After the first 20 minutes, the water temperature appears to increase at a fairly constant rate of 0.0006 degrees Celsius per second. This increase in temperature means that there is an increase in thermal energy, which can be calculated as: Here m is the mass of the object (in this case, water), and C is the specific heat capacity-the amount of heat energy required for. raising the temperature of the substance by 1 degree Celsius. For water, C is 4.186 joules per gram per degree Celsius. So, with 1,000 ml of water and the rate of temperature change, I know that the water requires 2.51 joules of power per second (or 2.51 watts). Even with this basic measurement system, this is pretty close to the power going into the Raspberry Pi. The difference is probably due to imperfect insulation. So you can see that cryptocurrency power is just thermal energy. To be honest, I was surprised that it worked so well. Show me my money! While it may be possible to run a crypto miner as a way to warm your house, that’s probably not why people do it. What is the reward? Well, let’s do some quick calculations. I ran a Raspberry Pi miner for 12 hours. How much money did they make? Wait… 0.00000006 XMR. Converting this to US dollars, that’s 0.0012 cents (not dollars). Yes, it will be a slow way to accumulate fortune. If I run for 12,000 hours, I still can’t buy gum. Probably not even used chewing gum. And that is not even accounting for the cost. I mean, mining isn’t free – you have to pay for electricity. The average cost of electricity in the US is 16.94 cents per kilowatt-hour. If I run the miner at 3 watts for 12 hours, that would be 24 watt-hours, or 0.024 KWh. Using electricity prices, it costs 0.41 cents. Let me do some quick math here. Yes, 0.41 cents more than I made. I’m no financial expert, but this sounds like a bad business model. Of course, no one but a physicist will mine crypto on a Raspberry Pi. There are good mining machines (prices of thousands of dollars) that allow you to mint coins faster and with less energy. Another thing to consider is the future price of cryptocurrencies. Although the price exceeds the current reward, it may one day be worth more. Finally, crypto miners may be located in locations with cheaper electricity. You can even run a miner on solar. However, do not forget that for every joule of energy you put into the miner, you will generate 1 joule of thermal energy. You need to get rid of that heat, or it will cause problems for your computer. But the cooling system uses more energy, and that can make it difficult to make a profit. But it should be possible, because there is quite a bit of mining in the US. By 2024, approximately 2.3 percent of electricity will be cryptocurrency. Quite simply, and I’m really not convinced that this is the best use of our energy resources – especially since crypto is just something that’s made up.
