only partially true. It is true in the context you wrote it, but technically, it is false.

See:

Bitcoin Is an Incredibly Dirty Business

This is virtual money with a real carbon footprint.

www.bloomberg.com

Eliminating cryptocurrency mining would help reduce issues associated with climate change world wide, including Texas long term.

and:
Near term, with 20%** of Texas power being supplied by coal, eliminating all cryptocurrency mining inside the state of Texas would reduce the quantity of harmful pollution by said coal plants as less electricity would be needed. There are a number of large crypto mining facilities*** in Texas that consume large quantities of electrical power. Electrical power that is produced by poisoning* the local residents. Taking these facilities offline would immediately benefit public health in the state of Texas.

*https://www.google.com/search?q=coal+powerplant+poisoning
**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Texas#:~:text=In 2019, Texas had a,, and 0.1% other sources.
***https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-mining-farms-in-texas-offline-from-winter-storm

 

[psolord]

@OP

You sound like a romantic guy. Did you honestly believe that these Sméagols would stop mining in the thought of others? Do you know what kind of people we are talking about? The kind that already has lots of money and wants more more more!

 

[Hitman928]

I don't know about other states, but in my state we were asked to try and conserve power to help Texas. This is because a significant portion of our energy generation uses natural gas and part of (but certainly not all of) the problem in Texas was that so many buildings there use natural gas for heating as well as Texas using it for power generation that the demand for it was very large, so we were asked to limit power use (and natural gas use at homes where they have gas appliances) so as to be able to help Texas in their natural gas supply. Even though Texas' power grid is mostly independent, they use a shared natural gas pipeline so using less here helps keep their supply up.

 

[aleader]

Well, there's no way people are going to stop mining with prices so high just to help a place like Texas, that from my observations denies climate change exists and basically seems to want to secede from the US (very similar to the wingnuts in Alberta here in Canada). Actually, my province isn't much smarter

Private power companies always seem to run into these issues (California being another prime example with the brownouts and manipulation of the grids for profit). Utilities should not be privatized, period. I'll put money on them asking for a taxpayer handout to fix the grid anytime now (maybe they already have). How much taxpayer money has the federal govt in the US already given them?

Here we seem to be sending power your way, so it is obviously possible:

https://globalnews.ca/news/7645562/saskpower-energy-us-snow-storm/

We've gone through a month of -40-50C temperatures with extreme windchills and have had zero issues...as usual.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Question doesn't make any sense unless you're in Texas since Texas' garbage power grid was designed to not be able to connect to the two national grids.

 

[Hitman928]

Well, there's no way people are going to stop mining with prices so high just to help a place like Texas, that from my observations denies climate change exists and basically seems to want to secede from the US (very similar to the wingnuts in Alberta here in Canada). Actually, my province isn't much smarter

Private power companies always seem to run into these issues (California being another prime example with the brownouts and manipulation of the grids for profit). Utilities should not be privatized, period. I'll put money on them asking for a taxpayer handout to fix the grid anytime now (maybe they already have). How much taxpayer money has the federal govt in the US already given them?

Here we seem to be sending power your way, so it is obviously possible:

https://globalnews.ca/news/7645562/saskpower-energy-us-snow-storm/

We've gone through a month of -40-50C temperatures with extreme windchills and have had zero issues...as usual.

That link says southern part of the U.S., not Texas specifically. Despite all the headlines, other southern states have had issues as well with the record low temperatures, but being on the national grid, they've been able to overcome the issues more easily.

When bitcoin mining alone uses more power than many major countries, any climate change criticisms of Texas in this context seem pretty hollow.

 

[Fallen Kell]

I don't know about other states, but in my state we were asked to try and conserve power to help Texas. This is because a significant portion of our energy generation uses natural gas and part of (but certainly not all of) the problem in Texas was that so many buildings there use natural gas for heating as well as Texas using it for power generation that the demand for it was very large, so we were asked to limit power use (and natural gas use at homes where they have gas appliances) so as to be able to help Texas in their natural gas supply. Even though Texas' power grid is mostly independent, they use a shared natural gas pipeline so using less here helps keep their supply up.

Except what they didn't tell you is that the reason Texas is having issues with their natural gas and other generators isn't entirely the lack of fuel. The problem is the lack of winterization (sure they have some shortage of fuel because they didn't winterize the natural gas wells or pipelines to handle the once in a decade event). They have for the last 30+ years failed to provide proper maintenance for severe winter events even though they know they get hit once every few years with such a severe winter event, all to save money or just laziness/incompetence. This is the third time in 30 years that this has happened. The last two times had after-action reports which stated that it was a direct result of insufficient winterization and that they need to do more than they currently do in order to not risk disruption in the future. Yet, because these were not mandates, nothing was done. You don't see the northern plain states affected by a winter storm and a cold snap with their power and utilities, or the northeast. That is because they plan on having it. Texas's power plan was that they wouldn't see cold weather... Sorry, I shouldn't say all of Texas in that last statement. A few cities mandated proper winterization, such as El Paso, which after the 2011 winter event, they mandated that the new generators be able to operate with temperatures as cold as -10F. The result being that they didn't lose power production for those generators (they also are interconnected to the western national power grid, but their local generators didn't fail in the first place).

