Discussions

Some are environmentally friendly and others are not. There wont be any solar or windmills Manitoba power is cheap.  
 
https://winnipeg.citynews.ca/video/2018/09/09/manitobas-bitcoin-boom/  
 
Personally I use Mogo for bit coin

They will be paying for any electricity they use so I'm not sure why your concerned. If it was a electric vehicle charging station would you also be concerned with where the power was coming from?  
 
In other areas most people have no idea what these seacan miners are or realize they have even been installed. The impact to you will be zero.

not so much worried about power as I am noise pollution each container 2 for now, has approximately (4) 3'x3' fans that will run 24 hours 7 days a week right across from my house , I will have to live with the howl and hum of these fans and have been told forget about sitting outside or having a window open.

I don't care how "environmentally friendly" their power source is, they are still using power that could otherwise be used for other applications. Bitcoin mining wastes electricity, drives up the cost of computer peripherals (especially graphic cards), and serves no real world purpose other than to make already semi-wealthy entities wealthier. It also often causes an amount of noise pollution, so depending on that it may actually impact it's neighbours.  
 
Oh, and before someone attacks me for "not understanding" the technology... I've known about it since 2011, and I sold technology for over 16 years. I'm not in the dark.

Most of the noise at this type of setup is from the gas generators, which might not be being installed here. If you still have concerns, talk to the RM to see about noise and zoning regulations.

the lot that was sold is right beside a hydro station and the person who sold the land was a member of Riverdale counsel and worked for Manitoba hydro so not going for any help that way

The fans are generally loud. Loud enough to be very annoying unless significant noise abatement is part of the installation.  
 
Crypto mining, especially that of Bitcoin, is incredibly environmentally unfriendly. Further, saying that hydroelectric power is clean is ignoring a large part of the truth - that hydroelectric power significantly alters rivers and watersheds, and the reservoirs often created as part of hydroelectric generation are known to generate greenhouse gases. Also, transporting that electricity from where it is generated to where it is used generally requires extensive distribution networks that require significant amounts of land to be cleared. Yes, it's a "cleaner" form of electricity generation, but let's not pretend it's perfect.  
 
Crypto mining is a nearly complete waste of huge amounts of cheap, clean electricity that could potentially be used by other jurisdictions that do not have access to this cleaner source of power. Outside of the crypto itself, the only real outputs are noise, heat, and huge amounts of e-waste from all the crypto mining equipment that will ultimately end up in landfills.

Don't let that stop you, the RM will still have noise and zoning regulations regardless of who is on the council.

It was just recently on this discussion page tat they are moving into Birtle too . A few unhappy residents . Why don't they situate out in the country instead of near to someone's home ? Or better still don't do this at all , the only people that benefit is the guy that sells the land and the already wealthy .

It's my understanding both the Rivers and Birtle locations are zoned as business/industrial.  
 
If I have the location correct for Rivers, it's located across the rail yard from town and not far from a heavy equipment yard. I wonder if these fans are louder than grain dryers?  
 
I know of an out of province heavy construction company trying to establish roots in MB, but are having a hard time purchasing property for their business due to zoning issues. A lot of the properties they look at are zoned as agricultural, which opens another can of worms. Mind you, this is closer to Wpg where other things come into play.  
 
Edited by T-Bee, 2022-01-14 09:14:08

I get the environmental aspects, but if there's no gas generators going I don't think it's that bad. There are crypto mines in Brandon. No one complains, because they just blend in.  
 
Done right, you don't even know they're there.

I was under the impression that MB Hydro was looking into changing to variable rate electricity as a way to not have to expand infrastructure to meet new demands. This seems like an unnecessary use of electricity to me and I'd hate for it to contribute to a need to expand infrastructure or change to variable rate.

With a residential Hydro costs around 9.324¢/kWh and industrial power costs 7.277¢/kWh after the first 10000KWH or so... and given the specs of latest generation of ASIC mining chips the good news is that container will only be profitable for a year and a half at most.. after which time they'll have to upgrade all of the hardware inside of it, or run it at a loss vs electricity cost. Chances are they will shut it down then, The only way this doesn't happen is if BTC prices double or triple in that time frame.. Which is certainly a possibility but not a bet I'd make.  
 
Whomever bought those miners would be better off just buying and holding the Bitcoin, as by time that investment of hardware + shipping pays itself off, it will only really be profitable from a power consumption vs hashrate standpoint for a few months after that, if that.  
 
Assuming it's ASIC (custom chips) to mine BTC and not a GPU farm that can mine other algorithms of course.  
 
And chances are, the fans won't be any worse than an air conditioner at your neighbours or own house.. Ideally you don't run just straight fans into the enclosure but AC, and then filtered air in the winter.  
 
The power usage used to solve the proof of work algorithm BTC/Bitcoin uses is a power hog for sure, however it's a far less wasteful process than say a water desalination plant or some of the heavy electrical usages used in the KOCH plant for example.  
 
Still a damn silly investment though.. Those miners only ROI after multiple (7-10) months and then become obsolete, not even paying for their own power demands well within a 2 year time span. The hashrate of the network increases, diluting the effectiveness of those devices to print the BTC.  
 
If anyone knows whose brought that ASIC mining container in though, let me know. I'd like to get in touch with them and ensure they know what the hell they are getting themselves into.  
 
Source: Owned early generation of ASIC BTC mining hardware as well as GPU mining farms. Decided it wasn't worth it after hitting return on investment and spending too much time tuning machines.

Your right on a small scale but on an industrial scale your out to lunch.  
 
When you buy hundreds of rigs at once the price drops significantly, and,  
 
With a high voltage service Manitoba hydro only charges 4-5 cents /KWH which I would assume their doing if their setting up beside a hydro station.  
 
Even 5 year old S9s still profit at that rate  
 
I know you would love to think your smarter than the companies investing tens of millions into developments like this but I assure you they don’t need you to explain their business to them.

Have there been any updates on this project lately?  
When this thread was started on Jan 2 bitcoin was around $47k. With the current crash its now down to a little more than $18k. Was there a break-even cost in the public proposals as far as energy costs versus value of what's mined?