Satellites reveal heat leaking from largest US cryptocurrency mining center

Terminology and Thermodynamics

• Several commenters say “leaking” is misleading; the facility is intentionally dumping heat as part of normal operation, effectively functioning as a giant electric heater.
• Others argue it is inefficiency, since electricity is meant to do “computer work” and all of it ends up as heat anyway.
• There’s agreement that for any conventional computation, nearly all input energy eventually becomes heat; only a negligible fraction escapes as sound or light and that too turns into heat later.

Waste Heat, Quality of Heat, and Reuse

• Discussion on whether the heat could be used for district heating: technically yes, but it’s low‑temperature “low‑quality” heat, hard and costly to capture and transport.
• Rockdale is small, so there’s unlikely to be local demand matching hundreds of megawatts of heat.
• Some note that modern district heating can move hot water efficiently over long distances and that some data centers already heat nearby buildings, but crypto operations often don’t bother.
• Debate over whether “waste heat” means “heat with no Carnot engine attached yet” vs. “unavoidable thermodynamic endpoint.”

Fundamental Limits and Reversible Computing

• Landauer’s principle and the idea that the minimum energy cost of computation trends toward zero as temperature approaches absolute zero are mentioned.
• This segues into reversible/adiabatic computing, with a cited startup demonstrating partial energy recovery; commenters see this as potentially revolutionary but still very challenging.

Scale of Energy Use

• The “as much power as 300,000 homes” framing sparks back‑of‑the‑envelope comparisons to steel and aluminum plants.
• The site reuses grid capacity from a former aluminum smelter that drew over 1,000 MW; some note the crypto operation actually uses less energy and dumps less heat than the prior industry, though it provides fewer useful jobs and products.

Climate Impact of Waste Heat

• One thread asks how much global warming is from direct waste heat vs. greenhouse gases.
• Quick estimates in the discussion suggest direct human waste heat is minuscule compared to incoming solar energy and to the radiative forcing from greenhouse gases; CO₂ is seen as the dominant problem.

Value and Ethics of Proof‑of‑Work Mining

• Many view the facility as “needlessly absurd” and a “crime against humanity” scale waste, especially given climate concerns and low social utility of crypto mining.
• Others defend crypto as a reaction against KYC/AML and cashless societies, arguing the genie can’t be put back in the bottle.
• There’s frustration that proof‑of‑work remains dominant despite alternative consensus mechanisms and that local economic benefits (jobs) are minimal compared to past industrial use of the site.