Why is all mining not powered by solar?

[Stevenirving]

Wouldn't this make the most sense to get around the main cost factor of the business?

Set up in a place like sunny California and you are good to go.

Cooling costs more, but shouldn't everything be beaten out?

I get the units for solar power would be expensive to do this on a mass scale, but long run isn't this a great investment?

[BurtW]

No.  Short term you lose money.  Long term you lose even more money.

Bitcoin mining is all about using the cheapest possible energy.  Solar costs a lot more than coal.  If that ever changed then all miners would use solar.

[philipma1957]

No.  Short term you lose money.  Long term you lose even more money.

Bitcoin mining is all about using the cheapest possible energy.  Solar costs a lot more than coal.  If that ever changed then all miners would use solar.

Close enough, but water is cheaper then coal.

China has a lot of hydro power.

Washington state is cheap due to hydropower.


Solar only works when the government forces the power company to pay  a fair price for your power.

ie mixed grid   no battery can work.

My solar array venture sells to power company at 5 cents and buys back at 9.7 cents  so in the day we generate   lots of excess  then buy back at night.  This seems like a bad deal

make 3034  kwatts then  sell 1000 kilowatts in the day for 50 bucks and buy back 517 kilowatts at night for   50.15 bucks but  it means  you can  use 517 kwatts  24/7/365 for free.

the start up cost may be 100,000 for this   free 517 kwatts every day.  that is 21 kwatts constant use   say 13 kwatts mining 8 kwatts for the home use.  13 kwatts is 130000th in s-9 or 52 th in  s-7

so this array can net  2100 a month on all s-7

or 5600 a month on all s-9   


these are before ½ ing

so Solar works here because power company is madated to pay a fai price to the array .

by fair 5 cents as that is what it would cost the power company to generate the power.

There is no way this will go world wide big scale.  Since any country with tons of rivers for hyro power is just as clean and cheaper.

[QuintLeo]

The main issue with solar is the up-front cost of the equipment is NOT competative with coal/natural gas/nuclear (though nuclear gets substantial fuel cost subsidies from the feds) and not even CLOSE to hydro.

 It's a bit better if you go grid-tie, since you can count on the power company to provide when your sun goes away, but STILL not competative.


 Same issue with wind power, which has substantial subsidies but is STILL not competative with "conventional" generation yet - even WITH the subsidies and in a good wind-generation area like Northwest Iowa, Alliant STILL pays more for windpower than any of it's other generation (though it might pay a bit less than the power it has to BUY from outside sources).


 The best deal is to have just enough genration at your array/farm's max output to JUST cover your normal usage, then your "replacement cost" is what you are paying the power company.



 The only places solar and wind actually make sense are remote spots where running a power line in would cost a TON, like some mountaintops and a few really remote empty areas of Alaska/Montana and the like.



 The only real reason Solar and Wind are getting more competative the past decade is that increasing regulations and costs to USE coal have driven the cost of power generation up a LOT - to the point a lot of power companies are switching away from coal to natural gas despite the generators used for natural gas being LESS efficient (most natural-gas power generators are gas turbines, basically the "power core" out of a jet engine in pretty much ALL cases, and are lucky to get much over 45% conversion efficiency - a well designed fairly recent coal plant can excede 60%, and even better if they get to sell off some or all of their excess low-pressure steam - but natual gas burns a lot cleaner for the most part compared to coal, so no or little need for expen$$$$$$$ive "scrubbers" and the like).


 The sad part - we have proven coal reserves for over 200 YEARS at current power usage, if coal provided ALL of the power generation of the US. Natural gas reserves - we have more like 30 years IF THAT under the same conditions, and we're already having to IMPORT a bunch from Canada to cover current usage - though like for oil, recent technology has been helping some on those issues.
 EPA is being very short-sighted on this issue, like so many others.

