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President of El Salvador Says He is Working To Offer Bitcoin Mining Facilities With Cheap, 100% Clean and Renewable Energy From Volcanos (twitter.com) 126

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Hours after El Salvador became the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, the nation's president -- Nayib Bukele -- has announced that he has instructed the state-owned geothermal electric company "to put up a plan to offer facilities for Bitcoin mining with very cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable, 0 emissions energy from our volcanos."
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President of El Salvador Says He is Working To Offer Bitcoin Mining Facilities With Cheap, 100% Clean and Renewable Energy From More

President of El Salvador Says He is Working To Offer Bitcoin Mining Facilities With Cheap, 100% Clean and Renewable Energy From

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  • Well well well (Score:3)

    by redmid17 ( 1217076 ) on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @01:14PM (#61470308)
    This whole shitshow keeps getting better and better. Gotta get BTC in the country before people can start using it because most of the people who could wouldn't spend it in country. The only way this thing doesn't end with a whimper or a bad bang is if this is just a trick to get cheap, clean geothermal energy coming into the country.

    • The Bitcoin angle gives this proposal publicity, but cheap electricity can be a big stimulus to many industries.

      If the electricity can be produced cost-effectively (I'm not claiming it can), there is no reason not to build the geothermal plants.

      El Salvador already gets about 20% of power from geo, one of the highest rates in the world. So they have the expertise.

      But 40% of power production is still based on fossil fuels, and many poor families are still cooking with coal and charcoal.

      • Re:Well well well (Score:4, Informative)

        by Areyoukiddingme ( 1289470 ) on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @03:22PM (#61470944)

        But 40% of power production is still based on fossil fuels, and many poor families are still cooking with coal and charcoal.

        Building a power plant is relatively easy. If not with native expertise, somebody somewhere in the world knows how to do it.

        Building a power grid in a frickin' jungle is HARD.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mspohr ( 589790 )

          Texas

        • You can't co-locate without also building the supporting infrastructure. You want to build a power plant on a volcano, fine. You'll also need to build a power grid if you're not going to co-locate the mining farm. You want to co-locate the mining farm, fine. You'll also need to build roads for access and provide internet.

          Building a grid is not as difficult as you make it seem. You need infrastructure and all infrastructure is hard in the jungle. The question is, do you spend a significant amount of money fo

      • I dunno... When I see "power from volcanos" I start looking for the sharks with frick'n lasers on their heads and the bald guy with his pinky finger in his mouth

        • +1 yeah, this.

        • Is this a Bjork joke I don't get?

          (Hint: Iceland has been running large amounts of geothermal energy production from it's volcanic landscape for a long time - decades at least. And it's not overrun with sharks with lasers on their heads.

          There are significant differences between implementing large scale geothermal in an andesite-trachyte volcanic province versus a basaltic province, but I'm sure the differences are manageable.

          • We have some geothermal power in California too... And I supposed it can be thought of as volcanic in origin, but it's super heated hot springs here.

            From what I understand about Iceland, it's similar there as well.

            El Salvador COULD be mistranslation to "volcanos", but who knows.

            But no, it's not a Bjork joke you're unaware of... It's a super-villain-secret-hideout-in-a volcano gag

            sigh

    • The only way this thing doesn't end with a whimper or a bad bang is if this is just a trick to get cheap, clean geothermal energy coming into the country.

      If it's a trick, it's a good trick. El Salvadorans use an average of somewhat less than 1000 kWh per year per capita. Even places like Albania use more than twice that. Iceland, at 30% geothermal, uses 50 times that per capita. A couple of large goethermal plants could considerably improve the standard of living in El Salvador.

      Of course, that won't happen because Bitcoin.

  • Charles Bukowski (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid [bitcoin shitposters] are full of confidence."

    - Charles Bukowski

  • How to accidentally enslave your children (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dmay34 ( 6770232 ) on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @01:25PM (#61470380)

    How to accidentally enslave your children.

    Let's say you live in a developing country with weak financial enforcement laws, and you owe some small debt. Maybe it's 100gs (gs being a fictional monetary unit in your nation). You don't have 100gs, so you need some help. You come talk to me.

