After the first 20 minutes, the water temperature seemed to increase at a constant rate of 0.0006 degrees Celsius per second. This increase in temperature means that there is an increase in thermal energy, which we can calculate as:
Rhett Allain
Here m is the mass of the matter, in this case, water, and c is the specific heat capacity: the amount of thermal energy necessary to raise the temperature of that substance by 1 degree Celsius. For the water, c It is 4,186 joules per gram per degree Celsius. So, with a liter of water and my rate of temperature change, I get that the water needs a power of 2.51 joules every second, or 2.51 watts.
Note that even with this rudimentary measurement system, it is pretty close to the power going into the Raspberry Pi. The difference is probably due to imperfect insulation. So you can see that the energy of cryptocurrency is just thermal energy. Even I’m surprised it worked so well.
Andreessen Horowitz is betting big on cryptocurrencies. This spring, the venture capital firm trained a new crop of founders in hopes of proving that the technology is for more than just scams and speculation.
Show me the money!
Although it is possible to use a cryptocurrency miner to heat your house, that is probably not the reason people do it. To calculate the true reward let’s do some quick calculations. I ran my Raspberry Pi miner for 12 hours: it returned 0.00000006 XMR, which converted to dollars is 0.0012 cents. It’s a way to make money, yes, but it will take longer than expected. Even if I run it for 12,000 hours, I still wouldn’t be able to buy a piece of gum. Probably not even chewed gum.
And that’s not counting the cost. Mining is not free: you have to pay for electricity. The average cost of electricity in the US is 16.94 cents per kilowatt-hour. If I run my miner at 3 watts for 12 hours, that would be 24 watt-hours, or 0.024 KWh. Using the price of electricity, this would cost 0.41 cents. Let’s do some quick math: 0.41 cents is more money than I made. I’m not a financial expert, but it smells like a terrible business model to me.
Of course, no one except a physicist would mine crypto on a Raspberry Pi. There are luxury mining machines that cost thousands of dollars, but allow you to mint coins faster and with less energy. Another thing to keep in mind is the future price of a cryptocurrency. Even if the cost exceeds the reward today, perhaps one day it could be worth much more. Lastly, a cryptocurrency miner could be in a place with cheaper electricity; It could even be solar powered.
However, don’t forget that for every joule of energy you put into a miner, you will produce 1 joule of thermal energy. You have to get rid of that heat, or you will have problems with your minicomputers. But cooling systems consume more energy, and that can make it difficult to produce profitable currency.
Don’t lose faith, it must work, at least in the US there is a lot of mining. In 2024, it is estimated that 2.3% of electrical energy will be allocated to cryptocurrency. That’s quite a bit, and I’m not sure it’s the best use of our energy supply, especially given that cryptocurrencies are a made-up thing.
Article originally published in WIRED. Adapted by Alondra Flores.
#rich #mining #crypto #Raspberry #minicomputer
