Crypto Mining Company Loses Bid To Force Canadian Utility Company To Provide Power (vancouversun.com) 88
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Vancouver Sun: A cryptocurrency firm has lost a bid to force B.C. Hydro to provide the vast amounts of power needed for its operations, in a court ruling that upholds the provincial government's right to pause power connections for new crypto miners. Conifex Timber Inc., a forestry firm that branched out into cryptocurrency "mining," had gone to the B.C. Supreme Court to have the policy declared invalid. But Justice Michael Tammen ruled Friday that the government's move in December 2022 to pause new connections for cryptocurrency mining for 18 months was reasonable and not unduly discriminatory.
B.C. Hydro CEO Christopher O'Riley had told the court in an affidavit that the data centers proposed by Conifex would have consumed 2.5 million megawatt-hours of electricity a year. That's enough to power and heat more than 570,000 apartments, according to data on the power provider's website. Energy Minister Josie Osborne said when the policy was introduced that cryptocurrency mining consumes "massive amounts of electricity" by running banks of high-powered computers around the clock, but adds "very few jobs" to the local economy. In a statement released Monday, the company said it's "disappointed" with the court's ruling and is considering an appeal. "Conifex continues to believe that the provincial government is missing out on several opportunities available to it to improve energy affordability, accelerate technological innovation, strengthen the reliability and resiliency of the power distribution grid in British Columbia, and achieve more inclusive economic growth," said Conifex in a statement.
B.C. Hydro CEO Christopher O'Riley had told the court in an affidavit that the data centers proposed by Conifex would have consumed 2.5 million megawatt-hours of electricity a year. That's enough to power and heat more than 570,000 apartments, according to data on the power provider's website. Energy Minister Josie Osborne said when the policy was introduced that cryptocurrency mining consumes "massive amounts of electricity" by running banks of high-powered computers around the clock, but adds "very few jobs" to the local economy. In a statement released Monday, the company said it's "disappointed" with the court's ruling and is considering an appeal. "Conifex continues to believe that the provincial government is missing out on several opportunities available to it to improve energy affordability, accelerate technological innovation, strengthen the reliability and resiliency of the power distribution grid in British Columbia, and achieve more inclusive economic growth," said Conifex in a statement.
Through taxpayer pockets. (Score:3)
Conifex continues to believe that the provincial government is missing out on several opportunities available to it to improve energy affordability, accelerate technological innovation, strengthen the reliability and resiliency of the power distribution grid in British Columbia...
I mean, forcing upgrades to infrastructure to support this venture would improve reliability for other customers as well, but who would pay for those upgrades? And basic supply/demand makes it hard for me to see how adding a new huge consumer of power will improve affordability to others.
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The power utility is a public good. No amount should make it worth their while if it puts the grid at risk.
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There is a dollar value that would make it a public good. Saying no instead of setting the right price is a massive failure of policy and management.
Re: Through taxpayer pockets. (Score:2)
Re: Through taxpayer pockets. (Score:2)
In this case, BC Hydro is a crown corporation, so is wholly owned by the provincial government. They are largely independent, but follow provincial regulations to the letter.
Personally, this is the correct decision. Crypto mining is a huge scam and the power could be put to better use.
If they want cheap power, they can setup in Ocean Falls, which has a huge stranded hydroelectric dam that canâ(TM)t connect to the provincial grid.
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Saying "no" outright is an absolute travesty. If something cannot be done properly for a certain dollar amount, you ask that company to pay more until it's a net benefit to tax payers and residential customers. Canada is so ridiculously anti-business that in another generation everyone will be living naked in the forest and eating mulberries.
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If they set specific rates per company, then sure. Set the price, set a timeline (build a hydro or nuclear or some other renewable plant? 10 years?), go. But isn't that a slippery slope? If they can set the price per customer, and it's ok to jack up the prices for this company... what prevents them from having lower prices for some
Re: Through taxpayer pockets. (Score:2)
Business is fine here. But we, as a society, have decided that running warehouses full of space heaters isnâ(TM)t a good use of our limited resources.
Re:Through taxpayer pockets. (Score:5, Insightful)
Conifex continues to believe that the provincial government is missing out on several opportunities available to it to improve energy affordability, accelerate technological innovation, strengthen the reliability and resiliency of the power distribution grid in British Columbia...
I mean, forcing upgrades to infrastructure to support this venture would improve reliability for other customers as well, but who would pay for those upgrades? And basic supply/demand makes it hard for me to see how adding a new huge consumer of power will improve affordability to others.
