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Has anyone considered hydrogen power? I've seen videos of people producing allot of energy from a small amount using recycled water and powder of a metal, sorry, can't remember which one. If anything are there solar panels sufficient enough to maintain a profitable mining setup?

I haven't heard about hydrogen power that you said as electricity alternative. Solar panels were good enough for handling mining power needs. But there were few conditions related that need to be a consideration. e.g., the weather that will affect how much power can produce. So, you must be double your solar panel from how much energy that needs, but it will cost you more.


The good thing about this alternate energy
While you aren't in mining again, you still can use that for supplying another electricity needs.

The use of solar panels is not yet rational for mining. Too much money. You need a lot of sun hours in your region. Low profitability of mining. I can't say anything about hydrogen energy.

LOL

True. However, it would be nice to come fu circle in the crypto world - use blockchain energy project as means of using energy to mine cryptocurrency :)

I think this is very likely to happen in the future.

good  ;D

We looked into a couple of solar quotes, but they were bloody expensive. We live in a northern(ish) climate, so we don't have optimal hours of sunlight either, especially in the winter.  The option that I am hoping works out for us is a natural gas generator , something similar to the one in this link. https://www.centralmainediesel.com/order/General-Motors-21-kW-Generator.asp?page=GM21  --- we do have access to free gas for heating from the gas well in the woods behind us. It remains to be seen if it will work during the winter when we're running the furnace in the house as well as mining or not, but I am fairly confident that it would be able to run the rest of the year at least.

Solar prices are coming down.  Some places allow you to sell your solar power back to the grid so if you have a surplus what you don't use goes out for others to use.  In bad weather and at night you would use grid power.

You need a powerful stream with preferably a small waterfall, and then five of these portable hydro turbines:
http://www.alluvialpacific.com/Product_Details.asp?TheProduct=Portable%20Hydro%20Power%20Turbine

Not sure how long they last though!

I think that makes the most sense at this time for alternative power only solar cell and wind power. And for hydrogen power is still in the stage of development it can not be applied in general, it is still a special use.
So my conclusion, for now it is better to use alternative energy available right now only, like solar panel or wind turbine.

Soon ai find how to produce dark matter and electricity free.

I just found out that hydrogen power can be used as an alternative energy, if solar panels of course i often hear but problems with Solar Panels are  installation and hardware cost very expensive.

Nuclear power plants are the best if your country got one. Also Nuclear Energy is the most pro-environment energy on planet. Advances in thorium power plants can make us a intergalactic species. Only a few decades left for completion of Thorium Power plants. India has already developed one but it uses liquid fuel instead of solid, so it's still far from real thorium power plant. Every country has enough Thorium to power themselves for centuries. It is really so good that it is hard to believe it's true. USA already developed a concept thorium power plant in 60s but the project was abandoned as the biggy "drawback" with thorium PP is that they can't be used to produce Nukes and big Oil Corp doesn't want it, so they pay the politicians to halt the research. That's why no nuclear power country was interested in them. Just wanted to spread knowledge about Thorium.

When you say hydrogen power it can mean 2 things


1) Hydro power which is basicallly power , powered by moving water across the earth. A good example can be the Las Vegas Hoover Dam.

This is most likely very difficult to achieve on your own, even if you live near a natural body of water with a down current.

2) Hydrogen cell power. Basically you take water, extract the oxygen and use it to power either a car or a factory. Problem with this is that it takes more energy these days to create the hydrogen than is created when its consumed.
If someone finds an effective way to extract the hydrogen, then they would be richer than Satoshi overnight.

Hydro power cant be constructed at home its very difficult.
Nice what you dont want use nuclear energy.
Only solar energy you can earn but it not enough to mine and while expensive

There are so many reasons why it will not be profitable using solar to power mining rigs.  You most likely will be dead before your system (solar) achieves ROI.

(1) Upfront cost (Solar panels, switch gear, storage batteries, wire, space to put gear in)
(2) efficiency (you lose some of it when converting DC to AC)  There is no such thing as 100% efficient when it comes to power.
(3) The needed land area for all the solar panels.
(4) You better be oversized substantially when its night time!
(5) ROI on solar setup big enough to handle your power needs would be a very long time. (DECADES)


The common misconception is that (using a mining rig that draws 1500w of powers) you will only need 1500w worth of energy produced from your solar panels.  That cant be any further from reality.  Reality is that you will need a much higher solar output to produce 1500w worth of ac because of efficiency losses switching DC to AC.  Those losses happen in your inverter, batteries and cables.

Spending $5 to make a nickel is not logical.

I also remember seeing video of cars “running" from just tap water... Usually someone trying to con an investor with this or the uninformed masses.

As water is combined Hydrogen and Oxygen it has very little energy left to use. Splitting the hydrogen from the oxygen requires alot of energy. In that video or many other like it, the metal is where the energy comes from. So the car is not really running from tap water but is running from the oxidation of the metel unseen in the black box.

Burning the hydrogen later or using it in a fuel cell produces energy. But that energy came from the metal. In most cases aluminum powder is used.

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph240/chen-lh2/

But before you go thinks this is the best idea since sliced toast please remember that aluminum as a metal is the result of using alot of energy to turn aluminum oxidade in to a metal. Which is not a very energy efficient process. Aluminum also does not exist in metal form naturally. We can't go mine it for example.

