Bitcoin Forum

This is a stretch but the basic idea is this: I want to build a small self-reliant automated low-maintenance "computing center" in the confines of an estate in the country side, 30km away from my city. It looks like this:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-P48rGMh4zrg/Se3HdsglKlI/AAAAAAAAJiA/3gDOoO4Su5s/s720/gradina.jpg

It's a panoramic HDR rendering, as you can see it's pretty sunny.

The catch of the project is: solar and wind power only. Assumption: Bitcoins can be sold for more than the cost to produce.

I want to come by weekly and bring supplies, perform some maintenance and exchange hardware as needed. The project would first use some solar panels that could generate up to 2kW of power, a similar power rating wind turbine, lots of batteries, maybe a backup petrol generator, inverters, monitoring and control systems, cooling systems, and 2-3 rigs doing a total of 1200-1500 Mhash/s. I estimated the costs of such an operating cell to be at around 1$/W for the solar and wind capacities (so over 5000$ for the power generators, associated install costs), 1500$ for the video cards, 500$ for the PCs and accessories, and the rest for up to 10.000$, including some controllers, a control box, GPRS internet installation, inverters, etc.

Also, I forgot to mention, Romania, 45 degrees latitude, temperamental weather (-20C snowy winters .. +40C dry summers), cloud cover ~35%, wind speeds ~38kmph (24 mph).

The project should not require any extra costs, be modular and upgradeable/downgrade-able for the next 5 years. I can replace the cards as needed, even increase capacity later and so on. The hardware should already be purchased second hand, or if new it should be resold as it becomes less than optimal in 2-3 years.

At current bitcoin prices, it should make around 16$ a day, or 5840$ a year, if the bitcoin market_price/production_cost ratio remains the same. The advantage: no power costs. In case it fails, I would recover 70-80% of the costs in the first year by selling out all the hardware. If it succeeds, I could get back three times the investment cost in 5 years or continuously increase it's capacity by selling the bitcoin and retaining it's value in hardware.

Would anyone be interested in following/improving/implementing/working on such a project?

How much will it cost to build the walls?

We consider the re-purposing of an existing shack, using the existing underground den or indeed creating a new one-room building or underground den for security against entry and the elements (something around 1000$ would be sufficient with local materials and workforce). This is something I need to think about, as good thermal insulation is required as well as maybe a separating air frame (indirect cooling/ventilation) to prevent humidity and dust/bugs from entering the housing.

Also, I forgot to mention, Romania, 45 degrees latitude, temperamental weather (-20C snowy winters .. +40C dry summers), cloud cover ~35%, wind speeds ~38kmph (24 mph).

cool project
keep us up to date

Bitcoin bunker? Very cool project. Can you post a BTC address for donations?

i think it would be more profitable to build self contained, self powered mining modules that connect using wifi :P

nice idea, IMO.
p.s.
north Europe[including Russian part]expect data-center boom in future ;)

TO THE BITCOIN BUNKER!... that sounds like a cool idea to focus on. If the project starts anytime soon, I'll ask for donations for hosting and maintaining the sub-community dedicated to such endeavors. I will most likely start on the documentation and prototyping of the system by next month, I'm waiting to see if bitcoin can gracefully handle the popularity down-slope from the recent events and press, my current assumption is the long-term investment stability.

Yes, I thought about making low-power long-term autonomous mining "bird houses", the main issue with those is there are not many hardware devices that can handle the role, either they use little power but need 20 years to pay off the hardware (by which time they basically break down), or the cost is too prohibitive for a device that could be jacked in two hours. Mining rigs hardware pays for itself in less than two months on the other hand... and having both redundant and centralized components allows for balancing efficiency.

I am sure this will happen, there are many fortune aspiring young lads that could ride on the recent natural resources boom in the Eurasian area.

With the current hostility going on (DDoS attacks on pools, accounts being hacked and BTC stolen, speculation driving the price around like crazy...) you surely need a guard on watch 24/7 that can thwart any invaders. If you "only" use an alarm system, by the time you get there all your precious hardware will be gone or just blown to smithereens.

I'd like to do something similar.

doubt you'll have excess power, but could also sell to power co.

would include mesh wifi, tor, i2p, freenet, pirate box, and maybe a thing-o-matic.

donation linke between "mine" contains donation addy.

Presumably I would have some form of remote desktop control, video surveillance and hire a local to investigate things on demand (when he is not drunk out of his mind). Damn it, now I need to think about backup uplinks and remote controlled locks.

Common wisdom would be to use this location only for mining, any pool (personal or public) payments could be diverted to dormant wallets stored securely somewhere or everywhere. In case of break-in, they would just loot or destroy the hardware.

Can you not grow poppies there instead? lol

I don't use drugs, and nobody in my family or circle of friends does, it would be useless for me. And a field of ripe poppy seeds one hour away from my home surrounded by poor peasants that desperately need money to drink so badly they break any laws possible would not be a wise idea. Plus I think they're regulated, civilians can't grow plants with traces of drugs in them, you need a special permit.

Sorry, "Lol" is english slang for "I'm not being serious".

Nobody who uses opium would have the motivation to plant, harvest, and process poppy plants.

I think solar + bitcoin is a beautiful combination.

<-- Solar expert. No really, it's what I do for a living.

It's a nice idea. Just remember how much power a mining setup consumes every day though. If you're serious about it, I'd be willing to help with your remewable energy system design. I can help with wiring diagrams, system design, installation recommendations, etc. I have many years of experience putting systems together.

How many BTC for a 1 KW panel setup, inverter, and charging controller?

Yeah, gotta love Romanian peasants! ;D (My wife grew up in Romania, so it's not that I'm xenophobic or anything...)

Sorry if I sounded too negative before, actually it's a beautiful idea and I'm actually dreaming of my own solar powered mining farm, but I just wanted to caution you against an unmanned shack somewhere that could easily be torn apart if nobody watched for a couple of days.

I consulted some "solar maps" and for this specific region and a typical 1Wp silicon monocrystaline cell, I would get during daytime about 1W in the winter and 4W in the summer, at a 45 degrees orientation. This works well for the summer, but for the winter I would get less than half my needed capacity. I guess it works out if I consider the cooling costs of running in the summer, and I can throttle my energy usage during the night. Thanks for the interest, I'll look you up when I'll start designing this.

not much snow in Romania in winter?[sorry for asking, buy i never been in Romania "in person"]
if so, update solar panels with cleaning machinery and/or use snow-proof installation[cost some power efficiency, usually].
or try diversify power supply between TYPES of generation, like add few vertical wind turbines or even build geothermal power station[thats more expensive, but have longer TTL].

It's similar to Chicago in weather, if you live in the USA. I intend to use a steel mesh net to protect against large diameter hale (very rare, but very large), and for snow I have to either wait for the sun to shine long enough to melt the snow (remember that the cells absorb photon energy, even visible rays have a heating effect) or use a flipping mount which can rotate to dust off the snow from time to time. As explained in the first post, wind turbines are needed since they're cheap and low maintenance and I have plenty of space to plant them.

I know there will be extremes (like cloudy snowy but calm winter days and very bright and windy summer days) and I can only hope to level those off with some batteries, emergency grid hopping or even using a petrol generator in case of black-outs. I don't know yet if it's more important to run at higher capacity and shut down when out of power, or gradually reduce usage to have uninterrupted uptime.

wind power?  how are those rare earth metals environmentally concious?
just sayin...

Because they are dug out of the ground using chariots pulled by dolphins!

It's probably not a good idea to put a mesh over them full time. It will definitely reduce your output by shading the cells. Any crystalline module (the ones most commonly available) will have greatly reduced output with only part of one cell shaded. It has to do with the way each cell works and the fact that they are connected in series. I would suggest that you only cover them when absolutely necessary. Most name-brand glass-faced panels are rated for hailstones up to 1 inch diameter. I don't know what size hail you get there, but if it's larger than that and relatively infrequent, covering them only when there's a chance of hail will get you better ROI than having a mesh over them.

As for snow, it's much easier to use a snow rake than to tip panels around when they're covered in heavy snow. Also more cost effective than buying movable mounts.
See here for a low cost snow rake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG0ipbXxfZs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG0ipbXxfZs)

I was thinking about chicken wire, it's not that bad, it only cuts out some of the incident light, and adds protection against floating debris and birds.

http://besidethestream.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/achick42.jpg

Remember I won't be on-location to keep things clean all the time. We had hailstones of over 4 inches once. Again, very rare, but very large. Usually it's no bigger than a nail but we had a year where half the village experienced see-through roofs after a storm. As for the snow, maybe a few small mirrors mounted near the top of the panels could be enough to create a melting spot.

I already have some lower quality ones, or I'll use some recycled alternator parts or something. I will promise you to keep away from buying new shiny Chinese neodymium magnets :D

so, you can cross-out solar-power as power supply options in that OTX/Region.
thats why you shouldn't be surprised by "natural resources boom" as much as anyone need power and comfort as well as engineering power, need for both this power creation, and other technical options in different areas of human activity.
this all and cheap energy&cold climate make Russia far more interesting option as well as Scandinavian countries.

Interesting project

yep.
pack it with AMD/SUN/HP/Siemens "datacenter in container" concept/products, backup by small termoelectric power[geothermal or nuke-powered], deploy/build/re-cycle underground shelter for it and here you go.

If large hail is really that much of a concern, I suggest using panels like this:

http://www.mostpowerfulroof.com (http://www.mostpowerfulroof.com)

They have nothing to break with any size hailstone, and are flexible. You can walk on them, you can mount them to a curved surface, and they are easier to install because you can just "stick" them to a surface, as opposed to building a structure or rack specifically for your solar panels.

Apparently they are hard to find and cost about 10$/W. I know they are quantum-dot thin layer polymer dyes, but they do not bring the efficiency high enough to explain why the custom built panels cost only 1$/W.

Seems like an even less profitable endeavor than simply mining in a place that already has walls, internet, and electricity. Not only do you have to pay for the hardware like other miners, but you have to build a place, pay large up front costs per kW to set up solar and wind generation.

If you are efficient, 2kW  will get you around 1,100 (+ or - $200) a month, but that rate will only last for the first 10 days starting now. By the time you got this set up it would probably be more like $300/month in revenue. But you'd have dropped like 5 - 8K in setting it up. It would take you two or more years to break even at today's exchange rate. Then you'd have to pay for internet, and gas to go there every couple of weeks. I'm sure there are other random costs as well that haven't been mentioned yet. The only way this makes any sense is if you plan to hold the bitcoins in hopes that the price increases.

This is an awesome idea and I would love to see it happen. However, I'm not sure it's cost-effective. Definitely would not be in the short term. May not be in the long-term, depending on what the market does, but I guess that's the risk we're all taking here. Assuming Bitcoin doesn't die, and assuming the cost of running this operation really is $0 (no property taxes or internet fees?) then I imagine this operation would eventually become somewhat profitable. May be worth doing it for its own sake. Would have to be if you did it, since you'd see much bigger returns sooner by simply buying bitcoins with the money or investing in a solid company.

On the positive side you'd definitely be able to weather the inevitable mining squeezes.

Realistically, it is not a money making endeavor to supply power with renewable energy. Bomba's calculations may be a bit off in cost and in payback for a system of this scale, but I like to think of it as more of a fun project than a money making one. And honestly, unless you're using homemade solar panels and used/homemade pretty much everything else, you're probably looking at a fair bit more money to set up. To do it properly, at least.

For a more economical solution, you could look at doing a grid-tie system without batteries. This affords you the electricity savings of whatever you generate, plus the convenience of having grid power when your renewables are not producing enough to keep up with the load. The grid effectively "is your battery".

Okay, as long as there are no illusions.  :)


+1

To answer your concerns, no property taxes, the internet would be something like 10-20$ a month (GPRS/EDGE 1-5Gb at 2Mb/s), purchase most of the stuff as "used" but still relatively new, including solar panels, wind turbines, equipment, batteries, PC boards and accessories except the PSUs of course. Except for the batteries, everything else that is in good shape can be resold for about 80% of it's acquisition price in less than 2 years. Also the alternative energy equipment can be subsidized and remain in the possession of the owner. As for the costs, solar cells are about 1$/W (make it 2$/W for the extras you need around them), a wind turbine varies greatly from 1$/W to 5$/W and batteries are 3$/Wh. Solar panels offer a great output during the day, none at night, and the wind varies dramatically (luckily it will be present when the sun isn't). The batteries allow me to level off usage and create less stress on the components. Part of why this seems attractive to me is that I won't basically need cooling costs or they will be very little. Some other bitcoin users might participate in trading with me, or use parts of my projects, or I use parts of theirs.

