[Analemma_]

According to its Amazon listing, the Antminer S9 consumes 1247 watts at the wall. Assuming he ran it 24/7, over a year he would consume about 11,000 kWh, or about $1,300 at the average U.S. electricity price of $0.12/kWh. Without knowing how much he was paying for power of course we can't know exactly how much he spent, but this certainly doesn't seem like a slam-dunk win, compared to just buying Bitcoins outright.

And indeed, it couldn't possibly. The EMH almost guarantees that hobby mining can't be profitable once the coin is popular enough.

[Nursie]

Incidentally, 11K kWh is roughly the average energy consumption of a US household.

So given his current return, of 1.01 bitcoins, that means each 2.4 bitcoins mined use around the electricity that a US household does annually.

And people wonder why there are those of us who are concerned about the environmental impact...

[Valodim]

11MWh average, 0.12 cents/kWh?! Power costs more than twice as much in Europe, and the average household uses half as much. No wonder you guys (in a twisted democratic sense of the word) aren't too fond of climate treaties.

[Analemma_]

I know you're sort of joking, but that doesn't really explain it: the places where power is cheapest in the U.S. are the places where the most renewables are used. Here in Pacific Northwest power is closer to 8 cents/kWh because it's mostly hydro; Texas is cheaper than in the surrounding South because it has more wind power, etc.

[yuhong]

In this case, the server room location is Allen, Texas, likely paying commercial rates.

[hanklazard]

Good point. This sort of waste is one of the big reasons for the (hopefully soon) shift to PoS rather than the current PoW.

[yuhong]

I think commercial rates are generally lower than residential rates, right?