It is funny how people think that natural power is free power. It is not free. Other than steeling power which is free for you no power is free.
You need infrastructure to generate power. That infrastructure can only generate a fix amount of power in its life time. Some uses fuel which cost money or other forms of energy such as wind or solar. But the infrastructure is not free so the power it procure is not free.

The return on capital depends on the amount you are paying for the power and the time it can generate that. If the amount of energy x power cost x duration is more than the required capital then you are making a profit. But it depends on the cost of the power that you are using to calculate your return.

For example if you are running from domestic power now then the cost of your power would be x. Let say it is 0.18c/kwh. Regardless if you are running for solar or the utility. By reducing the cost of power you will make more on your mins but less in your solar investment.

So as a miner you have a fixed amount of capital to invest. If you then choose to invest in solar then you can not buy more miners.

There is a partial solution to the problem. If you do run a small mine(5kw) you can pay off a grid tied system fast. As you don't have batteries which is one of the major cost of a solar system.

You will need about 20 300w solar panels and a +6kw inverter. Depending on where you live you might be lucky and get on average 6h of full sun per day.

5kw mine will use 30kwh over 6h perday. So at a cost of 0.18 per Kwh you don't pay the utility $5.4 per day. That is about $2000 per year.

Such a system would set you back $10k. So your return on capital would be about 5 years.

You are assuming the solar equipment will last 5 years.  Anything in the system dies and you are back in the black.  Front 10k to save $2000 a year, maybe...Ill pass.

Solar just doesn't seem to be a great solution for 24/7 high power consumption.  I think it's intriguing for more "normal" household use where you don't need max power every hour of every day, but not as good for mid scale mining... not unless you move somewhere with 24 hours of sunlight. :p

Interesting note about DC to AC conversion loss in relation to mining...
What Mining equipment uses AC?
Stack up on 12V batteries and feed them with the solar panels (yes, batteries are not free or risk free etc...).

But it's all about scale. If you can buy the Hoover dam and use all of that power to mining, it's a little bigger than a 2Kw 12 GPU miner that can be driven by 4 persons on exercise bikes (pedaling like crazy).

A normal residential Solar roof have about 30 year lifetime and a 10 year ROI here in Scandinavia.
In a high tax situation you don't pay tax on self-generated power.
In the summer we have surplus die to 18-20 sunhours per day, so we can use some to drive more cooling fans
In the winter we need some of the heat so the bought in power is not that costly (and the solar give some as long as you remove the snow from the panels).

Your Power Supplies plug into AC and are then converted to DC (Via Rectifiers) and voltage dividers lower the DC to the different DC voltage rails that are needed to power CPU, SATA, PCIE, etc. Aytime you convert ac to dc OR lower the voltage there is loss which is in the form of heat.  That is why you wont find a 100% Efficient Power Supply.
Not so fast.  There are Battery costs to take into account and then there is their life expectancy and needing replaced to make it even costlier.  Even Deep cycle batteries lose their life expectancy if cycled to less than half of their charge.  When that happens they will never be the same again.  Its all downhill from there.  Do you want to babysit your system all of the time?



What about winter? Dont exactly have a surplus of light then now do you? Winter will cause your solar output to drop like a rock to near zero.

Would you buy 20K worth of GPU's on a 30yr loan?

This is something I know.
I am installing turnkey PV solution  & small mining farm ;D.

Background: here (Italy) the Kw/h cost 0.23 to most of the people.
If you install PV system you got a 10 year tax deduction for 50 % of the value.
Cost of a 3 KW peak solution without the battery 5K €.
Cost of a 3 Kw peak solution with the lithium  battery for 5KWh, around 10K( that depends on how many hour/day you need)battery cost coming down 20% year.
You can sell Energy back to the grid at around 0.06 €

A 3KW(peak) system produce South oriented around 3800 kwh/ year.
Problem is when it produce the energy:
1 mining rig ATW absorb 1Kwh = 24 Kwh a day=8670 Kwh/year ,
So it seem  that with  7/8 Kw peak installed you can cover your mining rigs at around 100%.
You will need grid connection aniway because if it rain for a day or so.. and if its winter..

So, for 1 rig you need a battery system that can handle 12hour average and as mininum a 12 Kwh battery. Cost for a system ? lets say 26K euro.

Your normal cost for running 1 rig from the grid is 2000 €/year, and just mining Ethereum you will earn, at wtm calculation 2250€.
So, you are looking for a 13 year ROI ( escluding the mining system).
Tax deduction included is 7 year ROI( you will still have to receive some energy from the grid due to weather)

From the mining perspective I normally prepare a system that run CN7 during the night and Neoscrypt,Claymore Dual Keccak during the day because of the difference in power absorption.( you can optimize the timing it start better as some inverter give you by wifi realtime production info but its not worth for just 1 rig).

Who does it ?
A family with an house, with a regular job that can deduct the taxes.
A small company owner its the normal candidate. Cost of equipment can be deducted from the company, but earning in crypto  ( at least for now) are not subject to the taxation system. And are not even supposed to be reported if less than 50 BTC.
Some people not happy with the 2% you can earn from the eurobond
and
ME & my friend :( :) )

Kindly note, I haven't take my coffee yet, so calculation can be not so accurate.
 
If you need anything, just ask,its free, and I still have to thank you a lot of people for what I learned in this forum

Hell a 3kw solar system wont even power my rig #1 and #2 let alone Rig#3.