Many Canadian provinces, including mine, are predicting they will need to massively increase power generation over the next couple of decades. We have a national housing shortage and are advancing programs to build more, which will obviously require more power. We are encouraging people to drive EVs instead of gas cars, which will need more power. We are encouraging people to heat with heat pumps instead of gas, which will need more power. With a looming production deficit in BC and everywhere else, the last thing we need is crypto mining which adds nothing beneficial to society and will just make all those other goals harder.
Conifex should stick to timber. And what the fuck is a forestry company "branching out" to cryptocurrency anyway? Totally symbiotic industries there, will surely bring vertical integration and economies of scale LOL. Morons.
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> We are encouraging people to drive EVs instead of gas cars
Now hear me out...
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> We are encouraging people to drive EVs instead of gas cars
Now hear me out...
Other people, anyway.
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And what the fuck is a forestry company "branching out" to cryptocurrency anyway?
Good question. I'm still trying to figure out how a textile company [wikipedia.org] got into the insurance business.
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>We have a national housing shortage
So that's why the Canadian government is trying to ramp up immigration quotas to obscene levels...
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>We have a national housing shortage So that's why the Canadian government is trying to ramp up immigration quotas to obscene levels...
It's also why a change of government is likely next election, though even the morons in charge seem to be getting it now, albeit slowly.
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"i need to lose 20lbs, should i stop drinking soda or cut 20lbs of leg off?"
80% of foot amputations in the US are caused by complications from diabetes. Choice made.
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They wouldn't need to massively increase generation if they just built high quality houses and did a bit of basic demand shaping.
A house built to the Passivhaus standard requires a maximum of 4.5kWh per day for heating and cooling. With solar, even in the winter much of that can be generated locally, with plenty left over to run appliances.
Time-of-use pricing can easily reduce peak demands, and ensure that demand tracks availability.
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In the UK we mostly have central heating, and current heap pump tech works fine with that. It can get water up over 60C, so no need to even replace rads.
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Not the only company that does this, but it's clearly depending upon governments being naive and giving it lots of stuff way below cost. Most companies at least provide a thing rationale, like creating new jobs or new tax revenues, but in this case they really aren't coming up with any reasonably plausible benefit to the citizens or government. It won't increase energy affordability, won't increase jobs by any noticeable amount, etc. Most of their argument is just "if you do all these expensive things to
Re: Through taxpayer pockets. (Score:1)
If I need the wires to my house upgraded, I pay for that both directly through the cost of construction and through the cost of the fees the providers charge for bigger connections.
The problem here is that the government is involved, so sane business decisions go out the window as they need to backfill other bad decisions elsewhere.
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I honestly thought the SEC would step in to regulate the scams and the DOJ would crack down on the money laundering and that would be that.
But decades of deregulation and funding cuts to white collar crime enforcement means the sky's the limit. They opened the doors to ETFs, which I never in a million years thought we were corrupt and stupid enough to allow.
Mark my words this shit will get out of hand. We'll integrate phony money into our rea
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It's still legit frightening that it hasn't collapsed. I honestly thought the SEC would step in to regulate the scams and the DOJ would crack down on the money laundering and that would be that.
It is in progress. It will still take a while. But the damage done to society by ransomware-type extortion with money-laundering via crapto (which is essential for it to work) is now so extreme that it will happen. Apparently, the total damage from IT related crime (which is probably mostly ransomware) is now around $2000/year per person in the EU. Which is pretty extreme.
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You're just in the half of the population (Score:2)
Though what you're doing on slashdot then, I don't know.
People are just trying to invent new forms of money, transactions, finance systems, contract enforcement etc that fully utilize the network of computers we have today. Moving up from the 18th century or whatever it is banking system we apparently have now. May I draw you a cheque, in finest quill calligraphy?
Let them play. It's all opt-in. Where's the harm? Caveat emptor, that's
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The issue is that this would be a double-edged sword. What is the difference between a GPG key used for Git commit signings and a wallet? Other than the algorithms in use, not much. In fact I use hardware wallets like a Trezor model to store my GPG commit key because it not just has it in a secure location, but if someone locks out the device, I can go into my safe and dig out the BIP-39 recovery code, put it into a Trezor or Ledger model, and continue signing code commits. Same with an SSH key.
What get
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What gets me curious is why people are still pumping money into the ecosystem.
There is a global overabundance of cash (plus cash equivalents), and too few good investments.
Every choice appears bad, so investors diversify into *everything* (savings, CDs, stocks, bonds, commodities, crypto, etc.).