 

[aleader]

That link says southern part of the U.S., not Texas specifically. Despite all the headlines, other southern states have had issues as well with the record low temperatures, but being on the national grid, they've been able to overcome the issues more easily.

When bitcoin mining alone uses more power than many major countries, any climate change criticisms of Texas in this context seem pretty hollow.

Well, private companies have no real incentive to keep the grid up to emergency levels. The northern states have almost no population, so their demands are far less than a heavily populated place like Texas. One use for politicians (here at least where they can't legally be bought) is that they can at least be held to account for utility failures.

I'm definitely not ever going to defend mining. In 2021, we should know better than to waste so much power on such a generally pointless, profit-taking endeavor. Having sympathy however for a state/province/country that lives in such denial and just can't seem to be dragged into this century to fuel their selfish greed isn't going to happen. For pete's sake, Alberta is going to start open-pit mining coal in the Rockies to sell to Australia! Is it 1921 or 2021!?

 

[Hitman928]

Except what they didn't tell you is that the reason Texas is having issues with their natural gas and other generators isn't the lack of fuel. The problem is the lack of winterization. They have for the last 30+ years failed to provide proper maintenance for severe winter events even though they know they get hit once every few years with such a severe winter event, all to save money or just laziness/incompetence. This is the third time in 30 years that this has happened. The last two times had after-action reports which stated that it was a direct result of insufficient winterization and that they need to do more than they currently do in order to not risk disruption in the future. Yet, because these were not mandates, nothing was done. You don't see the northern plain states affected by a winter storm and a cold snap with their power and utilities, or the northeast. That is because they plan on having it. Texas's power plan was that they wouldn't see cold weather... Sorry, I shouldn't say all of Texas in that last statement. A few cities mandated proper winterization, such as El Paso, which after the 2011 winter event, they mandated that the new generators be able to operate with temperatures as cold as -10F. The result being that they didn't lose power production for those generators (they also are interconnected to the western national power grid, but their local generators didn't fail in the first place).

Lack of winterization of all generation sources was the biggest issue in Texas, but it wasn't the only one. Residential natural gas usage spiked with the colder weather and created a supply problem on top of the winterization problem.

 

[Mopetar]

I don't mine, but even if I did, I'm far too busy feigning concern for the peoples of an island nation that could disappear into the ocean sometime over the next 100 years to feign concern for some people who will mostly be a little uncomfortable for a week at most.

 

[Leeea]

When bitcoin mining alone uses more power than many major countries, any climate change criticisms of Texas in this context seem pretty hollow.

It really depends on where the power to do the mining comes from. If a person mining is on a green energy power plan, then it creates extra demand for green energy which in turn accelerates the transition to renewables.

However, perhaps the best solution to proof of work cryptocurrencies is to write your congress critter and ask him to ban them. Likely the best solution all around. Both to save the earth and fight crime.

 

[Mopetar]

However, perhaps the best solution to proof of work cryptocurrencies is to write your congress critter and ask him to ban them. Likely the best solution all around. Both to save the earth and fight crime.

I mean making it illegal stopped alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, meth, prostitution, human trafficking, domestic abuse, and all of the other bad things from happening so I see no reason why decrees from congressional representatives wouldn't be equally as effective in this case.

 

[Leeea]

I mean making it illegal stopped alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, meth, prostitution, human trafficking, domestic abuse, and all of the other bad things from happening so I see no reason why decrees from congressional representatives wouldn't be equally as effective in this case.

Actually, I think it would have a massive effect. Yes, it would still definitely go on. However, it would be under the table and the price would take a massive hit, decreasing interest.

When cryptocurrency exchanges were banned in China in 2018 it effectively destroyed the Chinese exchanges and triggered the Great Crypto Crash. While legal crypto mining is still allowed in China, this does show the effectiveness of legal action.


To put it bluntly, if both mining and crypto currency was banned in the US, how many people in this thread do you think would be involved in it? I know I would not be.

 

[Mopetar]

All it really does is drive exchanges underground, just like when alcohol was prohibited all of the manufacture and sales was picked up by organized crime. Since organized crime already deals in laundering actual money, they wouldn't have problems running an unofficial exchange.

It really doesn't matter what you make illegal because criminals will always find something to use as an exchange for drugs. At one point they were using Tide laundry detergent. Any government shakedown will create a temporary disruption, but ultimately the market evens out and goes back. If that weren't the case then the price of BitCoin should still be down from that 2018 ban, and yet it recovered and even surpassed the old highs.

 

[ozzy702]

With the amount of big money entering the space, the likelihood of this happening shrinks day after day. Uncle Sam wants to tax tax tax, not remove opportunities to tax and control.