[gbBit]

 The sad part - we have proven coal reserves for over 200 YEARS at current power usage, if coal provided ALL of the power generation of the US. Natural gas reserves - we have more like 30 years IF THAT under the same conditions, and we're already having to IMPORT a bunch from Canada to cover current usage - though like for oil, recent technology has been helping some on those issues.
 EPA is being very short-sighted on this issue, like so many others.

This really depends how you look at subsides which are provided by the government.  I personally think coal power generation is receives the largest subside of any power generation since they're not charged for all the harm they cause to public health and the environment.  I don't understand why people drink it's horrible to dump slug into a river, but it's ok to dump whatever into the air.  Clean coal is possible, but when it's done the prices become very comparable to renewable energies.

[philipma1957]

 The sad part - we have proven coal reserves for over 200 YEARS at current power usage, if coal provided ALL of the power generation of the US. Natural gas reserves - we have more like 30 years IF THAT under the same conditions, and we're already having to IMPORT a bunch from Canada to cover current usage - though like for oil, recent technology has been helping some on those issues.
 EPA is being very short-sighted on this issue, like so many others.

This really depends how you look at subsides which are provided by the government.  I personally think coal power generation is receives the largest subside of any power generation since they're not charged for all the harm they cause to public health and the environment.  I don't understand why people drink it's horrible to dump slug into a river, but it's ok to dump whatever into the air.  Clean coal is possible, but when it's done the prices become very comparable to renewable energies.

As a lifelong sufferer of Asthma I could go into long detail of why coal is fine but  the plants grandfathered and allowed to dump it into the air are not fine.

I live  in New Jersey along highway 195.  This road runs  west-east  across NJ from Trenton to Belmar.

if you draw a line from  Belmar on the coast to Trenton on the border of NJ PA and go for about 1000 miles to  Iowa   37 of the oldest dirtiest grandfathered coal plants pretty much are on that line.

So in the USA wind moves this filthy air  Iowa> Illinois> Indiana> Ohio > Pennsylvania > New Jersey > Atlantic Ocean  this happens on most days of the year say 300 of 365

the other 65 days we get off shore winds  that come off the Atlantic Ocean hitting the westerly winds and dropping all that coal dust on New Jersey.

All known absolutely true facts.   So basically it is allowed to happen because to refit those old dirty coal plants with scrubbers cost $$$.
Under the former president Bush  the $$ value calculation of a human life was changed from around 10 million to 5 million bucks.
Yeah that is correct a $ is used for a human life to figure what is acceptable cost of death .

Sounds hard or cruel but it is doen to make policy decisions.    So if the 37 plants above kill 100 people extra a year in NJ by being allowed to burn and dump filth.  then the cost is 500 million not 1000 million.  if it takes 800 million a year  to fix the filth  then the fix is over the new 500 million dollar cost of life estimate and no fix.

Under Bush air quality was allowed to get shitty or more shitty due to the above.
Under Obama  congress resisted and slowed air quality reform as much as possible. So we are still not back to Prez Clinton standards of air. And those old dirty coal plants keep burning air.

I did a lot of research and I am not pro Clinton anti Bush.  These are the facts. What I do is own 3 of these.

 https://www.amazon.com/IQAir%C2%AE-New-MultiGas-Air-Purifier/dp/B00069EGA0/ref=sr_1_3?

 which keep my air clean on the bad days.  

So when anyone talks cheap coal and does not mention that 37 of the worst USA coal plants line up to attack New Jersey I give them the facts. And the solution .

My cost is about 5000 in the machines and the replacement filters plus the power to run them. (over the last ten years) I know of at least 25 people that have my setup  and this cost is not figured into but is part of cheap coal.  I also know of 100 people on inhalers since they do not want to have these high end filters.

