Topic: El Salvador launches first volcano-powered mining project (Read 263 times)

El Salvador is a small country with a very modest carbon footprint, so they don't even have to focus on being more environmentally friendly, but it's wonderful that they're doing it anyway. Of course, a lot of countries don't have geothermal energy, but El Salvador is showing how focusing on efficient usage of available resources can have a positive impact.
I hope this mining project will be successful and that it will truly be beneficial to the citizens of El Salvador. I suppose that also largely depends on BTC price.

It seems that I have confused between Switzerland and Iceland. In a previous quote, the talk was about Iceland, not Switzerland, and I was confused because the pronunciation of the two words in my mother tongue (Arabic) is very similar.
For Iceland, these indicators show its ability to benefit from different energy sources based on population size and consumption rates. For El Salvador, the matter raises many other problems, including the fact that the country already suffers from a lack of energy supplies through available means. The comment above gives concrete evidence of the failure of these strategies, given that those implementing them are politicians and not specialists.

They reached the pinnacle of success by generating energy from volcanoes in El Salvador. Because this volcanic geothermal part has been created since 2021 by the initiative to accept Bitcoin by legal tender. This project will be able to use them for economic development, and there are many sources of renewables to use for Bitcoin mining. The country of El Salvador has become known as one of the countries in the world to generate this renewable energy and to launch the project. Full credit goes to Nayib Bukele as he has taken the initiative to implement all these projects and put in a lot of hard work.

Building such an infrastructure and gathering the necessary equipment will not be that easy. A country full of crime and corruption will have a hard time getting this done. I think you are right about them selling the ideas that sound innovative. That energy source is natural so the infrastructure and maintenance costs will be the only ones that they need to bear. In return we will get a power source for bitcoin mining with nominal cost for producing eletricity. A positive outcome is expected but not all the countries have an active volcano.

I have the same thought in mind. This could be a cover for a lot of opportunities they are trying to sell us, the idea is very innovative yet it would cost 0 to build the source, just the infrastructures and equipment around it. I think what they are trying to do is sell the idea to other country, they just need to prove it with the numbers after a year or so. If that's the case then they are ready in the next few years to be adopted. El Salvador has been very positive with crypto we all know that, and I guess some countries are making their own innovation around crypto in discreet manner.

My question is what impact would it inflict in coming years for the bitcoin economy? would it change positively or the other way around?

First things first, this is first of all a political project, led by a politician, who has expiration in his decision-making power, he is not a CEO, who, unlike the politician, depends on his macro and micro-economic results to determine the continuity of the project and even your position in the position.

The numbers here serve the experts, but not the politicians, who are interested above all in "executing" and then evaluating, the political price is essential in a project that is measured in the results over time, so if the generation is "1kW" it does not matter if it is +150KW.

Yes, for many they may result in inconsistencies, but that's how "political" things are done, and although Bukele is a guy who has proven to be a good "manager" in his government, he has not been exempt from "mistakes" by his advisors, He makes decisions, it happened with Chivo Wallet, the platform was launched ahead of time, in a hurry, etc.

Now, as I said, from a political point of view, he has been moving within the time limits that govern his mandate, and in fact a re-election does not guarantee anything, but for a politician to have all his promises active before the end of his term is vital for his political career.

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PUBLISHED OCT 1 2021
El Salvador has just started mining bitcoin using the energy from volcanoes

El Salvador has mined 0.00599179 bitcoin, 
or about $269, with power harnessed from a volcano,
in a first for the country.

^{Source:https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/01/el-salvador-just-started-mining-bitcoin-with-volcanoes-for-the-first-time-ever-and-theyve-already-made-269.html}

PUBLISHED OCT 04, 2023
El Salvador launches first Bitcoin mining pool as Volcano Energy partners with Luxor

The first phase of the Volcano Energy project involves the construction
 of a 241-megawatt (MW) renewable energy park in Metapán
 that will comprise 169 MWs of photovoltaic solar energy and 72 MWs of wind power. 

^{Source:https://cointelegraph.com/news/el-salvador-first-bitcoin-mining-pool-volcano-energy-luxor (OP)}

Switzerland is 2/3 hydro and 1/3 nuclear so I doubt they are planning any kind of experiment, don't know who you quote but it's probably another article overexaggerating things.

If we talk about Iceland it's simple you have a country 5 times the size of Salvador with 20 times less population, it's like saying why Lichentestein doesn't have the same problems with highways or trying to apply a Singapore infrastructure model to the US. We're talking about 600MW potential from geothermal for 6 million in Salvador, Switzerland has 9 million and an installed nuclear capacity of 2400MW!

Now, making a Bitcoin mining comparison, Salvador has 151 MW of geothermal, Riot alone uses right now around 370 MW.


Prices of ASICs are in $ and not by PPP, so assuming Salvador would target 1% of the hashrate to earn $250 000 a day let's see how they're going to come up with 80 million to buy the gear required for that since their whole Bitcoin purchases Bukele made so much fuss about were not even half of that. This is Bitfury and Georgia once again, a few are going to make a shitload of cash while the others are going to look at the electricity bill and ask themselves why it's twice as it was before!

Can we understand from this that relying on this source of energy may not be as effective as required to solve some of the problems of energy production? One of them mentioned that Switzerland has been relying on similar technologies for two years, without providing details. If the experiment was successful, why is it not generalized, and if it was ineffective, why was it adopted?
Mining is one of the most energy-consuming sectors, and it will never be beneficial to rely on unguaranteed solutions. I do not imagine that El Salvador is doing this only as an experiment.

they were only introduced into bitcoin in summer 2021 and made it legislation for bitcoin to be legal tender in september 2021 where they first trialed(were bamboozled into trying) LN as the side screw-over pretending to be a bitcoin rail(trial failed due to LN liquidity bottlenecks(no surprise)). they mentioned plans to start a geothermal mining operation but plans take time to become physical buildings running asics

I also think this is a promotional piece for the country to attract more tourist and more bitcoiners as well because those bitcoiners can bring more money and businesses to the country than it would ever be able to create on its own.