    I tell you I can give you 100gs, no problem, but you are basically making a daily wage to feed an house your family as it is, you won't be able to pay me back. Ah, but you have a young strapping son that needs his first job. You've come to the right place. Tell you what, I'll front you 100gs, and I'll pay your son 1gs per day he works for me for 110 days. You can pay your tax debt, I get an employee, your son gets a job, and I make 10% interest. And then in 110 days we shake hands and are friends. Yeah, 1gs per day isn't much, but it's your son's first job, and it's only a short time.

    Win-Win. Everyone happy?

    Oh wait, one more little thing. Just a tiny little thing. I don't really want payment in gs, I want it in crypto X-coin. That's not really a big deal. Right now the gs to X-coin exchange is 10:1. That means that instead of 110 gs, you just pay me 11 X-coin. It's really the same thing.

    [fast forward 110 days].

    Good to see you again. I'm so happy your son worked for me. He was such a hard worker. Good lad you got there. Alright, let's settle up. Let's see, I loaned you 110 gs and you agreed to pay me 11 X-coin in return. Oh, dear. Oh dear. Yeah, when we first made this agreement the exchange rate was 10:1. But, you know how these things are, now it's 100:1. You only made enough to buy one X-coin.

    Your son will have to continue to work for me for the next 990 days, on 1gs per day. That's too bad.

    BUT! I'm a reasonable man and I don't want to see your situation get even WORSE! So let's agree to amend the contract and lock in this rate?

    Agreed?

    • Yep it's called company script. It was outlawed for a reason. There's a pretty famous song about it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dmay34 ( 6770232 )

        There are countries where it is still legal to do this, and many more that don't have the regulatory enforcement capabilities to go after people that do it illegally.

      • You load 16 tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go I owe my soul to the company store

      • But the techbrodudes keep trying to re-invent it, because they're "disruptors", and they can see a profit to be made, so they have the right to exploit it. Previous experience is always trumped by the techbrodude's "new shiny!"

    • Or they declare bankruptcy and you are left empty handed.

  • Not as smart as using this power to run folding@home or something actually productive to society, but not dumb.

    • By that reasoning why even contribute to Slashdot?

      • I didn't exactly have to build a super-villain style volcano lair at the expense of my entire civilization to accomplish that post.

        • You also haven't made the case that those options would actually benefit society. For example: What if the value of mining bitcoin caused the machines/power generation to get built, then after the mining's leveled off those cpu cycles can then be made available for other tasks INCLUDING what you're suggesting. The reason this is important: Nobody's going to build a volcano-powered mining rig for Folding @ Home.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by clovis ( 4684 )

      Not as smart as using this power to run folding@home or something actually productive to society, but not dumb.

      That's close to my question, which is if they have all that excess power capability, then why don't they do the mining of various crypto coins themselves?
      Th fundamental principle of distributed cypto is that anyone can join in and do it themselves.

  • this is probably par for course. Even though bitcoin's price can fluctuate 50% in a week or so, it's probably more stable than the local currency.

  • How could you not be all for that? Unless you're some sort of commie pinko child sex trafficking pizza parlor operator...

    Now if they could only harness the power of sunspots... the ultimate source of cheap, clean, renewable energy!

    • Well, it is going to take a significant number of virgins to appease the volcano gods, so they will probably need to talk to a commie pinko child sex trafficking pizza parlor operator at some point.

  • Who's going to pay the up front cost for the geothermal powerplants?

  • It's funny to see how many people are salty about BTC and crypto in general. Is it change? Is a digital currency too scary? Feel free to not use crypto, but more and more people are.

  • Could cold cities replace their traditional winter heating with bitcoin mining datacentres? They gotta produce loads of heat, perhaps enough to warm water distributed by heating plants? Or put them into shopping mall or office building basements and pump hot air directly to shops and offices above?
    I mean it doesn't make the idea of bitcoin any less stupid, but perhaps at least some aspect of it would provide real value.

  • So when will this idea be coming to Tropico 6? [steampowered.com]

  • Throw a virgin in from time to time, there are lots of those.

    • Throw a virgin in from time to time, there are lots of those.

      Yeah, you seem to miss how human motivations work. If you kill all only virgins then the virgins will be highly motivated to not be virgins. You know, like paying for the service. It's been known to happen.

      Also, can't you find something else to plug the hole?