[leowonderful]

Solar mining is not "cheap" in the monetary sense- but it is good for the environment. It's not cheap, and in most places will require a lot of maintenance just to keep the panels running, then you have the issue of batteries and many more things. Solar, in a laboratory environment, is perfect for most people, but the initial investment is so big that you'll probably have lost more money than you've earned.
If you like the environment, hydroelectric is a better option, although there are still environmental issues with it as well. However, it's usually cheaper and in countries like China that have a lot of hydro plants, they have relatively cheap electricity, and most mining farms use hydro for that reason, so it's a pretty good compromise with both.

[armedmilitia]

There's a strong argument to be made that the vast majority of industrial mining operations use hydropower.

HaoBTC (25MW) in Western China uses cheap hydro from a nearby private dam.
MegaBigPower (32MW), Hashplex (1MW), ASICSPACE (1MW), and numerous other datacenters in Washington State use cheap hydro.
Great North Data (1-10MW) in Labrador uses cheap hydro from a large dam project.
KnC's mines in Boden, Sweden (50MW in all) use cheap hydro.
The only major exception IIRC is the megamine that Bitmain operates in China (Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region), which I'm fairly sure sucks its electricity from a coal-powered grid.

Solar is too expensive at the moment for bitcoin mining.

[BurtW]

There's a strong argument to be made that the vast majority of industrial mining operations use hydropower.

HaoBTC (25MW) in Western China uses cheap hydro from a nearby private dam.
MegaBigPower (32MW), Hashplex (1MW), ASICSPACE (1MW), and numerous other datacenters in Washington State use cheap hydro.
Great North Data (1-10MW) in Labrador uses cheap hydro from a large dam project.
KnC's mines in Boden, Sweden (50MW in all) use cheap hydro.
The only major exception IIRC is the megamine that Bitmain operates in China (Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region), which I'm fairly sure sucks its electricity from a coal-powered grid.

Solar is too expensive at the moment for bitcoin mining.

Interesting.  So Bitcoin is "green" after all the hand wringing.

[Pbitcoin]

yes with solar for long run business it can be more profitable then with direct electricity !
lol good idea 

[Semidetached]

Well a couple reasons. Batteries are not that advanced to store all the energy you need when the sun isn't up. Also, there are huge up front costs to get panels and all that wiring and what have you.

[scyth3]

A coal backup plant is built for every solar plant because the sun doesn't shine 24/7. I don't think commercial solar plants would exist without government subsidies. It doesn't make sense financially or for our environment.

[Amph]

it's really suck that solar can not be used, they talk much about it, but they always forget to talk about the initial investment for it

it should cost like 1/10 of what it is now, so around 0.1 euro per W and not 1

it does not make sense to offer it as a casual green energy for domestic use also, when then you need to spend so much to build it...retarded

[QuintLeo]

 The sad part - we have proven coal reserves for over 200 YEARS at current power usage, if coal provided ALL of the power generation of the US. Natural gas reserves - we have more like 30 years IF THAT under the same conditions, and we're already having to IMPORT a bunch from Canada to cover current usage - though like for oil, recent technology has been helping some on those issues.
 EPA is being very short-sighted on this issue, like so many others.

This really depends how you look at subsides which are provided by the government.  I personally think coal power generation is receives the largest subside of any power generation since they're not charged for all the harm they cause to public health and the environment.  I don't understand why people drink it's horrible to dump slug into a river, but it's ok to dump whatever into the air.  Clean coal is possible, but when it's done the prices become very comparable to renewable energies.

 Manufacture of Solar and Wind equipment generates a lot of toxic waste too. It's just not continuous like burning Coal or Natural Gas, and it's certainly not the issue that Nuclear Waste is.


 I also suspect that the "public health" and "environment" damage due to coal burning is overstated quite a bit in recent years - EPA has been cracking down hard on emmisions for quite a while now. Coal mining damage is also overstated in recent years, due to "put the mine back the way it was" regulations that have been enacted. Not saying the damage is ZERO, but it's not the nightmare environmentalists have been portraying it as (and probably never WAS quite that bad in this country - the Soviet Union and a lot of the Warsaw Pact on the other hand got really bad in places).