When I read articles like that it reminds me of the plan for a bitcoin city in El Salvador that we saw a few years ago. They even made a beautiful model that will remain a model for another decade. That's unless bitcoin goes to a million dollars in that time, then maybe they'll be able to afford it, but at that point they'll have more pressing matters to invest into, like these power plants we're talking about and a bitcoin city will continue to be a dream.

I appreciate the use of a green energy source here which is geothermal which I assume can be a lot cheaper and of course less polluting to the environment. I also live in an area where we are getting our power from geothermal and I know our rates here are not the same with areas having different sources. Now, El Salvador has this geothermal potential so there is no hindrance of using it for good. I understand that this is just the start of the project and will still has to reach its peak potential so let's leave it as it is and wish it more success.

Werent they suppose to make this launch a few years ago? I think during the 2021 bull market and then it got cancelled or post poned for some reason?

I guess its good that they are doing something good with the volcano energy. Shows that bitcoin can be renewable and even though the profits are small to some, they are large to a country like El Salvador. The expenses are most likely not that large since its a developing country with cheap supplies and labour. So they are on the right path. Hopefully they keep expanding their volcano mining project and make bitcoin even more decentralized. This is great to hear.

The good thing is now people who don't like Bitcoin because using dirt energy can see that it is actually progress by using renewable energy. I remember Elon said to start accepting Bitcoin again on Tesla when he figured out how much Bitcoin mined using renewable energy.

Indonesia also started to ramp up the production of geothermal energy since very abundant here

But Iceland has 300k population while Salvador has 6 million and just 650 MW potential, being currently a net electricity importer.

Might sound nice on paper but when you're building a gas-powered plant that will burn imported LNG to produce energy
https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/projects/acajutla-lng-power-plant/
while diverting geothermal to bitcoin miners some locals will not really be that happy about that deal.


Because of the above  
Even if they would explore everything they have they won't be able to get enough energy, so this whole thing is just another gimmick, you can't pay millions for importing electricity from Guatemala, have a whole damn FSRU ship pumping expensive LNG to power up a powerplant, have the local pay 14 cents per kwh while subsidizing a mining company to actually make money (so at most 6 cents per kwh) and call it being efficient economically.

They tried once two years ago and we haven't heard anything about the magical 200MW well, this will be the same.

emphasise the ACTIVE volcano and think about why people dont build houses near volcanoes and then think of the risk of putting buildings like power plants near it

This makes the issue even more strange to me, because if volcanoes are capable of providing clean energy that can be used in mining (one of the most energy-consuming sectors), then why are they not talked about as a source of renewable energy to solve the dilemmas of other sectors? I still do not know the costs of construction and launch, so I cannot conclude how feasible this is. Despite this, this will be a promising sector for many countries, especially those located in areas of active volcanoes. This encourages me to research the topic more.

hydro requires large reservoirs (pressured water)
solar requires large fields of sun facing land
geothermal requires locations near high temperature underground layers(volcano hotspots)*

geothermal can work all day/night and even when its cloudy or there is a drought. problem is how many volcanos/hotspots are there on the planet

many hotspots however usually also have nature preserve or health and safety boundaries (eg yellowstone park)

*as your link shows even if russia dug 12,000metres, they still found liquid(not vapourised(not steam)) water meaning even digging 12,000 there is no guarantee to heat water from the ground in any random spot

also worth noting that boreholes are not clean, withe the millions of layers of dirt, sediment, decomposed vegetation, etc.. the borehole may breakthrough gas, oil deposits which can contaminate the underground water system which then spews out contaminants into the atmosphere which is why geothermal is only best in near surface level hotspots instead of multiple KM deep boreholes

They were duly earned if you ask me because although I don't know @franky1 that well, but I know he's frugal with his merit gifting. 
 A lot of things. Geothermal energy is a stable energy that doesn't depend on wind or sun, it has low visual impact and doesn't generate emissions,it doesn't take up too much land. And with a country with a total land area of 21,040km², it's something worth considering. And El Salvador are the ones first harness these benefits.
 I feel Bukele's efforts at putting them on the world map is gradually yielding results if you ask me.

Congratulations to El-Savador for relentless efforts towards making incessant achievements with bitcoin adoption, the whole world already know that they have set the pace for others to follow, it has always been a better day than ever since their bitcoin adoption, not only by going with the virtue of adoption alone, but the whole increase it has brought towards the economy development in El-Savador and how the people's lives have been changed for better through diverse opportunities that comes with bitcoin adoption.


With this alone, there's not going to be more dependency on the electric power supply needed in bitcoin mining when this source is fully utilized, we are going green with bitcoin mining and energy requirements, this will not only serve as El-Savador benefits but the world at large in exploring more opportunities for energy source as alternatives.

You may be first person to give me 50 merits for a post.

I do wonder just how much we could do with geothermal energy.  When I was a kid in the 1960's I used to read Tom Swift books.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swift

I particularly like this one:


Tom Swift and His Atomic Earth Blaster.


Tom Swift and his Atomic Earth Blaster
The Atomic Earth Blaster is an automated tunneling machine. Tom builds a prototype version that uses mechanical cutters to grind up rocks and dirt before progressing to the final model that uses atomic energy to vaporize rock. The Atomic Earth Blaster is used to drill down to a molten layer of iron deep beneath the earthís crust.


 Years later Russia copied the idea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole