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Australian Coal Plant to be Reactivated to Mine Cryptocurrency
Power Engineering Magazine ^ | April 11, 2018 | Editors of Power Engineering

Posted on 04/13/2018 8:38:47 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom

The Redbank Power Station in Australia was shut down in 2014, but it’s being reactivated for the sole purpose of providing power to cryptocurrency mining.

Local power company Hunter Energy agreed to reactivate the plant for the Australian tech company IOT Group and sell it power at wholesale prices for blockchain applications, CNET reported. Cryptocurrency such as bitcoin uses blockchain to secure transactions and mine new coins. However, cryptocurrency mining uses huge amounts of power, with current estimates indicated it uses as much power as the entire country of Singapore.

IOT plans to offer the power to other companies using blockchain applications.

The 151-MW plant is expected to resume operations in 2019.


TOPICS: Australia/New Zealand; Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: btc; coal; cryptocurrency; mining
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Too funny. "Mining" (fake mining) cryptocurrency requires (real) mining of coal!

The next-generation of currencies was supposed to be very "green," but they require huge amounts of energy and wind and solar aren't enough! You need highly reliable power to "mine" cryptocurrency and only conventional power sources cut the mustard.


1 posted on 04/13/2018 8:38:48 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

This is insanity..............................


2 posted on 04/13/2018 8:43:55 AM PDT by Red Badger (Remember all the great work Obama did for the black community?.............. Me neither.)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

3 posted on 04/13/2018 8:45:01 AM PDT by Red Badger (Remember all the great work Obama did for the black community?.............. Me neither.)
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To: Red Badger

I don’t get this.

Isn’t this akin to using real resources to hunt imaginary things?


4 posted on 04/13/2018 8:48:22 AM PDT by Bulwyf
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To: Bulwyf

No worse than the power\ink\parchment for FNR, no?

Considering most of the ‘$$$’ are simply 0’s/1’s in some electronic ledger...


5 posted on 04/13/2018 8:54:12 AM PDT by i_robot73 (One could not count the number of *solutions*, if only govt followed\enforced the Constitution.)
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To: Bulwyf

They are not ‘imaginary’ but non-physical, since you cannot hold a bitcoin in your hand..................


6 posted on 04/13/2018 8:55:18 AM PDT by Red Badger (Remember all the great work Obama did for the black community?.............. Me neither.)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

WTF?


7 posted on 04/13/2018 8:58:56 AM PDT by exPBRrat (.)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

For what it is worth, and, for a moment, taking this at face value, does this not begin to make an argument for some cryptocurrency taxation to cover infrastructure investment and costs to support the transactions?

The “holy grail” of currency exchange will be burdened with unfunded overhead as it becomes main stream?


8 posted on 04/13/2018 9:13:13 AM PDT by Tenacious 1
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To: i_robot73

I don’t invest in stock markets etc. I take hard tangible things like land, actual physical items.

I’ve never been a binary fan.


9 posted on 04/13/2018 9:29:48 AM PDT by Bulwyf
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Bottom line for us: If you didn’t mine for bitcoin years ago using a few home pc’s running continuously, when the bitcoins were low on the tree, it’s gonna cost you significantly to get in now to go after ever diminishing and higher up fruit.


10 posted on 04/13/2018 9:39:15 AM PDT by polymuser (Its terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged today. - Chesterton)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

I heard that there was a boxcar full of millions of dollars of bitcoins that was shoved off a ferry in Lake Michigan.

They are searching for it now with metal detectors. No luck so far.


11 posted on 04/13/2018 9:39:45 AM PDT by faucetman (Just the facts, ma'am, Just the facts)
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To: polymuser

The current scam is to sell stocks in companies who are making a play in bitcoin. Doesn’t matter if they never make money. When they come to seize the assets in bankruptcy for the mining operation, the primary investors will be sitting on there yachts laughing there asses off.


12 posted on 04/13/2018 9:54:22 AM PDT by MTsumi
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To: Bulwyf

In Bitcoin (actually cryptocurrency) mining provides a service. That service creates “blocks”. The blocks are used to house crypto-currency transactions. Think of them as containers. To prevent just anyone from creating a container, each currency has established what a container needs to look like. This is called proof of work or proof of stake.

Containers are important because container can be “locked” by using a cryptographic hash. A hash is a one way function that can not be reversed. This allows a hash to act like a validated signature. When transactions are put into a block and signed with a hash, any attempt to change the transaction log will be detected. Further since it is a distributed architecture, a hacker or forger would have to change all the blocks subsequent to the initial change as well. An act that is considered impossible. Thus, blocks are important.

Miners create blocks, but by design, it is not easy. It takes computer power to create a block and only the first person who creates the block gets paid for it. Getting paid for solving this mathematical puzzle is how miners get paid. X amount of coins per block solved/created. In essence, mining turns electricity into bitcoins or other crypto-currency. These can be exchanged for goods, services, products, commodities and money ONLY because there are people willing to make that exchange.


13 posted on 04/13/2018 10:35:32 AM PDT by taxcontrol (Stupid should hurt)
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To: taxcontrol

Thanks for explaining it.

This guy won’t be partaking, it seems to be too much of a smoke and mirrors show. Although, our current currency is too. That’s why a lot of us stock up on actual hard items we need.

Some person can have all the money in the world, but if they don’t have the food, water, and means to protect it, then the money means nothing.


14 posted on 04/13/2018 10:40:57 AM PDT by Bulwyf
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To: Tenacious 1

At first I thought it was preposterous that cryptocurrency could use much power - after all, what could a single transaction cost on your computer/phone and the back-end server. Then I learned every transaction is spread across MILLIONS of servers and the energy consumption is becoming very serious. This cost must somehow be built into the cost of the currency just the way the cost of printing paper currency and minting coins is built into those currencies (except those costs find their way back to us in our taxes).


15 posted on 04/13/2018 11:04:48 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: Red Badger

I remember a science fiction story set in a post-scarcity economy where currency/value was measured in calories for human labor, watts for energy.
Even when stuff was cheap, energy and physical labor when required had value.


16 posted on 04/13/2018 11:11:29 AM PDT by tbw2
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To: faucetman

Their looking in the wrong place. I heard it was shoved off a DD in the middle of the Pacific.


17 posted on 04/13/2018 11:49:42 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: taxcontrol

“In Bitcoin (actually cryptocurrency) mining provides a service.”

What service, and to whose benefit ?


18 posted on 04/13/2018 12:00:08 PM PDT by PLMerite ("They say that we were Cold Warriors. Yes, and a bloody good show, too." - Robert Conquest)
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To: PLMerite

The service provided is described in my prior post. It is the creation of containers that act to secure the history of transactions.


19 posted on 04/13/2018 1:41:12 PM PDT by taxcontrol (Stupid should hurt)
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To: taxcontrol

That sounded like a self-licking ice cream cone. Or should I say a self-licking Ponzi scheme.

But thanks for the explanation.


20 posted on 04/13/2018 3:40:47 PM PDT by PLMerite ("They say that we were Cold Warriors. Yes, and a bloody good show, too." - Robert Conquest)
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