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Free market! (Score:3, Insightful)
These crypto firms need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and build their own power generation and distribution facilities!
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These crypto firms need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and build their own power generation and distribution facilities!
With Blackjack! And Hookers!
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* looks up failed casinos that would now make great, and interesting, data centers *
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I know you're being facetious, but that's what the Aluminum industry did in Canada and they are thriving. They even sell back excess production to help support the grid in time of need.
So if Crypto miners want power, they need to start installing their data centers near river banks where they can build turbines to generate their own hydro power.
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While we're at it, can we mandate that they produce 100% green energy from wind and solar?
The cryptobros keep spewing greenwashed nonsense about how crypto mining is somehow promoting green energy development, so let's hold them to their words on that.
Damn (Score:1)
If my math is right, using that per-year figure, that's 285MW, a not-insignificant chunk of BC Hydro's total capacity of 11GW
Oh well, there's always solar! It's so cheap isn't it?
A timber company pivoting to crypto seems more than a little weird.
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Where? Pretty well all the good locations are already dammed or like the Fraser, the decision has been made not to dam.
welcome (Score:1)
Why not? (Score:2)
If they are making money on selling electricity, then why wouldn't they want to sell more of it?
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Couple things I can think of right off the bat
1. It's publicly owned by BC so making money may not be their prime directive over providing a public service (exactly how all power companies should operate)
2. Wiki says they operate 35 plants, 32 of which are hydro which means their capacity is probably controlled to a certain degree so adding a very big new consumer to the grid may throw enough things off to where I think it's fair to look at what the new consumer is doing and make a judgment call of "no, not
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Ah so that's what real communism is like.
In a free market the suppliers would seek to meet demand because it is profitable to do so thus reducing shortages.
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Nope, not communism, definitionally, look it up.
It's good capitalism, firstly because electricity is a natural monopoly and even if it wasn't businesses in similar situations make decisions like this all the time. Sometimes even if you would "make money" it's still a bad deal.
Re: Why not? (Score:1)
Electricity is not a natural monopoly you dingbat. The government (socialism) makes it into a monopoly, but around the end of the 19th century, Edison, Westinghouse and others had electricity generation completely privatized and Westinghouse built infrastructure that is being used to date has some of the cheapest electric generation in the world (Niagara falls)
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Sure, those are true historical facts.
Those can be true though and electricity is still a natural monopoly you know. That's why I still buy electricity from a private company, but I only have 1 choice and they are regulated.
Natural monopolies exist whether the government is involved or not.
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false, you only have one choice because your government doesn't let others compete to serve you.
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And why is that? Because they want to stifle this one market for some reason?
Or does it make entirely more sense to not have multiple companies installing multiple lines creating more complexities, more failures, wasting resources and manpower, creating incompatibilities for a resource that everyone must have?
Just replace electricity with water and sewage, does that make sense to have multiple providers? How would the logistics work?
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That's for the market to decide, not the government.
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Yeah, and it is a natural monopoly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
All industries have costs associated with entering them. Often, a large portion of these costs is required for investment. Larger industries, like utilities, require an enormous initial investment. This barrier to entry reduces the number of possible entrants into the industry regardless of the earning of the corporations within. The production cost of an enterprise is not fixed, except for the effect of technology and other factors; even un
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You only have 1 choice BECAUSE they are regulated. It's not a natural monopoly, nothing in a true open market would prevent someone from installing more lines or leasing them from each other (which is what happens in lots of US states and reduces cost).
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Again, natural monopoly because it is wildly wasteful an inefficient to have multiple lines running into your house when only one is going to be used at a time. I should have 3-4 power connections on my house and the power companies should run poles for all those lines? Do those companies even agree on a voltage and frequency? This was exactly the issue with the Westinghouse/Edison divide, you had different places with different power forms, it was a mess.
The leasing or wholesaling scenario makes my case,
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Hence why I said, they could choose to LEASE as they do in MANY STATES ALREADY.
The Westinghouse/Edison issue was good, it tested two opposing ideas and one won because it was better, had the government chosen, they would've gone with Edison because he had more political clout, as they did in NYC and they were stuck with that decision until this century.
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Ah so that's what real communism is like.
In a free market the suppliers would seek to meet demand because it is profitable to do so thus reducing shortages.
No it's what real capitalism is like. All markets are regulated. Some more than others. That doesn't make them communism. No world runs a raw free market. And precisely no where in the universe is hydro power an infinitely expandable resource.
Please think a bit before posting.
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they aren't limited to just hydro, there are many other ways to produce energy besides a dam
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By your 'strange' free market definition (will not even go into the 'it's commmunism!" fatuity), should BC Hydro provide energy to all the requiring crypto mining companies, even if that means that the rest of the province gets none?
Maybe you will answer 'no, it means they should generate more energy and raise more power lines'. And then I ask: how much does it cost, who will pay for it and how long it takes? Will it really be profitable?
Energy is not infinite, and building energy infrastructure is very com
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If they were turning a profit on energy, like they should be, then yeah, someone would be there to service their demand.
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Ah so that's what real communism is like.
In a free market the suppliers would seek to meet demand because it is profitable to do so thus reducing shortages.
In a free market the suppliers can chose if they want a particular customer and refuse service to problem customers that soak up margin.
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Of course, but this is not a free market because no one else can enter the market to sell electricity and compete with established firms.
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smart loading wouldn't really work. btc mining is super competitive, if they aren't mining 24/7 they are probably losing money on hardware.
I doubt batteries are affordable enough to make it work either.
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You never say no to a customer. If you can't provide the service the customer asks for, you raise the price until it's feasible or the customer walks away.
Saying "no" outright is insanity.
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Sure you do, not every customer is a good customer, anyone who has worked retail or food service knows this. Or I have worked with several companies who turned down various bids on projects for a number of reasons. In my experience the most successful companies to work or are those who are willing to fire their customers when necessary rather than slovenly accept every scrap of coin and abuse that comes their way.
Raising the price to a point where they walk away is just saying no with extra steps.
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As I see by what I read, nobody said 'no' outright. The crypto mining energy consumption was a discussed matter, since it turned into an official policy. And it was not a matter of energy price, but infrastructure.
If Conifex succeded in the court, then BC Hydro would have to discard the policy and provide energy for all crypto mining operations, what would potentially disrupt the grid for the rest of the province.
The final ruling especifically stated "(...) connection requests over the last few years from c
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Because they are having to import electricity as it is due to drought and all electrical plants coming on line, which takes a while, already have their output spoken for. At that much more generation is required in the next decade or so, along with the infrastructure. Thousand mile transmission lines are not cheap.
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If they're selling all they can make, selling more could get VERY expensive.
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That's fine. Pass that along to the corporate customer that wants to pay. They can pay up front. Either they're willing to pay or they're not. Outright saying "no" is insane.
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Outright saying "no" is insane.
You sound like a CEO's assistance wet dream. A "yes" man who doesn't consider how anything works, doesn't consider laws, regulations, capability, contractual requirements, system availability or anything else.
There are funny comics written about people like you.
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Infrastructure to support large increases of generation and distribution is expensive. It's typically planned with the expectation of a long-term payback based on consistent future demand. Why make such major investments for an industry which appeared overnight and may vanish tomorrow?
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Fair point that makes sense.
Good (Score:3)
Discrimination based on merit of your business??? (Score:4, Insightful)
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People in BC don't understand capitalism, it's really sad. I know because I live here. When someone asks a business to provide a service but the order is too large to handle, that's when the price goes up and then it's easy. Saying "no", especially when there's no competition, is outright insanity. At some price it's easy to provide any amount of power.
If they're willing to pay for nuke plants, they should get nuke plants.
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Regardless of price, you can't just wish more power capacity into existence. It takes a decade to build and get a Hydro plant up and running. You can't just turn on a dime and get more power easily.
Re: Discrimination based on merit of your business (Score:2)
You are missing an important piece of info here.
In most of Canada, electricity is nationalized. The networks and generators are all govt funded, so of course choosing to not serve electricity to users that do nothing useful for society is on the table. Especially when such uses competes with basic heat for citizens.
Many big companies generate their own power in Canada. They even can sell their surplus to the electric company. The crypto boys can just do the same.
That's how a functioning government wor
Innumeracy. (Score:2)
That's a terrible figure. For SI units, it's properly 2.5 terawatt-hours. For human scale, it should be 2.5 billion kilowatt-hours (since electricity is commonly sold to consumers by the kilowatt-hour).
Good. Conifex are idiots for even whining. (Score:2)
Review all large consumers (Score:2)
As a policy, it is much better to review all major connection requests, maybe over ~30MW, to ensure that they will provide a net benefit to the region. Asking for 300MW like this facility... roughly equates to a full moderate-sized generation facility... for maybe 20 long-term jobs after construction. The same will happen to regular data centers, so it should be up to them to either pay a premium for electricity (and water) use that justifies the external investment.