How much does it cost YOU to produce a bitcoin?

[SlaveInDebt]

$2.47/BTC

[arnoldrimmer]

HD5870x2, 844, 15 ($225), $0.00 thanks to solar panels even at night.

NOOOOOOOOO! 
You solar panel people are going to drive the rest of us out of business.

Those things are not cheap. They cost multiples of $10,000 to install, even for a modest system.

So it's not "lucky you -- you get $50 in free bitcoins every month" but rather "lucky you, you could afford a $25,000 solar panel system".

What I'm saying is -- the free bitcoins is the LEAST of that person's good fortune.

Just like those who got into BTC mining in January 2011 (or earlier!) are better off, likewise those who got into the game of LIFE earlier have an advantage.
Every year, inflation eats everyone alive. Those who got "established" in the early 80's, for example, will have paid less for everything, even relative to their lower wages at the time.
Everything's more expensive, and "harder" now, since our dollar has lost more of its value than it had lost in, say, 1985.

Those people got to buy their houses when real estate was much cheaper, for example.

Plus the longer you've been working the more disposable income you tend to have, all things being equal. That is, comparing the same kind of person at 20 vs. 50 years old.

Not True take a look to Germany there is Solar and Wind Power Booming since 3-4 Years (long before Fukushima) You just simply Rent your South Side of yout Roof to a Firm who sells the Power so you dont even need to Worry if something gets broken.

We get through the the Rent for the Roof around that Money what our yearly electricy bill costs...

[SgtSpike]

HD5870x2, 844, 15 ($225), $0.00 thanks to solar panels even at night.

NOOOOOOOOO! 
You solar panel people are going to drive the rest of us out of business.

Those things are not cheap. They cost multiples of $10,000 to install, even for a modest system.

So it's not "lucky you -- you get $50 in free bitcoins every month" but rather "lucky you, you could afford a $25,000 solar panel system".

What I'm saying is -- the free bitcoins is the LEAST of that person's good fortune.

Just like those who got into BTC mining in January 2011 (or earlier!) are better off, likewise those who got into the game of LIFE earlier have an advantage.
Every year, inflation eats everyone alive. Those who got "established" in the early 80's, for example, will have paid less for everything, even relative to their lower wages at the time.
Everything's more expensive, and "harder" now, since our dollar has lost more of its value than it had lost in, say, 1985.

Those people got to buy their houses when real estate was much cheaper, for example.

Plus the longer you've been working the more disposable income you tend to have, all things being equal. That is, comparing the same kind of person at 20 vs. 50 years old.

Not True take a look to Germany there is Solar and Wind Power Booming since 3-4 Years (long before Fukushima) You just simply Rent your South Side of yout Roof to a Firm who sells the Power so you dont even need to Worry if something gets broken.

We get through the the Rent for the Roof around that Money what our yearly electricy bill costs...

How much does the German government subsidize that program?

[nebiki]

HD5870x2, 844, 15 ($225), $0.00 thanks to solar panels even at night.

NOOOOOOOOO! 
You solar panel people are going to drive the rest of us out of business.

Those things are not cheap. They cost multiples of $10,000 to install, even for a modest system.

So it's not "lucky you -- you get $50 in free bitcoins every month" but rather "lucky you, you could afford a $25,000 solar panel system".

What I'm saying is -- the free bitcoins is the LEAST of that person's good fortune.

Just like those who got into BTC mining in January 2011 (or earlier!) are better off, likewise those who got into the game of LIFE earlier have an advantage.
Every year, inflation eats everyone alive. Those who got "established" in the early 80's, for example, will have paid less for everything, even relative to their lower wages at the time.
Everything's more expensive, and "harder" now, since our dollar has lost more of its value than it had lost in, say, 1985.

Those people got to buy their houses when real estate was much cheaper, for example.

Plus the longer you've been working the more disposable income you tend to have, all things being equal. That is, comparing the same kind of person at 20 vs. 50 years old.

Not True take a look to Germany there is Solar and Wind Power Booming since 3-4 Years (long before Fukushima) You just simply Rent your South Side of yout Roof to a Firm who sells the Power so you dont even need to Worry if something gets broken.

We get through the the Rent for the Roof around that Money what our yearly electricy bill costs...

