British Columbia to Permanently Ban New Crypto Mining Projects From Grid (coindesk.com)
- Reference: 0179846704
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/10/21/237254/british-columbia-to-permanently-ban-new-crypto-mining-projects-from-grid
- Source link: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/10/21/british-columbia-to-permanently-ban-new-crypto-mining-projects-from-grid
> The move from the government of Canada's third-most populous province is part of a broader legislative and [2]regulatory overhaul unveiled Monday [...]. "Government will also implement several regulatory and policy changes in fall 2025 that will ... permanently ban new BC Hydro connections to the electricity grid for cryptocurrency mining to preserve the province's electricity supply and avoid the overburdening of the electricity grid," the government said in a post on its website
>
> The province said the restrictions will help prevent grid strain and ensure industrial development is powered by clean electricity. "We're seeing unprecedented demand from traditional and emerging industries," Charlotte Mitha, the president and CEO of power utility BC Hydro, said in the web post. "The province's strategy empowers BC Hydro to manage this growth responsibly, keeping our grid reliable and our energy future clean and affordable." Crypto mining operations often consume large amounts of electricity without creating many local jobs or tax revenue, according to the statement. By contrast, projects like mines or liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities are seen as more beneficial to the economy.
[1] https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/10/21/british-columbia-to-permanently-ban-new-crypto-mining-projects-from-grid
[2] https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2025ECS0044-001032
If they're paying for the power.... (Score:1, Interesting)
If they're paying for the power they're using, what difference does it make?
Hell, just raise their rates and make money off them. Charge data centers and crytomining projects 10x what you're charging everyone else.
Re: (Score:1)
They'll suck up about as much power as they can while creating 4-5 low wages job once the thing is built. Basically glorified security guards.
Re:If they're paying for the power.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Because a government's purpose is to serve its citizens needs. It is as simple as that.
Without the [1]Social Contract [wikipedia.org], a government does not have legitimacy.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract
Re: (Score:2)
I think it would serve the citizens if they charged bitcoin miners and AI warehouses 10x in order to keep prices for the average people stable. It just does not seem to to benefit average people in the area. *water too.
Re: (Score:2)
Because electricity is subsidized you nit wit.
And not just via direct subsidies but by externalized costs. Like the health impacts from generating electricity because we are still dependent on burning fossil fuels.
So sure if you want to charge them five or six bucks per kilowatt hour instead of 15 or 20 cents, maybe we will talk.
Except that's not what they want. They want to pay the same heavily subsidized price per kilowatt hour that a genuinely beneficial and useful business would.
Re: (Score:2)
> If they're paying for the power they're using, what difference does it make?
The difference is that if the demand suddenly disappears after the new facilities have been financed, the existing rate payers will be on the hook for those costs. Similar to [1]WPPSS [washingtonhistory.org].
[1] https://www.washingtonhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/seduced-abandoned.pdf
Re: (Score:1)
> If they're paying for the power they're using, what difference does it make?
> Hell, just raise their rates and make money off them. Charge data centers and crytomining projects 10x what you're charging everyone else.
My guess is it is bad PR to see electricity rates rise because of activities the neighbors find wasteful. I doubt that the rules that govern the utilities would allow them to jack up rates on what goes on in the data centers. How would anyone audit this activity without serious implications on securing a lot of protected information? If they claim the computers are processing tax returns, or file servers for hospitals, then how do you check without breaking rules on some very personal data?
I expect these
Finally, some common sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop letting crypto miners leech off of the customers the grid was intended to serve. They can create their own damn grid if they want.
Re: (Score:2)
> They can create their own damn grid if they want.
With blackjack! And hookers!
Can BC can diesel generators? (Score:1)
If the data centers can't connect to the grid then they can produce their own electricity, such as using diesel generators. Maybe they put solar PV canopies over their yard full of generators to "green wash" their activity a bit.
I can recall seeing a YouTube videos of farmers in Australia running diesel generators because that was cheaper electricity for them than the electricity they could get from the electrical grid. The farms will not have many neighbors to complain of the noise. They will have fuel
Kick them out (Score:1)
Sucks too much power from the grid for the jobs they generate, I say get rid of them, pay the fee to break the contract.
Re: (Score:2)
Every country everywhere should do this. You'd push mining back to people doing it in their basements. :-) (Profit into the hands of the nerds instead of the elite.)
Re: (Score:3)
The more decentralized mining is, the harder the 51% attack
Therefore, you want mining that is about as efficient on a current CPU as it is on a high end GPU or even ASIC. That way big server farm investments scale up with a low integer factor -- compared to a Bitcoin ASIC farm which can be (IIRC) dozens of millions of times more efficient per dollar than your PC CPU.
Various strategies were considered and tested. The [1]end result [github.com] was really clever: create a simple virtual machine with specific characteristics
[1] https://github.com/tevador/RandomX