Massive Blackouts Have Hit Iran. The Government is Blaming Bitcoin Mining. (washingtonpost.com) 89
Massive blackouts and smog have hit cities across Iran. It's a toxic mix as the country, already under economic duress and suffocating U.S. sanctions, simultaneously battles the region's worst coronavirus outbreak. Blackouts are not new in Iran, where an aging and subsidized electricity sector is plagued by alleged mismanagement. But this time, government officials say that bitcoin mining at cryptocurrency farms -- the energy-intensive business of using large collections of computers to verify digital coin transactions -- is partly to blame. From a report: Iran's state-owned electricity firm Tavanir announced Wednesday that it had shut down a large Chinese-Iranian-run cybercurrency center in the southeastern province of Kerman because of its heavy energy consumption. The company reportedly was licensed to operate under a process the government had put in place to regulate the industry. Alongside pointing a finger at legal operations, Iranian officials have specifically singled out illegal cryptocurrency miners as a strain on the electricity grid spurring outages, Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, a spokesperson for the electricity industry at Iran's energy ministry, told the IRNA state-run news agency. On Wednesday, Ali Vaezi, a spokesperson for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, said the government would be investigating cases of unlicensed cryptocurrency farms. But Iranians in the bitcoin industry reject the government's accusations, saying the industry is being blamed for a broader problem. "The miners have nothing to do with the blackouts," Ziya Sadr, a cryptocurrency researcher in Tehran, told The Washington Post. "Mining is a very small percentage of the overall electricity capacity in Iran."
The Ayatollah said: (Score:2)
We need a bigger boat^h^h^h^hgenerator!
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I checked the calendar. It's not the year 2020 any more. Time to update your ASCII art.
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I just checked The U.S. National Archives, and it also seems to sort of disagree with declaring Trump as the winner: https://www.archives.gov/elect... [archives.gov]
Apparently the joint congress formally recognised some guy that wasn't Trump as the winner of that contest -- something about the other guy having more recorded electoral college votes than Trump, as reported by the summation of the electoral votes submitted by the states, with those votes having been been allocated by each state in accordance with their own s
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Ahhhh,
it's over. Sane people in the world are breathing a sigh of relief and are looking forwards to Jan 21, 2021 when all the reminders of a terrible presidency start to dissipate. Now we just hope that Biden will deal with global issues like global warming and being strict with China over how they persecute Uyghurs* and hoping Biden isn't going to start another war in the Middle East or anywhere else.
With regards to the blackout in Iran, is there any actual proof tha
There they are again (Score:2)
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Mining bitcoin on cheap Chinese coal power is a pretty difficult negative to overcome. Maybe if Iran and North Korea both had regime changes it would be enough to break even for Bitcoin's harm to the world.
Waste (Score:5, Insightful)
Cryptocurrency mining is possibly the most wasteful pyramid scheme ever invented. Even so, Iran is using it as a scapegoat for a fragile and ineptly managed power grid. When it comes to energy consumption they stick out like a sore thumb and are easily shut down before affecting grid stability. For operators with a clue anyway.
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scapegoat for a fragile and ineptly managed power grid.
I'm not sure they're saying "everything was fine before Bitcoin". It sounds like they're saying things have gotten worse since Bitcoin.
A fragile pre-existing system isn't going to be helped with the additional bitcoin mining, so it's not scapegoating if mining actually is responsible for the further drop in quality of service.
Re:Waste (Score:4, Insightful)
Iran subsidies electricity. So they tax the productive parts of their economy and then use the money to pay others to consume electricity. Iran spends more on energy subsidies than any other country.
This is an astoundingly idiotic policy and leads to wasteful practices such as Bitcoin mining.
The solution is simple: End the subsidies. Start pricing electricity properly.
If they want to "help poor people", then direct cash transfers work far more efficiently than subsidized consumption.
Energy in Iran - Subsidies [wikipedia.org]
Re:Waste (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple economic solution, but a complex political one.
All those people paying more money for electricity will start asking more questions about why their economy is so shitty, who the rich people are in their society and why they're making these sacrifices for theologians and nuclear weapons.
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then direct cash transfers work far more efficiently
Yes, well, no conservative government ever likes to give out free money.
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Taxes is not theft. Grow up.
Depends on what the taxes are used for. Taxes are not theft if they are used for schools, roads and useful things. If used for lining government contractors pockets, other corruption and for buying votes I think it is theft.
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Negative. It's not even close. Bitcoin is destroying the physical environment by wasting a huge amount of resources so that it can fail as a currency. It's a fine science experiment, but there is no redeeming value to society.