How much does the German government subsidize that program?

i'm not sure if that's exactly what you mean, but it started 2004 where you got 57.4 cents per kWh (at less than 30kW). it slowly declined until 2011 where it's 28.74 cents. gonna go down a lot in the future.

overview (english) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Act
in-depth with tables (german): http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz

[bcpokey]

HD5870x2, 844, 15 ($225), $0.00 thanks to solar panels even at night.

NOOOOOOOOO!  
You solar panel people are going to drive the rest of us out of business.

Those things are not cheap. They cost multiples of $10,000 to install, even for a modest system.

So it's not "lucky you -- you get $50 in free bitcoins every month" but rather "lucky you, you could afford a $25,000 solar panel system".

What I'm saying is -- the free bitcoins is the LEAST of that person's good fortune.

Just like those who got into BTC mining in January 2011 (or earlier!) are better off, likewise those who got into the game of LIFE earlier have an advantage.
Every year, inflation eats everyone alive. Those who got "established" in the early 80's, for example, will have paid less for everything, even relative to their lower wages at the time.
Everything's more expensive, and "harder" now, since our dollar has lost more of its value than it had lost in, say, 1985.

Those people got to buy their houses when real estate was much cheaper, for example.

Plus the longer you've been working the more disposable income you tend to have, all things being equal. That is, comparing the same kind of person at 20 vs. 50 years old.

Not True take a look to Germany there is Solar and Wind Power Booming since 3-4 Years (long before Fukushima) You just simply Rent your South Side of yout Roof to a Firm who sells the Power so you dont even need to Worry if something gets broken.

We get through the the Rent for the Roof around that Money what our yearly electricy bill costs...

How much does the German government subsidize that program?

i'm not sure if that's exactly what you mean, but it started 2004 where you got 57.4 cents per kWh (at less than 30kW). it slowly declined until 2011 where it's 28.74 cents. gonna go down a lot in the future.

overview (english) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Act
in-depth with tables (german): http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz

I think what he means are what are the goverment monetary incentives for the program, as most governments have to do something to incentivize solar power. In the case of the german act it looks like there is not that much which is cool, if I read your page right there is no tax burden at all on the german people to promote solar energy, just slightly steeper charges for those who consume more (is it tiered? not sure), and alternative energy gets preferrential treatment, not too bad.

Germany benefits from ecnomies of scale I believe, since they have some of the worlds largest solar production facilities located there and they are one of the largest consumers as well. Private inititatives backed by public support can't hurt.

I'm surprised by how cheap solar is now though, while still expensive, it's gone down dramatically. A nice trend for once

[XRcode]

My electricity is included in rent, my bitcoins cost my landlord

[nebiki]

idk :< let's say your PV has 3kWp. at ~10% efficiency that's 0.3kW. you'll get ~750€ / year from government and you won't be able to use your PV for your own use at all. (if you had decided this back in 2004 you would get ~1500€ / year). if you decide to use the electricity generated by your PV yourself, you'd get ~16 cents per kWh, so ~410€ / year + ~2600kWh for free.

they will stop paying you after 20 years. so if you install your 3kWp PV now, you'll have earned 15,000€. 3kWp costs about 11,000€. that's less than 2% profit per year which is less than our inflation rate. if you use the electricity yourself, you'll get 8,200€ and 52,000kWh. that's a pretty good deal (0.22€/kWh).

after the 20 years you will still have your 0.3kW PV, although i highly doubt it'll last much longer by then.

downsides: you have to pay for maintenance, which is probably not too cheap.

well, it's like mining bitcoins. you should have started your photovoltaic yesterday.

[Leon]

$1.28

[bcpokey]

idk :< let's say your PV has 3kWp. at ~10% efficiency that's 0.3kW. you'll get ~750€ / year from government and you won't be able to use your PV for your own use at all. (if you had decided this back in 2004 you would get ~1500€ / year). if you decide to use the electricity generated by your PV yourself, you'd get ~16 cents per kWh, so ~410€ / year + ~2600kWh for free.

they will stop paying you after 20 years. so if you install your 3kWp PV now, you'll have earned 15,000€. 3kWp costs about 11,000€. that's less than 2% profit per year which is less than our inflation rate. if you use the electricity yourself, you'll get 8,200€ and 52,000kWh. that's a pretty good deal (0.22€/kWh).

after the 20 years you will still have your 0.3kW PV, although i highly doubt it'll last much longer by then.

downsides: you have to pay for maintenance, which is probably not too cheap.

well, it's like mining bitcoins. you should have started your photovoltaic yesterday.

