• shortwavesurfer
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    1 day ago

    That is a good option too. How long does it take to spool up or ramp down desalination? I mentioned Bitcoin mining because it’s super fast to come online or go offline depending on the energy requirements at the moment.

    • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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      22 hours ago

      Pretty fast, from my understanding, because you’re pumping water through a membrane, and the pumps can be turned on and off quite fast.

      The maintenance costs are also quite high though, from my understanding.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I doubt that would be terribly relevant. The lions share of the surplus energy should be predictable based on recent grid data + 24 hour weather forecasts.

      Based on nothing but wikipedia the primary methods for desalination are distillation (boiling) and membrane; neither of which sound like ramp up time would matter.

      • shortwavesurfer
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        1 day ago

        Yeah, if time to come online and time to go offline doesn’t matter, then that definitely works.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      You wouldn’t cover the cost of the miners if you had to shut turn them off and on like that. The worth of their hashing capabilities is nearly always declining as more and better miners come online.

      But using the miners to do something else was always an interesting idea, like using them to heat a building. Maybe you could heat a swimming pool with them.

      • shortwavesurfer
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        21 hours ago

        For home usage my thought would be use it as a hot water heater or a dryer for clothes or maybe even make a switchable 500 watt and 1500 watt version and use it as a space heater for those cold winter nights.

        • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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          21 hours ago

          Ya, if you have a miner at home, it will reduce your heating bill. You just gotta find a good use for it when it’s not cold outside, so something like supplementing your water heater as you mentioned would work ya.

          I think there’s merit in the idea. Someone makes an electric water heater purpose built for this and they build a miner card you can swap in/out as technology improves the the current one becomes obsolete. Uses the miner for primary heat, and when it’s not enough uses regular electricity to make the heat.

          • shortwavesurfer
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            17 hours ago

            See, that would be awesome as hell, because those appliances need heat. And so, mining with it basically subsidizes the heat that I would otherwise just be using anyway. It may not subsidize it completely, but any subsidy is better than no subsidy at all.