Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]
Didn't watch the video, but a quick point on how the energy efficiency of this works out:<p>Electric heaters are 100% efficient at turning electrical energy into heat. All the energy they take in, that's where it goes.<p>Bitcoin mining (and computers in general) are basically in the same boat. There's some ancillary energy use for blowing air around or shining lights or making sound waves, but for the most part the electricity turns into heat and does some math along the way.<p>Sounds great! Perfectly efficient! But the important caveat is that heat pumps are (effectively) more than 100% efficient. They can take 100 watt of electricity to transfer 300 watts of heat from outside to inside.<p>It's not technically a measure of "efficiency", we call this the "coefficient of performance" instead. Or we call it the "seasonal energy efficiency ratio", which is the same thing except multiplied by some constant factor because somebody wanted a scale that went up to higher numbers. Or for heating, the heating season performance factor, which I forget the specifics of, but is geared toward how well it works pumping heat in from outdoors when your heat source (outdoors) is very cold.<p>In short, it's just as efficient as any other electric heater, but heat pumps are 3-4x better than that.