I'm confused, you get paid to use your own electricity?

[nebiki]

idk :< let's say your PV has 3kWp. at ~10% efficiency that's 0.3kW. you'll get ~750€ / year from government and you won't be able to use your PV for your own use at all. (if you had decided this back in 2004 you would get ~1500€ / year). if you decide to use the electricity generated by your PV yourself, you'd get ~16 cents per kWh, so ~410€ / year + ~2600kWh for free.

they will stop paying you after 20 years. so if you install your 3kWp PV now, you'll have earned 15,000€. 3kWp costs about 11,000€. that's less than 2% profit per year which is less than our inflation rate. if you use the electricity yourself, you'll get 8,200€ and 52,000kWh. that's a pretty good deal (0.22€/kWh).

after the 20 years you will still have your 0.3kW PV, although i highly doubt it'll last much longer by then.

downsides: you have to pay for maintenance, which is probably not too cheap.

well, it's like mining bitcoins. you should have started your photovoltaic yesterday.

I'm confused, you get paid to use your own electricity?

yes - if you decide to buy/install PV in germany, but only for the first 20 years of operation. they encourage us to use renewable energy. of course they won't pay for electricity which you get from your local supplier, only the energy you produce with your PV.

edit: the thing is.. it's not too profitable, because your PV is expected to meet death not long after 20 years. if not, it's going to be at least a lot less efficient by then.

[bcpokey]

idk :< let's say your PV has 3kWp. at ~10% efficiency that's 0.3kW. you'll get ~750€ / year from government and you won't be able to use your PV for your own use at all. (if you had decided this back in 2004 you would get ~1500€ / year). if you decide to use the electricity generated by your PV yourself, you'd get ~16 cents per kWh, so ~410€ / year + ~2600kWh for free.

they will stop paying you after 20 years. so if you install your 3kWp PV now, you'll have earned 15,000€. 3kWp costs about 11,000€. that's less than 2% profit per year which is less than our inflation rate. if you use the electricity yourself, you'll get 8,200€ and 52,000kWh. that's a pretty good deal (0.22€/kWh).

after the 20 years you will still have your 0.3kW PV, although i highly doubt it'll last much longer by then.

downsides: you have to pay for maintenance, which is probably not too cheap.

well, it's like mining bitcoins. you should have started your photovoltaic yesterday.

I'm confused, you get paid to use your own electricity?

yes - if you decide to buy/install PV in germany, but only for the first 20 years of operation. they encourage us to use renewable energy. of course they won't pay for electricity which you get from your local supplier, only the energy you produce with your PV.

edit: the thing is.. it's not too profitable, because your PV is expected to meet death not long after 20 years. if not, it's going to be at least a lot less efficient by then.

Yes, indeed. That's still pretty interesting, but seems a huge payout someone must be subsidizing. Here we do it in reverse, for example:

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200441246_200441246?cm_ite=4570001&cm_pla=Alternative%20+%20Renewable%20Energy%3EBattery%20Backup%20Packages&cm_cat=Google&cm_ven=Aggregates

A 30% Tax Credit (meaning you can write off 30% of the cost from your income). So we incentivize people for the upfront costs, rather than continue to pay them down the road. Seems like it might be better your way though considering the difference in rates of adoption heh.

On another note, this system was what surprised me pricewise. 22Amps (at 120Volts) including batteries, panels, transformer, and all for $2k seems like a steal. 22Amps is enough for about 2 full mining rigs. So I envision 3GHash/sec for about $4,500USD and no electrical costs for the next 20 years. If I had a house, given my electrical costs here (.4USD / kWh) I'd be thinking long and hard about that!

[nebiki]

idk :< let's say your PV has 3kWp. at ~10% efficiency that's 0.3kW. you'll get ~750€ / year from government and you won't be able to use your PV for your own use at all. (if you had decided this back in 2004 you would get ~1500€ / year). if you decide to use the electricity generated by your PV yourself, you'd get ~16 cents per kWh, so ~410€ / year + ~2600kWh for free.

they will stop paying you after 20 years. so if you install your 3kWp PV now, you'll have earned 15,000€. 3kWp costs about 11,000€. that's less than 2% profit per year which is less than our inflation rate. if you use the electricity yourself, you'll get 8,200€ and 52,000kWh. that's a pretty good deal (0.22€/kWh).

after the 20 years you will still have your 0.3kW PV, although i highly doubt it'll last much longer by then.

downsides: you have to pay for maintenance, which is probably not too cheap.

well, it's like mining bitcoins. you should have started your photovoltaic yesterday.

