The whine of a crypto mine is keeping a North Carolina community awake

[thewayne]

Crypto mines consist of literally hundreds of PC servers. They need two things, lots of electricity to power them and lots of fan power to keep them cool.

And fans, especially LOTS of fans, generate a lot of noise!

China outlawed cryptomining because of the energy consumption. North Carolina, and many Southern states, have inexpensive power and loose regulations. And an increasing number of cryptomining operators. Residents complain of an almost constant 50+ decibel whine/hum from the mines that can go over 70 dB at times. And have taken to their local governments to issue noise abatement rules and fines and it's members of both political parties that are objecting.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/19/us/north-carolina-crypto-mine-noise-weir-wxc/index.html

Comments

[dewline]

It might not be so bad, were those servers being put to more honourable usages. SETI research, a permanent vaccine for any number of diseases, cancer cures, and so on...but crypto mines? AUGH!

(And then, there's Canada's right-wingers, Poilievre, Danielle Smith, et al., who'd like us to take up that "cause".)

At least both sides of the aisle are taking the hint from the public here!

[thewayne]

China had the right solution: ban all mining and crypto transactions.

[disneydream06]

Cheap power?
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

Cheap power, low or no regulation.  China outlawed all cryptomining and crypto transactions in their country, and I applaud them for it.

[disneydream06]

WOW, they surprise us some times. :o

[kaishin108]

How awful!
I worry about that happening here near Boise as our electricity is so cheap. I have heard there are data farms, or something.

[thewayne]

Data centers/server farms, overall, consume less electricity on a per-server basis than a cryptofarm.  Mining crypto requires 100% CPU utilization 24/7/365 in order to maximize the chance of gaining tokens, thus money.  Conventional servers don't normally run at anywhere near that level of utilization.  And you look at the photos of this particular mining operation, a normal data center doesn't remotely look like that!  A regular data center is housed inside a building with massive security, including man-traps like seen in the movie Sneakers.  Very tight getting in and out, they frequently use biometrics as part of the access.  This operation is designed to be as cheap as possible re: overhead.  Comparatively, that mine would be easy to trash compared to a proper data center.

[silveradept]

That is the kind of nuisance neighbor that I wouldn't be surprised if they find themselves routinely the targets of sabotage or other malice intended to shut down their operations or force them to move somewhere else.

[thewayne]

I'd definitely test the security system to see how fast da fuzz responds.  So rural there might be quite a  delay....

[kaishin108]

I hope they can get crypto mining banned! That is just awful :(