I assume I will get 2.0Mhash/J boards, and with the efficiency losses and common energy drains we can assume 1.0Mhash/J. So for a 1000W solar (output from 500W a day to 2000W a day), 1000W wind (realistically 300W to 700W a day), a battery bank of about 1000Wh, I get to pay 5000$ for an average output of 800-1000W daily. Current power costs are 0.13$/kWh, and are scheduled to increase (thanks e-on). I would be spending 84$ a month to use the power grid, so I need 5 years to recoup the investment, after that I get free energy for the next 15 years. This is of course assuming that the bitcoin project is running and I can sell bitcoins for more than they cost to make. Worst case scenario, I lose 20-30% of my investment and 100% of my hobby time. Best case scenario, the bitcoin parity for market/production ratio remains at 10:1 and I can recoup the investment in half a year.

http://awesomescreenshot.com/0e9eyoo9b

There are no sell-back plans or arrangements available with the power company, not many people have stable alternative energy sources. There might be funds or programs or bonuses for implementing ecological projects like this. I could use the GPU power for other projects if they have decent rewards. The time when bitcoin will increase the world's power usage significantly will come. I'm also covered in case of a zombie apocalypse or economic meltdown.

All in all I want to be the guy that answers the question: Well bitcoin is just made out of thin air, right? YES, that is correct!

Maybe you could even sell your Bitcoins at a premium like "sun-grown" oranges. ;)
"Sure, they cost 50% more than what you would pay at Mt. Gox but mine were mined without releasing CO2!"

Nice project!  :D

I love this idea.I hope to create an "eco-generator" which consists of battery banks,solar,wind turbine plus a diesel backup generator run on used veg oil (as there's no way I'm payin 4 diesel)

I duno how I'm gonna go about it but it'll b complex I think as this intergrates a switcher between solar,wind and a diesel generator to charge the battery banks which then go through an inverter to run my gear.

I design these systems for a living. I would trade my services for btc. :D

The problem with the generator is it's power is 10 times more costly than grid power. Burning a different octane fuel will require more maintenance. I think I'll pass the generator and instead use graceful degradation (lower power usage by underclocking/stopping the miners/shutting down components) and resume performance when energy is generated. Don't forget if you run out of battery power, you will lose heat from the GPUs and your batteries might freeze (at -15C or lower) because they will be discharged.

Also, another trend is solar panels micro-inverters (for each panel, you get the bonus of smart monitoring) which means you need to add more stuff and decrease conversion rates.

Does this include designing and helping me make blue prints if needed?

I can help with:
- Conceptual development
- System design
- Component selection
- Blueprints no, wiring diagrams yes.
- You will need to observe the regulations of your local electrical code and ensure that the end design falls within them. For the most part, these systems would meet local and national electrical codes by themselves.

This sounds like a very cool project! Following.

I guess it would be wise to set things up in such a way that it's self-booting, just in case some freak weather keeps the energy sources bellow minimum for too long and the whole thing dries off and shuts down; so instead of having to go there in person to pump up the breakers again at risk of being ambushed by raptors, the whole thing will automaticly get back at work as soon as possible.

This looks very interesting.  ;D I was thinking about something similar over here, given the fact that I pay very little on electricity in general, so I could use the grid as I set up all the solar panels and start mining ASAP, but the aggressive difficulty increase took me by surprise, sadly, and I began to question the profitability of my little project.  :( Doesn't help much that I wasn't an "early adopter", either. So I decided it was wise to back up. But if this does work, well, it'll be amazing.

Some of us could do with some equipment like that, let us know when you are NOT around, have you added in the cost of potentially having your kit stolen.

