[msisk6]

This was previously the location of an Alcoa aluminum smelter which used something around 1000+ MW. And that's why the crypto farm is there -- it already had sufficient electrical capacity to the site.

Folks should be happy since the crypto operation is using far less power and dumping less heat into the environment that the industrial operation that was previously there, but datacenters seem to be a trendy thing complain about at the moment so here we are.

[dajt]

Where is the upside here? An alu plant probably provided more jobs and produced something of actual utility. This is burning power for no benefit to society.

It's burning less power than before, but it's not producing anything of value.

The world cannot reasonbly run without alu, it got along better without crypto currencies.

[msisk6]

Oh, I agree. I lived nearby (working for ERCOT; the Texas Power Grid operator) when Alcoa was still there and was planning the shutdown. It seems about half the people in Rockdale worked for either Alcoa, the nearby coal power plant, or the nearby coal mine that fed the power plant.

I remember the local press going on about the crypto mining operation and how folks were going get high-tech jobs in this rural area of Texas. Of course it didn't go that way.

Aluminum smelting is an incredibly energy intensive operation. A lot of places in the US that used to host aluminum smelters now host large datacenters, include the Google data center in The Dalles, Oregon on the Columbia river near a hydro dam. It's a shame that Rockdale didn't get something useful like these other places.

As far as Al smelting in the US; I don't know. I'd imagine it produces a lot of air pollution by itself and uses huge amounts of power that is usually generated by cheap methods like burning rocks (coal) or large hydro operations nearby to minimize transmission costs. Then you gotta get ore to the site. The only Al smelter I recall being left in the US is up near Puget Sound in Bellingham, WA and I think it's currently shutdown.

[bigiain]

I've heard of aluminium referred to as "Frozen Electricity". (yes, I know, but that's the .au spelling)

Relatively speaking, bauxite is practically worthless. But mix it in with a few gigawatt hours and you get out a fairly valuable commodity.

[duskwuff]

> I remember the local press going on about the crypto mining operation and how folks were going get high-tech jobs in this rural area of Texas. Of course it didn't go that way.

That's a disappointingly common crypto industry lie. Cryptocurrency mining involves very little labor beyond initial construction; it's certainly not a major source of permanent employment.

[troglo-byte]

A cryptominer is a "datacenter" in the same way that a chop shop is an automotive parts supplier.

[msisk6]

Well, yeah. Both crypto and AI require places with cheap power to rack and stack compute and GPUs.

It remains to be seen if AI will end up being about as useful as crypto in the long run.

[drivingmenuts]

How many people did the smelter employ vs how many people do the bitcoin miners employ?

The smelter was providing jobs that fed money into the local economy. I'm sure much less money is coming out of the mining operation.

[cruffle_duffle]

Not to mention the aluminum plant was making something actually useful to society at large. What is there now is a giant space heater used to scam people.

[lolc]

I do get utility out of aluminium.

[whatsupdog]

Yes, and I'm assuming the power plant that was providing electricity to the aluminum plant also wants to recover their investment.

It would be cool if all this residual heat could be concentrated to smelt aluminum!

[mmooss]

A mercury refining plant or uranium enrichment facility would also be worse neighbors, but that has nothing to do with the benefits and costs of the crypto farm.