alt Hacker NewsThis was previously the location of an Alcoa aluminum smelter which used something around 1000+ MW. And that's why the crypto farm is there -- it already had sufficient electrical capacity to the site.
Folks should be happy since the crypto operation is using far less power and dumping less heat into the environment that the industrial operation that was previously there, but datacenters seem to be a trendy thing complain about at the moment so here we are.
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A cryptominer is a "datacenter" in the same way that a chop shop is an automotive parts supplier.
Yes, and I'm assuming the power plant that was providing electricity to the aluminum plant also wants to recover their investment.
It would be cool if all this residual heat could be concentrated to smelt aluminum!
I do get utility out of aluminium.
A mercury refining plant or uranium enrichment facility would also be worse neighbors, but that has nothing to do with the benefits and costs of the crypto farm.
How many people did the smelter employ vs how many people do the bitcoin miners employ?
The smelter was providing jobs that fed money into the local economy. I'm sure much less money is coming out of the mining operation.
Where is the upside here? An alu plant probably provided more jobs and produced something of actual utility. This is burning power for no benefit to society.
It's burning less power than before, but it's not producing anything of value.
The world cannot reasonbly run without alu, it got along better without crypto currencies.