Have you thought about using biodiesel from USED Veg oil ( Carbon Neutral )  and a diesel generator, many restaurants will gove you this free since they have to pay to have it disposed of.
Not sure of the numbers but anyone running a serious mining operation might want to look into using waste veg oil and a ( preferably whisper quiet ) Generator.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOFbsaNeZps

A few issues with remote locations in the full force of the nature:
- very hot summer days could create ambient temperatures of over 35C, this is the air that is used to ventilate, you don't want to cook everything inside, especially the batteries
- lead batteries freeze at -15C if they are discharged, you need to know ahead of time if the charge won't go below 20% overnight while you operate at temperatures that converge to -15C, you don't want to freeze anything
- a controller is needed to manually or automatically shut down everything from the main breaker box, including power sources, battery bank and inverters, in case of extreme heat, equipment issues, etc
- same controller needs to be able to power up everything, for example after a power drain, when the sun or wind has charged the battery bank sufficiently to allow minimal operation (this controller needs it's own battery and internet connection, could easily be a small netbook with large battery)
- several sensors, software and calculations, to allow for graceful degradation of compute power or increase in performance if power is over capacity (think overclocking everything and turning the fans to the max)

In theory you only lose your time and equipment value loss, energy is free, NOBODY can be more efficient than you in mining. Currently some people are fudging over the market value because of their devious acts, and taking a good chunk of the honest market down with them. If the situation does not resolve itself (aka, before July the BTC should be above 35$), new mining projects should be put on hold.

I intend to have automated surveillance and a stand-by guard near-by (he already checks the property daily anyway, I could raise his allowance to include the project too). So no, you won't know where the installation will be located, and you won't be able to loot it. And even if you do, you will get 2000-3000$ worth of equipment.

Used vegetable oil is not Bullshit Neutral, I already explained some of the issues:
- diesel generators using petrol would cost 10x the grid cost, not really efficient
- diesel generators using non-designed fuels either decay their engines or require more cleaning and maintenance
- vegetable oil is made from vegetables which besides making these rich carbohydrates count up for a large amount of their mass also produce fiber and cellulose that can't be used and use some of the energy for growth, reproduction and dead tissue, you get less than 10-15% of a plant's mass in oil.
- best vegetables have solar > body mass conversion rates for the photosynthesis process of 2-3%
- solar panels have efficiencies of up to 20-30% compared to vegetables for the same surface
- vegetable oil requires processing costs, transportation and storage

In conclusion, vegetable oil is terribly inefficient (less than 0.2%)  compared to directly sucking the sun rays into a GPU with efficiencies of over 10%.

Not sure if want...

I'll add it to the list of ideas, in case I start a separate project website for this.

Also, is anyone selling Chinese made monocrystaline solar cells for bitcoins? Should be cheap to send to Romania. Do note you have to beat these prices: http://www.okazii.ro/cautare/monocristaline+solare.html (1$/W inc shipping).

I've been looking at solar power for my home recently, and have found its often much cheaper to lease solar systems rather than to buy them. This could help reduce your start up costs. Most solar companies don't collect their systems after the lease ends, instead they either let you keep it or let you buy it for very very cheap. After the lease period (typically 10-25 years) the solar panels are too obsolete/warn for them to re-lease anyway.

Another thought is that the slow discharge batteries used for solar systems tend to have a useful life span of only 5 years. Is this project off the grid by choice or is there a lack of access at the location? It could be cheaper and more sustainable for you to remain hooked to the grid for use at night. If your system is large enough to fully charge a battery bank, it should be large enough offset your nightly power usage so your energy costs remain zero. You might even get some subsidized incentives, in the USA having solar attached to the grid earns you renewable energy credits which can be sold to energy providers (energy companies are required to invest a certain amount of money in renewable energy or they are fined). I don't know if there is anything like this in Romania.

Have you considered the use of a gassifier? You can take any waste plant matter and convert it to combustible gas to power a generator.

Used Veg oil is Free,.
Also, if it were so inneficient, farmers wouldn't be able to grow it and sell it for less than diesel, I know it costs the same now but that's only because the petrochems and govt hiked the price of veg oil up shortly after the Jeremy clrckson experiment.
Prior to that I was buying veg oii at 52p per liter, regular diesel was 100p oer liter, this is impossible according to your argument because it eats more energy than it gives out.
It may well be that photosynthesisis oil molecules is inneficient,  but mother nature is doing the work, not the farmer, and as used veg oil is Free, it's efficiency skyrockets.
I used to use veg oil in my car regularly and know many people who use used veg oil.

