HN Explorer

Ask HN: What can you do with free running water?

6 points by excitednumber ↗ HN
This may be a down-vote poop post, but, here's trying.

I live in a building in a city where water is free. On its own merit, this is of course fantastic.

Is there anything interesting to do with free water? Small hydro-power generator to mine crypto?

Looking for fun ideas.

17 comments

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ironmagma
Wasting drinkable water to run a generation plant seems particularly immoral. Why not buy a fish tank and see what you can keep alive?
JoeAltmaier
That's true of all bitcoin power sources though. Its all trading Earth's resources for imaginary points. Only a human could conceive such a thing was desirable.
ironmagma
There’s a matter of degree. The water plant is using electricity to hoist the water, so it’s strictly worse to use the water as a source than to use electricity directly. Add to that that we as a species are running out of drinkable water (there’s a good documentary about this on Netflix) and you have an inarguably unethical activity.
JoeAltmaier
Oh no question. It was the idea of 'bitcoin' I find appalling.
giantg2
I think it's unethical to use shared resources for personal gain. If you are using substantially more "free" water to make money, that seems to be an abuse of the system and you are making money at the tax payer expense.

Using drinkable water for other activities may not be a "an inarguably unethical activity" by itself. There are areas where water scarcity is not an issue and there may not be any demand for export from those areas.

runjake
Whenever I hear this argument, I wonder what the power consumption is for keeping fiat currency going.
muzani
Printing it costs energy. Storing it and transporting it costs energy. It seems similar to the argument that trucks create greenhouse gases, neglecting that horses were much worse.
JoeAltmaier
That's the 'ol false dichotomy. Sure we can have digital currency (in fact, the dollar is mostly digital already). We just don't have to burn 2% of the American energy budget calculating it via insanely expensive ways, when traditional methods can 'do digital' without that.
ironmagma
It seems quite likely though that we have way more trucks now than there ever were horses. Additionally, biological chemical reactions are typically much more efficient and precise than manmade ones.
muzani
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Great...

"This problem came to a head when in 1894, The Times newspaper predicted… “In 50 years, every street in London will be buried under nine feet of manure.”"

There's an xkcd joke that when a lot of people work really hard to solve a problem, people will assume it was never a problem in the first place. It's not just greenhouse gases, but... other forms of pollution as well. Not to mention horse carcasses - at least cars can get stripped down and recycled.

I don't think trucks are anywhere near this bad.

ironmagma
It's apples and oranges. Comparing the carbon emissions of a truck, as well as the significant airborne particles from the road being torn up by said truck[1] to a biological entity, probably producing more methane than CO or CO2. I recall hearing that weight's effect on a road's wear and tear is polynomial rather than linear, so trucks almost certainly lead to more air pollution than horses ever did. There are also a multitude of incredibly hazardous ingredients in tires, something that horses never had. [2]

[1] https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2017/06/22/murphys-law-how-trucks...

[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/artificial-turf-debate/rub...

cameron_b
set up a greenhouse to manage light, temperature and humidity, grow trees until they can be planted outside, sequester tons of carbon, save the world
leesalminen
Aquaponics system growing cannabis or other plants.
thorin
A lot of the UK is on rated water supply so based on the house size/value. This means that water is essentially free past a certain point, pressure is terrible though! The most popular way of wasting it seems to be watering the garden excessively although I got through quite of water filling the paddling pool during the summer. Many people added portable hot tubs/pools during covid!
keiferski
Sell prepaid plans to preppers. For a small monthly fee, we’ll keep X gallons of water for you, stocked and ready for delivery via drone if/when the collapse happens.

(Mostly just joking, but this might be a decent idea...)