Bitcoin Miners to Start Paying Higher Cost for Energy Use in Chelan County in July \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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Bitcoin Miners to Start Paying Higher Cost for Energy Use in Chelan County in July www.kpq.com/bitcoin-miners-to-start-paying-higher-cost-for-energy-use-in-chelan-county-in-july/

45 sats \ 7 comments \ @BTCMiner 9 Jun 2022 bitcoin

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21 sats \ 2 replies \ @nerd2ninja 9 Jun 2022

This is good for decentralization. Hear me out.

Bitcoin mining will, through market forces, push the mining difficulty as high as it can without paying more for electricity than value earned from mining.

A law that taxes miners more for energy, will result in smaller miners who can't be identified as miners (i.e. not larger companies) because they can't tell the difference between AC, water heaters, space heaters, christmas lights etc.

23 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryptocoin 9 Jun 2022

Except there are other areas like West Texas where the large commercial miners are welcome.

This doesn't decentralize mining, this essentially consolidates it into fewer and fewer remaining areas where the low cost electricity is still available. This is Chelan County's loss and West Texas' gain.

Now what they didn't mention was the cost per kWh. If the mining op was paying 0.035 per kWh and now they will pay 0.045, well that 4.5 cents per kWh is still competitive globally. So they could just eat it and keep on hashing.

But if I were looking where to put a mining op today, a jursidiction that does this would not make the cut even if it was cheaper simply because you can't know what they will do next.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @nerd2ninja 9 Jun 2022

You could see it that way too, but overall, what it doesn't mean, is that the hash rate will be down for long.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @andyleroy 9 Jun 2022

The idea that specific types of electricity usage are worse than others and can be taxed at a separate rate class is an absolutely terrible and overreaching precedent for government (and utilities) to adopt.

We cannot differentiate taxes on energy usage types - this type of 'morality' check on what types of consumption are okay vs others has no constitutional bearing. Chelan's power grid governance cannot claim precedent to what types of activities are allowed with their product.

If a new soda bottling plant comes into town, should we 'judge' the electrical consumption and morality of their operations? What about a server farm serving millions of tiktok videos or illicit web material? Do they get an extra tax burden for their operations?

I agree with the tiered system (residential/commercial/industrial) so that everyone has access to their first N KWh's of electricity, and we need to have some sort of dynamic pricing in place so that grid infrastructure can hold up.

But having Chelan PUD (or any specific energy governance) suggest that one businesses' usage of servers is better than another's and justify's a different tax rate is ludicrous.

(https://www.chelanpud.org/my-pud-services/rates-and-policies)

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @faithandcredit 10 Jun 2022

This is humiliating for the bitcoin miners. They are now forced to pay more for electricity than everyone else :D

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @BTCMiner OP 9 Jun 2022

County PUD Commissioners approved the move this week which will increase energy costs for Bitcoin mining by about 29 percent.

The businesses are being bumped up from the high-density load rate schedule to the newly created cryptocurrency rate schedule (also known as Rate 36), which Commissioner Garry Arseneault calls ground breaking.

“What we did as a commission, and what we did as a utility was industry leading, to create a new rate for this type of demand,” said Arseneault.

The bitcoin mining operations are being moved to a higher rate than all other customers because they consume much higher amounts of electricity.

Douglas County no longer allows any such new businesses to start up because bitcoin mining already consumes 25 percent of the county PUD’s available energy.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @BTCMiner OP 9 Jun 2022

Here's an article in Decrypt which has as some additional info:

For companies that have made substantial investments in their mining facilities, officials have approved transition plans to gradually increase energy rates over the next two years.

"We need to have some sort of transition. That's important for business," PUD Commissioner Ann Congdon told the Wenatchee World on Tuesday. "I understand how businesses need that in order to plan."

Under the new pricing plan, Salcido can keep his Chelan facility on the lower, high-density energy rate if he processes data instead of mining crypto. The data processing uses the same amount of power as crypto mining, he told the Wenatchee World.

"Do you really want to be in the business of regulating what kind of processing happens on servers in your territory," Salcido said.

Bitcoin Miners Will See 29% Rate Hike on Hydroelectric Power in Washington https://decrypt.co/102420/bitcoin-miners-will-see-29-rate-hike-hydroelectric-power-washington