Topic: crazy idea: use bitcoin to fund construction of a solar/wind/etc power plant - page 3. (Read 3854 times)

Great idea, the best way to fund this type of venture would be via BitPools. http://www.bitpools.com
People pooling their bitcoins toward a common goal.

Well, alternative energy is interesting. If raising enough money, and being dedicated enough, a setup where you purchase land near a river, and have a broadband connection, you could very well have a nice operation going.

So the expenses would be:

1. Turbine in the river.
2. Wiring + batteries ?
3. Mining machines
4. Computer equipment, server room - cooling?
5. Solar and/or wind in addition?
6. Broadband connection
7. Living costs.
8. Buying land / apartment

Perhaps a cold climate would be best? I would think readymade solutions for water turbines are not too cheap, so perhaps a hobbyist could make one himself. Also, one must take into account maintenance. Moving parts will sooner or later go kaput, and need to be replaced, so spare parts must be on the premises so downtime will never be too long.

Also you need to take into account whether the water stream is suitable, is it strong enough to produce any meaningful amount of electricity, and is there seasonal variables?

The income could be, not all might apply:
1. Blogging about the adventure, getting money from ads. (likely not too much)
2. Writing guides for others wanting to do the same (moderate)
3. Have a gift shop online selling t-shirts with the projects logo.
4. Having tours at the facilities, for a small cost.
5. Selling surplus electricity to the local electricity company?
6. Mining bitcoins and/or other alt currencies.
7. Selling bitcoins, perhaps even at a premium for cash?

If you make a serious effort, I'm sure people would back you. The project could be dubbed 'the bitcoin turbine project' or similar. Very interesting.

If you are holding enough amount of bitcoin, you have to convert to fiat to invest in building such power plants. If you have fiat cash, you don't need to bother to convert that cash to bitcoin. It is not question of using bitcoin as investing capital. If you are really having expertise at this, probably you can put this project in IPO, I thinks many peple are interested.

There exist readymade solutions where you could put a turbine or two in a river, and harvest the power. Of course, this would have a budget. Solar panels might have a toxic production process, so maybe they're not that environmental friendly when you look at the whole picture.

Is this a serious project? What's your expertise and background?

we all know about wind and solar and other sustainable power systems. we'd all love to operate our mining rigs off them too. well, let's discuss what it would ACTUALLY take to do, even if only at small scale.

site selection, construction costs, operating costs, tying into the grid to sell the power we didn't use for the hosted mining farms...

i mean, collectively we certainly have a chunk of money. let's consider putting some to use!

think about it: there's plenty of business hosting mining rigs. all that comes down to is cost of electricity and rent. so we use our power plant and the land it's on to host mining farms. then any extra power, we sell to the local grid.

or maybe just skip the hosted mining and stick to building a power plant. "you used your bitcoins to do WHAT?"