Re:There they are again (Score:4, Insightful)
Nonsense. Bitcoin is doing no such thing. People producing unclean power are destroying the physical environment. Outlaw the dirty power and bitcoin would still be there whilst doing no harm at all.
Also, the Iranian government can safely assumed to be lying, by default, on all topics since that has pretty much always been the case historically.
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I mean, power is produced because it is being used. And here, bitcoin is requiring more power than is being produced, thus leading to blackouts. So, you know, I'll revisit my assessment of bitcoin's value once we have free energy or cold fusion. Til then, we should shut it down.
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At least they bring me joy! That's a thing. But I'll tell you what - if /. ever starts using up 1% or more of the electricity on earth, I will do my part and not use it anymore!
But, seriously, bitcoin is built on wasting electricity. It's a feature of proof-of-work
Re:There they are again (Score:4, Funny)
Iran desperately needs to switch to fast breeder reactors, and achieve carbon neutrality.
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There is nothing unforeseen about it. in a nation desperate for foreign capital or exchange, the residents will struggle to obtain any currency they can use for the black market. If that means turning their limited household energy into bitcoin to buy things their government cannot or will not provide, it can still make economic sense.
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Money without benefit.
The problem with capitalism (even withing non-capitalist societies) is how we have been trained to believe the need for money is the main goal.
I work for a job, I exchange my goods and services, for money. The company that is paying me money, is paying me based on the supply of other with my skills and work ethic, vs how much they need these skills and work ethic. Compensating my skills, I will work as part of the company to help them provide a wider range of services or products pr
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Be sure to include Big Tech, Pro Athletics along with the Entertainment Industry and a bunch of others I am forgetting.
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Exactly. It doesn't end well when The Party decides what's "providing something" and what's "just using resources". Both Francisco Franco and the Khmer Rouge thought art provides no value.
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They can be waste of resources or they can be valuable.
My Smart Phone, while 99% of the time, I use it for frivolous things. However, there are cases where I have been lost and used the GPS feature, Cases where I needed to do something I never done before, I looked up how to do it. So it is a product/service that has value sometimes.
Pro Sports and Entertainment, which I would classify as artistic expression. can too be a waste of resources, however there are many cases where I may be stressed out or neede
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If that happened we'd have to double check if someone didn't play the old switcharoo with our maps.
Profitable? (Score:2)
Surely the cost of electricity in Iran isn't low enough for this to be profitable? Or are miners leaching off the grid without paying?
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The government itself has pointed to cheap electricity rates, enabled by government subsidies, as another major cause of the blackouts.
Bitcoin gets more attention though.
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Stolen or not, it's a starting point to invest in goods or services the government won't notice so easily. That ranges from luxuries like opium or liquor to necessities like machine parts for US built tractors or books for female students.
Even if it was (Score:1)
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The government often subsidizes things like electricity. Because it makes sense to have everyone have a fridge. They don't want to subsidize things like bitcoin mining.
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> Because it makes sense to have everyone have a fridge.
They should decrease the subsidy on electricity and give households a sum each year for powering a fridge.
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Uranium refining.
You mean enrichment, not refining. Also, I doubt this has anything to do with that. Enrichment isn't all that power intensive. Enriched U-235 isn't even the best way to make nuclear power and its the most intensive and least effective way to make a bomb. In short if you know what you are doing, you don't enrich Uranium no matter what your goal is. Its old tech at this point.
The Iranian government made their bed (Score:4, Interesting)
The Iranian government has declared war on the USA, Israel, and their allies, then complain that these nations won't trade with them. Maybe if the Iranian lawmakers would stop chanting "death to America" while they are in legislative session then perhaps the US government would open up trade so that Iran could give some petroleum crude in exchange for some new generators.
A quick look at Wikipedia tells me that Iran has a land area close to that of Alaska, a population about double that of California, and plenty of access to energy from wind, hydro, and solar. How in the fuck is Iran having blackouts?
Oh, right, because they declared war on most of the world. This means anybody with access to the best engineering, technology, and industrial capacity will never even talk to them.
That Iranian government made their bed, now they don't like how uncomfortable it is to sleep in. If Iran wants to get some better generators and get better training for their engineers then they need to learn to play nice with the rest of the world. Shooting down US military drones over international waters is an act of war. The USA doesn't want a war with Iran, but it seems Iran wants a war with the USA. Iran is simply incapable of bringing a war to the USA. They are incapable of keeping their own lights on.