In fact, just like Bitcoin, using used Veg oil as fuel is a booming industry, maybe BitCoin and Biodiesl should meet up, I'm not knocking solar, it's a faboulous technology but Biodiesel is 100% carbon neutral, the CO2 released by burning the oil is only that which was absorbed by the plant while it was growing, there is no NET CO2 gain to the atmospherre.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=veg+oil+biodiesel&btnG=Google+Search&aq=o&aqi=&aql=&oq=

Not an option. Also I will be getting the solar systems cheaper by using my own work hours for assembly, paying only for things I can't do myself (such as pull a single 2m silicone monocrystal, slice it, coat it with rare minerals and protection layers).

Batteries have a low life span, it's considered, you are being too kind with 5 years actually. Some days the power generators will produce extra power, some days they will not. Either way, I can't benefit from it by selling it to the grid, it's not an option here. I can only benefit if I store it myself (0.3$/Wh for batteries that suck up whatever my 1$/W solar cells and wind turbines produce, not bad).

If it requires manual handling and extra maintenance, I can't. Also I would need to procure fuel for it, and I won't be on the premises most of the time, I guess it's not an option. Could be interesting to use animal waste and useless agricultural residues that can't be turned into moonshine. This might be an option for other people.

It is not, I explained above. Solar energy is not free either, it costs 1$/W for 20 years for example.

Again, it's not an option for me, I would have to actually carry it for many miles, store it and burn it. Due to the fact that I need to burn it, and explaining that diesel is basically 10 times more expensive than solar, and considering your previous calculation, oil would be 5 times more expensive, I will briefly explain why:
- Solar rays hit the solar panel and convert E=mc2 energy with a 20% efficiency, for 12 hours a day (45 degrees N latitude), summer and winter, with no maintenance, requiring a 20m2 surface for 1000W.
- Solar rays hit the leaves of an oil-rich seed plant, during 4-6 months of a year, with a small surface efficiency (most of the rays go onto the ground), for 14 hours a day (summer), with some maintenance and extra costs, requiring a large surface, land taxes, land work, seed purchasing... etc

It's not an option for me, as I would have larger costs this way, and I think that it's a waste of a crop land to just burn the produce after taking care of it for a year. Solar is more efficient per time, per surface, per costs, per everything. It is an option for some people that could collect the vegetable oil and burn it themselves where solar energy would be costly or unavailable.

How expensive it is to build your own little molten salt Solar plant?

Well you could build one with just a little bit under $400M (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andasol_Solar_Power_Station), it could serve 100.000 houses with a surface of 200ha. I guess one could reduce the design to a 1/10.000 ratio (40.000 USD, 5kW, 200sqm). Because it requires cooling water 5L/kWh, which would have to use energy to pump, it is not applicable due to the average precipitation levels in the area and the limited access to water reserves in the area. The advantage is overnight production from an efficient energy accumulator. The disadvantage is increased costs and lower efficiency compared to static silicon panels.

Check out the Rossi Catalyzer

In this thread we abide to the Laws of Thermodynamics. Sorry :)

On a serious note, uneducated people have a hard time figuring out what parts of an energy reactor are the actual reactor and which are the actual fuel. Examples include: Bedinni magnets, carbon-iron alloy cast hidrogen car engine, atomic nuclei...

Funny how one comes on to a technology oriented forum involving a discussion about alternative energy, and even then, is instantly personally attacked for merely making a suggestion to review a technology. I don't know if you have looked out a window since you opened up your high-school text books, but things are changing pretty fast. History always welcomes technological breakthrough's with open arms right? If it was real you'd have seen it on TV by now...

sounds great and all but i think you'd be better of investing all that infrastructure capital in more mining equipment and using a spare room.

then offsetting your pollution through your electricity company if it has that option, or just planting a food garden/trees on your land instead.

Please excuse my skepticism. As I have seen bullshit and fakes for 10 years of my life, with people claiming to have (re)invented the water engine, free energy, free bullshit, etc... I don't shun you or your offers, but please understand that it's easy to get carried away by the hope of extraordinary claims. Not only have I explained why some people (sometimes) promote things they don't understand thinking they are doing a good deed when instead they promote stupidity, but I explained why, and a simple process to use to verify the extraordinary claims.

If you can explain what you understood from the "Rossi Catalyzer" other than "hurr durr it produces free energy by unknown means", then you should continue promoting it. If you can't explain anything more, you should check your position on the issue, the feeling of being right is not necessarily something that arises from logic or reality, it can be a purely subjective result.