I'm confused, you get paid to use your own electricity?

yes - if you decide to buy/install PV in germany, but only for the first 20 years of operation. they encourage us to use renewable energy. of course they won't pay for electricity which you get from your local supplier, only the energy you produce with your PV.

edit: the thing is.. it's not too profitable, because your PV is expected to meet death not long after 20 years. if not, it's going to be at least a lot less efficient by then.

Yes, indeed. That's still pretty interesting, but seems a huge payout someone must be subsidizing. Here we do it in reverse, for example:

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200441246_200441246?cm_ite=4570001&cm_pla=Alternative%20+%20Renewable%20Energy%3EBattery%20Backup%20Packages&cm_cat=Google&cm_ven=Aggregates

A 30% Tax Credit (meaning you can write off 30% of the cost from your income). So we incentivize people for the upfront costs, rather than continue to pay them down the road. Seems like it might be better your way though considering the difference in rates of adoption heh.

On another note, this system was what surprised me pricewise. 22Amps (at 120Volts) including batteries, panels, transformer, and all for $2k seems like a steal. 22Amps is enough for about 2 full mining rigs. So I envision 3GHash/sec for about $4,500USD and no electrical costs for the next 20 years. If I had a house, given my electrical costs here (.4USD / kWh) I'd be thinking long and hard about that!

isn't that 1.8kWp ? so effective 180W. it's weird, though, because all the sheets in the internet say it's 2,500-3,500€ per kWp. i guess this bundle is low-quality (or the US has some awesome prices).

[SgtSpike]

idk :< let's say your PV has 3kWp. at ~10% efficiency that's 0.3kW. you'll get ~750€ / year from government and you won't be able to use your PV for your own use at all. (if you had decided this back in 2004 you would get ~1500€ / year). if you decide to use the electricity generated by your PV yourself, you'd get ~16 cents per kWh, so ~410€ / year + ~2600kWh for free.

they will stop paying you after 20 years. so if you install your 3kWp PV now, you'll have earned 15,000€. 3kWp costs about 11,000€. that's less than 2% profit per year which is less than our inflation rate. if you use the electricity yourself, you'll get 8,200€ and 52,000kWh. that's a pretty good deal (0.22€/kWh).

after the 20 years you will still have your 0.3kW PV, although i highly doubt it'll last much longer by then.

downsides: you have to pay for maintenance, which is probably not too cheap.

well, it's like mining bitcoins. you should have started your photovoltaic yesterday.

I'm confused, you get paid to use your own electricity?

yes - if you decide to buy/install PV in germany, but only for the first 20 years of operation. they encourage us to use renewable energy. of course they won't pay for electricity which you get from your local supplier, only the energy you produce with your PV.

edit: the thing is.. it's not too profitable, because your PV is expected to meet death not long after 20 years. if not, it's going to be at least a lot less efficient by then.

Yes, indeed. That's still pretty interesting, but seems a huge payout someone must be subsidizing. Here we do it in reverse, for example:

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200441246_200441246?cm_ite=4570001&cm_pla=Alternative%20+%20Renewable%20Energy%3EBattery%20Backup%20Packages&cm_cat=Google&cm_ven=Aggregates

A 30% Tax Credit (meaning you can write off 30% of the cost from your income). So we incentivize people for the upfront costs, rather than continue to pay them down the road. Seems like it might be better your way though considering the difference in rates of adoption heh.

On another note, this system was what surprised me pricewise. 22Amps (at 120Volts) including batteries, panels, transformer, and all for $2k seems like a steal. 22Amps is enough for about 2 full mining rigs. So I envision 3GHash/sec for about $4,500USD and no electrical costs for the next 20 years. If I had a house, given my electrical costs here (.4USD / kWh) I'd be thinking long and hard about that!

isn't that 1.8kWp ? so effective 180W. it's weird, though, because all the sheets in the internet say it's 2,500-3,500€ per kWp. i guess this bundle is low-quality (or the US has some awesome prices).

1800w is the amount that the batteries can store.  It comes with 2 110w panels, for a total of 220w, under optimal conditions.  For me, it'd take about $50/year off my electric bill considering 8 hours of full electricity generation per day.  Only 40 years to pay back. 