Oh, and it might improve their technological advancement if they stop imprisoning women in their own homes and perform public executions of homosexuals. Iran is leaving half of their population ignorant, and the people they do allow to get an education can wake up dead because they said something the government doesn't like. It would also help the survival of Iran's best and brightest engineers and scientists if they ended their war on most of the world. Israel is perfectly willing to kill Iranian engineers that they believe can bring Iran out of the stone age. If it's not the Iranian government killing the best and brightest in the country then they put them at risk of assassination with the war they are waging, making these engineers legally combatants in the war and therefore lawful targets under any international treaty.
I've met a few people that were able to flee the shithole that Iran has become. They are quite friendly and very capable engineers. I have nothing against the Iranian people. I wish them well. The murderous assholes that run the country though deserve whatever might bring their lives to an unnatural end.
There may come a time when the USA, Israel, and its allies decide that it's time to recognize that Iran has declared an open war on them. That war will make for an interesting afternoon. Perhaps it may last an entire weekend. Then Iran will be able to keep it's lights on.
Who the *bleep* modded this claptrap up? (Score:5, Insightful)
Go read up on the history of Iran and the US. Go look up the pictures of their country until we started meddling and installed our preferred dictator. They had women in skirts and a secular society. Thanks to us they're another wackadoodle religious country. And the moment we started to get them moving in the right direction the political winds changed and they were screwed. We blocked medicine from entering the country during a pandemic. Cruelty is the Point (tm).
And despite all that they patiently waited for Biden to get back in office and restart the peace agreement. After we assassinated a general of theirs on a peace missing.
TL;DR; Iran is doing everything possible to avoid war while Trump and his cronies have done everything possible to start one.
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How does "everything possible to avoid war" square with active logistics and training support for attacks on distant Israel which can never mount a credible invasion threat to Iran and has no power projection beyond a mediagenic raid every few decades?
That long predates Trump. (I don't care what happens to Israel or Iran and consider US regional involvement a waste of effort but the mullocracy are what they are.)
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TL;DR; Iran is doing everything possible to avoid war while Trump and his cronies have done everything possible to start one.
If Iran is trying to avoid war then why do they continue to shoot down American drones that are flying in international airspace? If Trump wanted to start a war with Iran then what stopped him? It doesn't appear to be all that difficult to start shooting at Iran. Trump is the commander in chief of all military forces, what stopped him from ordering a military strike on Iran? His "cronies" included some high ranking military officers and people in the state department, no?
We blocked medicine from entering the country during a pandemic.
I don't recall anything specific
Oh boy (Score:3)
Iran has it's own idiot right wing hardliners. The US has been fucking with Iran for 50 years (that I know of). International politics isn't about playing nice. The folks at the top are supposed to be able to navigate their crazies in order or maintain and grow peace. Iran was/is doing that. The US just k
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did it ever occur to you that those drones are sent specifically to goad Iran into war?
That only works if Iran wants a war. How does anyone goad someone into war with an unarmed surveillance drone?
And for Christ's sake google "us iran medicine sanctions" and pick your own source. There's plenty to choose from.
Yes, there are plenty to choose from, and that's part of the problem. With so much out there on the subject it's difficult to know what is specifically the problem.
I read an article on how it's difficult for Iran to purchase medicines because of the economic sanctions preventing payment for drugs. If it's illegal to do any banking with Iran then it's going to be difficult to sell drugs there. Th
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A bear doesn't want to maul you (Score:2)
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Are you being paid to defend Iran?
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No they weren't
No he didn't
No they aren't
and finally, No they weren't and no he wasn't.
I know you are but what am I? (Score:2)
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Utter Bullshit. Iran is formenting a proxy war in Yemen and is busy arming Hezbollah for another pop at Israel. It's also randomly grabbing shipping in the top of the gulf in International Waters.
What wars did Trump start ? How many troops did he deploy ? Compare that to Obama
As for the assassination : This would be the same general who ordered and directed rocket attacks on US troops in Iraq despite the Iranians clearly being told what would happen if they did. No-one mourns his passing : the man had plent
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The JCPOA was a bad deal in many ways. One of them was that it terrified the Arabs and Israelis, which is why walking away from it opened the way for an eruption of peace in the Middle East as Israel's former enemies opened official ties and began cooperating. Another is that it allowed Iran to access the resources it needed to ramp up support for wars in the region. The civil war in Yemen would have
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Re: The Iranian government made their bed (Score:1)
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I spent a few years in the gulf and out of all of them the Iranians were the best - urbane and highly educated from a country with an immense and rich history. They often remarked that Allah put the oil in the wrong country. They also got VERY upset if you referred to them as Arabs : they were Persians; Arabs were just itinerant goat herders.