The greenery of the orchid, surrounding trees and wild plants is quite overwhelming at this time of the year. I just visited the place and basically I couldn't find enough land area to plan the solar arrays. Some of the power can be used to pump water from the ground (especially during the summer days when using the extra sun is impossible, batteries are charged, heat prevents extra compute or capacity already full), so gardening is possible.

I need to look into more info on how to put solar arrays high up on poles, otherwise they won't get full exposure all day.

For me, electricity takes up about 10% or more of our profits. One of my friend's dad in our collective mining operation (a whopping 1Ghash) is currently working on getting a wind turbine up and running. The original goal of the turbine was to power his beer chiller in his barn. It might eventually power our rigs. He recently added a gear ratio to get the generator up to the proper RPM. But unfortunately, the mounting was not strong enough and severely damaged all three of the blades. (when he was testing it, he was using blades a company lent his to try them out. $200 right there. ouch.)

He works at a local telecommunications company and when they upgraded their old telephone system, they let him take their 24v battery array off their hands - for free. Each of these batteries weigh in around 300 lbs and there are twelve of them. They have a 20-25 year lifespan and are only about 5 years old. I've tried to get him to understand that his battery bank is way larger than most people use for his setup.

*reading up on Rossi Catalyzer*
The idea looks good. Definitely much better than previous low-energy nuclear reactions. If they could demonstrate a device using this method that would power itself as well as other devices, then they could legitimize themselves a bit more. As far as the scope of the this thread is concerned, this technology is out of reach for home/DIY use. If they ever did make a reasonably priced, self-contained power and hot water generator, I'd buy it.

Why not just rent space at a local power generator (hydro)?  The owner/operator would eagerly rent you space and sell you very very cheap electricity...

This is especially true for countries outside of U.S. where everyone is looking for extra income.

The other option is to produce your own electricity and sell back to the grid.  Then, your per Kw cost could be 0.  The only problem with this option is how much is the capital expense?  If we had solar technology that was much more efficient than it is today, this would work nicely.

Rossi's stuff, if real, would disrupt the whole world as we know it!

A huge part of me wishes he's for real.  A small part of me tells me, if it's too good to be true it probably is.

I don't think your math, if you done any, holds up here. I'm a bit surprised there is even a renewable expert in this thread and he basically agreed to this?

First of all .. not even start to think about the bitcoin part, I don't even know where to begin. Solar panels cost approx 2500e to 3500e per kWh to build, then you looking at some cost per year to maintain it, and then there is a fact that they lose about 1% of output power per year. The cheaper, China version, even more. Their lifespan is 40yrs at best. Most  European governments pay huge subsidiaries to built renewable energy because they are obligated to get to certain % of all energy to be renewable by the year 2025. Panel efficiency is around 18 to 22%, this will change greatly in the next 10 to 15 years, so your solar plant would be obsolete way before it becomes useless after 40years.

In short it would cost you tons more to produce this electricity for the next 15 to 20 if you wouldn't tun into ANY problems at all. This being rural Romania, you might get robbed with a type of neighbors you mentioned.

Bitcoin part of the project is just plain silly.  1 Gh rigs won't produce ALMOST anything in the next 6 to 12 months. So you are basically building solar panels and throwing all the energy you produce into something that will get you no return at all. What you doing is, you basically speculating that bitcoin would be worth TONS in 20 to 40 years.

There is an easy solution to all of this. Whatever is the total you wanted to invest in this whole project. Lets say $10k, just buy bitcoins and sit on them. No work, no problems, no nothing.

@BombaUcigasa your project goes ok? If yes I and suppose the others would love to see some stats even if they are raw. Year sun radiation kwh/m2 for example. I'll keep my eye on this thread and wish you luck with the project.

No hydros close-by, and if there were any, the security and housing costs would replace the electricity saving costs :)

Now, if you had land in either a rainy area, or along a river, like in the hills or the mountains, definitely worth to invest in a small power generator.

I would also love to be able to sell power to the grid. It's no possible for me, the two companies in our country have effectively 0.00% of their output produced by solar installations. ZERO. We have more sun than Germany, and they produce in some areas up to 60% of their electricity from the sun. I could also benefit from overclocking and overdriving the miners during over-nominal output (day-long full summer sunny days) and tune back and draw from the grid when needed. I would not require any batteries either!