  • if anyone's looking for a stable, risk-free investment strategy, consider a bitcoin mine off the side of a volcano

  • Volcanos emit all sorts of nasty, toxic fumes, and an erupting volcano puts more garbage in the air in one day than probably all the jet aircraft on the planet put in the air for a YEAR.
    • It's not the raw emissions which matter; it's the relative change in emissions in response to whatever change you make. In this case, the volcano is going to spew out all that garbage regardless of whether or not you attach a power plant to it. So the power you get from it is net emissions-free. (Unless the power plant somehow causes the volcano to spew out more gases and toxic fumes.) In fact, if the geothermal power you get this way allows you to shutter some fossil fuel plants, then the net effect is a

    • That's what the term "zero emissions" really means.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by robbak ( 775424 )
      Firstly, you are wrong - volcanic emissions are negligible on the global scale. Air travel still beats it.

      And, geothermal plants are not volcanoes. They are closed cycle, and don't emit anything. They pump some liquid down into the hot earth, bringing the heat to the surface. Then use the fluid to boil something (sometimes the transfer fluid itself, sometimes water, sometimes propane), which turns a turbine. After that that gas is cooled down and condenses to return back to be boiled again.

      Other plants make

  • Since bitcoin is legal tender there now, and they are inviting people to mine (create) the bitcoin in the country, don't the miners act like a central bank, creating more cash over time?

  • When some nation claims they can get 100% carbon free energy half of Slashdot readers can't wait to point out how if they can do it so can everyone else. Wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, and tidal power are all dependent on climate and geography.

    There's also the problem of energy density. These energy sources require a lot of land to get enough energy. They also require a lot of material for building the machines that collect the energy. If the energy is intermittent then there needs to be storage. Stor

    • Except we only have 130 years of uranium at current usage rates.

      Expand nuclear and you end up with even less.

      I am sure you are going to reply with a magic tech like breeder reactors or thorium or seawater extraction. But none of those are commercial yet.

      And you just look at land area. How does the calculations work with money instead of land.

      If I put a bunch of wind turbines on a farm is it far to use the whole farm as the area or just the area taken up by the turbines and associated infrastructure

      • Except we only have 130 years of uranium at current usage rates.

        Expand nuclear and you end up with even less.

        I am sure you are going to reply with a magic tech like breeder reactors or thorium or seawater extraction. But none of those are commercial yet.

        The supply issue is mentioned here: https://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/... [blogspot.com]

        The number of years of uranium supply being 130, 40, or how every many years makes assumptions on prices and production. The amount of uranium and plutonium available for fuel in our weapons stockpile is vast. We would have 130 years to develop the technology to produce more fuel, use the fuel we have more efficiently, or develop some completely different energy source.

        There is no magical thinking involved here to believe that we will n

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by catprog ( 849688 )

          --- How much uranium is their compared to consumption

          https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/... [oecd-nea.org]

          Table 1.2c (page 22) 8 million tons of uranium recoverable

          Table 2.5 (page 95) 60 thousand tons used annually.

          That is 133 years.

          --- Nuclear weapons stockpile

          https://www.tandfonline.com/do... [tandfonline.com]
          At the beginning of 2019, the US Department of Defense maintained an estimated stockpile of 3,800 nuclear warheads

          Even if they had 10 tons each of nuclear material that is still only 38 thousand tons.

          --- How much more consumption is need

          • How much mining needs to be done to build those batteries, windmills, and solar panels? How much mining needs to be done to build nuclear power plants, and to get the fuel for them? I pointed that out already, it will take an order of magnitude or three more mining for wind, solar, and storage than for nuclear power.

            You did show that it will be hard to mine the uranium for nuclear power. What you did not show is that it will be easier to mine the materials needed for an energy policy that leaves out nucl

  • I was wondering if this was just a sudden "we got volcanoes let's make electricity" boondoggle, and it's not. They've already been doing geothermal there for decades [youtube.com].

    The only question then is whether or not there are other un-tapped fields that need to be developed. It's an open question, but since they've already developed some fields there it seems plausible that they've surveyed some others and just need to build new plants to tap them, or that they know they can get more power from existing fields.

    Bet

  • I didn't realize El Salvador still existed. Amazing. How?

  • Unfortunately, though, it does come with the risk that one of the cartels who run the country will throw YOU into the volcano.

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