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That Iranian government made their bed, now they don't like how uncomfortable it is to sleep in. If Iran wants to get some better generators and get better training for their engineers then they need to learn to play nice with the rest of the world. Shooting down US military drones over international waters is an act of war. The USA doesn't want a war with Iran, but it seems Iran wants a war with the USA. Iran is simply incapable of bringing a war to the USA. They are incapable of keeping their own lights on.
Oh, and it might improve their technological advancement if they stop imprisoning women in their own homes and perform public executions of homosexuals. Iran is leaving half of their population ignorant, and the people they do allow to get an education can wake up dead because they said something the government doesn't like. It would also help the survival of Iran's best and brightest engineers and scientists if they ended their war on most of the world. Israel is perfectly willing to kill Iranian engineers that they believe can bring Iran out of the stone age. If it's not the Iranian government killing the best and brightest in the country then they put them at risk of assassination with the war they are waging, making these engineers legally combatants in the war and therefore lawful targets under any international treaty.
And who was it that put that government in power?
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And who was it that put that government in power?
It wasn't Donald J. Trump.
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A quick look at Wikipedia tells me that Iran has a land area close to that of Alaska, a population about double that of California, and plenty of access to energy from wind, hydro, and solar. How in the fuck is Iran having blackouts?
Oh, right, because they declared war on most of the world.
As much as I enjoy watching people shit on Iran, it's best to do some research and shit on the correct reason the country is crumbling. Their power infrastructure isn't poorly engineered, it's government subsidised in completely the wrong ways which have lead to lack of investment and an insane amount of consumption. It's a losing strategy to try and save the poor by lining the pockets of the rich. The end result of which is $0.004 cents per kWh of electricity. Yes that's the correct number of zeros. Electr
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They have no technological problem. They have a social / government problem.
It's impossible for them to have both?
Iran has a technology problem. If they did not have a technology problem then they would not keep trying to import technology from the USA and its allies. Iran's military is built upon whatever they were able to import from the USA before the 1979 revolution. This means that the planes in their air force are twice the age of their pilots. They lack the technology to build their own airplanes. They lack the technology to keep the aircraft they have fully operational
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A culture that believes in magic is not going to advance as quickly technologically as one that lacks the belief that prayer and faith will bend the laws of physics to their benefit. There are religions that teach people that a god or deities will reward faith with wealth.
So you think China will quickly outpace the USA then :-) thinking that sending your pastor more money so he can buy his fifth jet plane will make you lucky and rich is an American belief after all, along with thinking that all the money from increased productivity should go into the offshore accounts of corporations and billionaires instead of into research or education. Some countries choose nuclear physicists or chemists as leaders, others pick journalists sacked for making up stories, or reality show hos
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So you think China will quickly outpace the USA then
No, I explicitly said they would not. That's because China has a shit government that discourages independent technology development. China will always be behind the USA technologically until China advances politically.
thinking that sending your pastor more money so he can buy his fifth jet plane will make you lucky and rich is an American belief after all,
That may be a belief held by some Americans but that is not in Christian philosophy. That's also far from any predominate philosophy among Americans.
along with thinking that all the money from increased productivity should go into the offshore accounts of corporations and billionaires instead of into research or education.
Bullshit. Americans spend more money on education and research than any other nation. If China is so great on educating it's people then wh
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USA in police uniform kicking Iran: Stop resisting! Stop resisting!
Re: The Iranian government made their bed (Score:2)
The Iranian government has declared war on the USA
The US is not at war with Iran, Iran is not at war with the US, facts don't care about your feelings.
Or maybe it's simpler? (Score:2)
wow... (Score:2)
"Iranian officials have specifically singled out illegal cryptocurrency miners as a strain on the electricity grid spurring outages". I'd love to see the heatsinks on those rigs. That's some serious power dissipation.
Iceland (Score:1)
There's a documentary on youtube about Iceland's Bitcoin mining datacenters which that supposedly use more energy than the rest of the country combined. That's WITH the geographically colder climates helping to naturally cool the facilities that generate massive heat. I mean, it's a pretty low population country so that's not too incredible, but it is still pretty bad. Now throw these facilities in a desert nation where it's hot and you can quickly see how energy demand could skyrocket. You effectively
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Sorry what? (Score:1)
Flimsy excuse to cover up and shift blame. (Score:2)
Shocking. (Score:2)
Shocking regime (Score:2)
Let's be clear, the Iranian regime is amongst the most evil governments on this planet but its biggest victims are its own people.
It was Trump that cancel the carrot and stick treaty that was making a difference. It verifiable stopped them processing nuclear material and they started letting dissidents leave.
Trump pissed all over the deal, so they ran to China, resumed reprocess nuclear material and started imprisons Iranians with dual citizenship on spurious charges, like being women teachers.