That's because everyone's situation is different. Prices, equipment costs, man-hours of work, existing resources and equipment, etc...

I have to agree with you. Solar panels, when acquired and installed under warranty from a public agent, will cost over 2.5$/W. I intend to buy the panels myself at 1$/W and build the arrays, supports, and recycle some existing equipment and buy some new stuff for the power inverters and the other stuff. I don't want 40 years, I expect 15-20 years at most from the cells, which can be recycled, reused, replaced on the way, with newer and better ones. Yes, efficiency will go up. Start early, optimize on the go.

Huge subsidiaries are not making their way over here. They are small. So small that for this year, all the existing requests exceed the whole yearly budget. That is, if I apply today (holy shit bribing and elbowing and bureaucracy circus!!!), I might get a plan approved next year, I have to buy my stuff at extra markup from approved providers (eg, as you explain up to 5$/W!!!!), then I can get back some of my spent money when the budget arrives, in 2-3 years. Why would I want to do that (in Eastern Europe)?

Unfortunately the difficulty rose too fast. It's true, I won't get much but recoup my investment in 2-3 years, if the price/difficulty parity remains the same. I have some checkpoints to ensure that I start the project, one of them is verifying that the bitcoin profitability will hold at the same level or increase during July. If indeed during this month nothing happens with the 3:1 market:cost ratio of bitcoin mining, I can't go ahead. If my predictions hold, then it's a go.

Except I won't have $10k invested in energy producing equipment which can be resold at a value and I will be bored :D

Can't start implementing it yet, I want to confirm myself I understand how the bitcoin price functions and I can rely on the profitability of bitcoin to lock-in produced energy into a non-decaying storage medium. Unused energy is forever lost. With bitcoin, whatever extra energy I don't use, I can store for "later". Expect a clear go or no-go at the end of July. I also have to rework my original premises to include solar tracking (because it is really effective) and tall pylons (because nature invaded everything, trees are tall and thick during these months, and it adds security against thieves and vandals, good luck climbing a smooth two-storey pole)

I did some research and used some database simulations for these specs. Year sun radiation is about 1400W/m2 on average (actual 1050W/m2 with normal performance). With equatorial declination (+6% output) and horizontal tracking (+30% output) you can get even more. Also during the winter the output is down to 500W/m2 on cloudy days but it can also get to 4000W/m2 in the clear summer days.

Average:
http://www.onestonesolar.com/media/intemplate/27_Afbeelding_solar_Map.jpg

Summer months:
http://www.energy-meteorology.de/images/irr_em_seiten.gif

Also wind conditions show an yearly average of 3m/s. Maximal winds (witnessed last week) can go up to 14m/s, and some days winds can be below 1m/s. This region is sub-optimal for wind harvesting, but with cheap and adapted designs it can still be done pretty cheap.

http://ws2-23.myloadspring.com/sites/renew/Shared%20Documents/Country%20Profile%20Images/Romania/Romania%20Wind%20Map.jpg

I have to agree, it follows the natural laws of our Universe. The fusion of nickel with other elements into elements with lower atomic number than iron, will generate energy because it converges matter towards a lower state of entropy. It's basically what the Universe wants: only iron atoms and everything else as mass-less photons.

You are still burning "fuel", Nickel is currently $10/pound. Without an efficient method of reverting the reaction (it would absorb heat instead, thus drain energy) you can run the generator for a limited time. And you get copper as a residue, pretty cool, we need copper right?

But wait, it gets better. All the nickel in nature is already binded to other elements and is present as salts. You need to mine it, clean it up, refine it ... which surprise! requires roasting, aka heat to unbind it's atoms from the other elements and create the pure form needed for a reactor.

It's like showing an aluminum-air battery and touting it as free energy from thin air, forgetting to mention you need more energy to purify the aluminum than to spend it as a fuel.

Exactly. It is cheaper now to burn nickel into copper, and there is a limited supply of nickel, and it's price will go up in time.

Still no idea why nobody could replicate it.

I mostly just read the initial post but I'm trying to do a much smaller scale project and know quite a bit about inverters and electricity and equipment and stuff.  Possibly not more than you but maybe enough to help  :D  My goal is to get a PC that runs completely on green energy that I created for as long as possible per day and have bitcoins pay for it with an initial investment of around $300 (not counting the computer).