Buying or building Hydro Plant for mining?

[opus1]

Hello all, this is my first posting.

I have been mining BTC for 3 years, but the cost of electricity is too high here(Let's assume if you're ruunning 1000 Antminer S9 the electricity cost is 1.6 million a year).

I'm just curious if an individual can legally own or build small(1 to 10MW) hydro electric plant for bitcoin mining in the States.

I understand the initial cost will be very high. But I assume that it can provide electricity for decades of years and I can resell the plant if mining won't profitable anymore in the future.


I personally think that bitcoin mining will be profitable for long time if I can get cheap electricity. The price of Bitcoin went up as time goes and halving comes.


So, can I build or buy a hydro plant in the US? How do you think?

[Brob12321]

I think you can throw a small hydro electric generator in a river without anybody noticing, and maybe generate a couple 1000 watts.  If you want to start building a hydro electric dam that would generate the type of power you are talking about you would 100% need local approval, state approval, and federal approval.  Think of a community board, the state assembly, and the EPA.  It would take millions of dollars and probably about 5 -10 years to get all of the approvals needed. 

[opus1]

Brob12321,

Thanks for your reply.

I'd rather buy old hydro plant.. 5-10 years(+few more years  to build the plant) is too long to wait, time is BItcoin.

Thanks!

[promojo]

LOL good luck with buying a Hydro plant.  Seriously.  It's not going to happen.  Keep dreaming - sorry if this comes off rude (but it isn't).

[QuintLeo]

1-10 MW isn't "small" by hydro standards - more like medium.

 I suspect most areas you're going to have permitting stuff you have to do to build enough of a damn to feed that size of plant - unless you can set it up as a "run of river low head" type design, or your property has a sizeable stream going through it and a fairly large elevation change ON that stream within your properly.


I don't know if you would need FEDERAL permitting for that size of project - but given how crazy EPA regs have gotten in recent years, you might.

[Entropy-uc]

The last time I looked there was a pair of river run plants for sale in North Carolina.  I think the total generating capacity was under 1 MW total, and it sounded like actual generation would be seasonal.

In practice, I expect that running the generating plant would be a full time job.

[AngelSky]

The last time I looked there was a pair of river run plants for sale in North Carolina.  I think the total generating capacity was under 1 MW total, and it sounded like actual generation would be seasonal.

In practice, I expect that running the generating plant would be a full time job.

That is fine will it be used for the bitcoin mining a complete rig set up to mine bitcoins or altcoins. I did not hear that any one used the hydro power to mine bitcoin at all. Some of the people are using solar panel power to utilize in mining in electricity purpose to reduce the cost you loose in electricity.
Even Hydro plants are also to get the electricity but supply should be set to the mining rig to find the better profit we get in solar mining.

[CryptoVokain]

Hello all, this is my first posting.

I have been mining BTC for 3 years, but the cost of electricity is too high here(Let's assume if you're ruunning 1000 Antminer S9 the electricity cost is 1.6 million a year).

I'm just curious if an individual can legally own or build small(1 to 10MW) hydro electric plant for bitcoin mining in the States.

I understand the initial cost will be very high. But I assume that it can provide electricity for decades of years and I can resell the plant if mining won't profitable anymore in the future.


I personally think that bitcoin mining will be profitable for long time if I can get cheap electricity. The price of Bitcoin went up as time goes and halving comes.


So, can I build or buy a hydro plant in the US? How do you think?

I don't know how it works in USA but isn't it easier/cheaper to get a wind turbine or solar?

[QuintLeo]

Wind power seems to have a lot less regulation for smaller setups than hydro does - turns out that if you connect into the power grid on a "grid-tie" setup the feds can AND DO require you to licence pretty much any hydro setup, citing the "commerce clause" of the Constitution as their authority.
Might not apply if it's a really SMALL setup on a stream that can't be "navigateable" (sp) but not many hydro setups are going to fit those limits in the 1MW+ range.

 1 MW is large for wind power - the largest single windmills I am aware of are in the 6-8 MW ballpark - but it shouldn't be hard to go with windmills in the 100KW range and scale up gradually if the economics are comparable.

 LARGE windmills do have some licensing stuff to deal with though - FAA lighting regulations get involved due to their height - but I don't think they normally have other federal licensing requirements unless they get into the range that the EPA requires an "environmental impact statement".

[Btx001f2]

We have a loot of Hydro Plants for sale in Romania ! http://economie.hotnews.ro/stiri-energie-20913971-hidroelectrica-scoate-vanzare-ultimul-lot-microhidrocentrale.htm

[spazzdla]

I think you can throw a small hydro electric generator in a river without anybody noticing, and maybe generate a couple 1000 watts.  If you want to start building a hydro electric dam that would generate the type of power you are talking about you would 100% need local approval, state approval, and federal approval.  Think of a community board, the state assembly, and the EPA.  It would take millions of dollars and probably about 5 -10 years to get all of the approvals needed.  

Regulation is the Fing best!!!

Alas this.. the gov is the worst.

You can't even collect rain in rain barrels in many places. 

Shame solar and wind are so expensive..  They really have made it impossible to create power, on purpose I would assume.