[hennessy]

with your 2500Mhash/s, you should be doing about 2100 shares per hour, or at 1.3kW 1625 shares per kWh. that's 4.16€ or $5.85. still not too great. 19kWh per btc is probably not the most efficient mining setup. did you increase the voltage on your 5830s? if yes, that's probably not efficient (in my case it's not), undo it. go with whatever clocks your stock voltage allows.

I think you did a little too much theorycrafting. If you mine at a pool, just check how much BTC you produced over the last 24h. Those are the real numbers, including pool downtime etc. deepbit shows that directly at the account page. If you calculate with requirered shares, that does not include difficulty increases.

I was just going by the lastest numbers deepbit provides, which varies between 1.3 and 1.5 BTC/day. The MH/s rate deepbit shows me (actual number for a solved block) varies between 2100 and 2300 since overclocking is not quite complete yet. Btw I did not change anything on the voltages.

Shares look different though, I took some of the numbers from deepbit and divided it with the time it took to solve the block, result is 32-33 shares per minute, which is 1900-2000 shares per hour.

You left out all other parts of your system except gpus so you can't really compare to my rigs. CPUs are 50W each, HDDs 15W each, Mainboard itself 10W each, RAM 2x15W each = 105W per rig.
I've disable all I could like second lan, sound, firewire etc. and I don't know what else I could do, besides probably underclocking/volting the CPU which I will do soon.

of course i didn't include difficulty increases. i didn't include variance, either. on btcmine i get about 0.5% stales and have had 0 downtime for the past few weeks.

i can't include difficulty increases because i don't know where the network is going - it can go anywhere: http://bitcoin.sipa.be/growth-10k.png

if i included variance, i'd have to draw a gaussian curve. i don't think the op wanted to know at which % we pay which amount of $ but instead the expectation value.

i have included the 0.5% stale rate.

somewhere around this forums there is a post which says 1 share per minute requires 71 Mhash/s. that's a fixed value as a share is a solved block with difficulty = 1. maybe this explains something (i don't quite understand some of your post). it's much easier to calculate with that, because the chance to find a block is always 1 share divided by difficulty.

So if I'd ask you what you earn at your job, you would tell me what you should earn measured by the time and effort you put into your work, not what you boss is actually paying you and not subtract taxes and stuff. 

[nebiki]

with your 2500Mhash/s, you should be doing about 2100 shares per hour, or at 1.3kW 1625 shares per kWh. that's 4.16€ or $5.85. still not too great. 19kWh per btc is probably not the most efficient mining setup. did you increase the voltage on your 5830s? if yes, that's probably not efficient (in my case it's not), undo it. go with whatever clocks your stock voltage allows.

I think you did a little too much theorycrafting. If you mine at a pool, just check how much BTC you produced over the last 24h. Those are the real numbers, including pool downtime etc. deepbit shows that directly at the account page. If you calculate with requirered shares, that does not include difficulty increases.

I was just going by the lastest numbers deepbit provides, which varies between 1.3 and 1.5 BTC/day. The MH/s rate deepbit shows me (actual number for a solved block) varies between 2100 and 2300 since overclocking is not quite complete yet. Btw I did not change anything on the voltages.

Shares look different though, I took some of the numbers from deepbit and divided it with the time it took to solve the block, result is 32-33 shares per minute, which is 1900-2000 shares per hour.

You left out all other parts of your system except gpus so you can't really compare to my rigs. CPUs are 50W each, HDDs 15W each, Mainboard itself 10W each, RAM 2x15W each = 105W per rig.
I've disable all I could like second lan, sound, firewire etc. and I don't know what else I could do, besides probably underclocking/volting the CPU which I will do soon.

of course i didn't include difficulty increases. i didn't include variance, either. on btcmine i get about 0.5% stales and have had 0 downtime for the past few weeks.

i can't include difficulty increases because i don't know where the network is going - it can go anywhere: http://bitcoin.sipa.be/growth-10k.png

if i included variance, i'd have to draw a gaussian curve. i don't think the op wanted to know at which % we pay which amount of $ but instead the expectation value.

i have included the 0.5% stale rate.

somewhere around this forums there is a post which says 1 share per minute requires 71 Mhash/s. that's a fixed value as a share is a solved block with difficulty = 1. maybe this explains something (i don't quite understand some of your post). it's much easier to calculate with that, because the chance to find a block is always 1 share divided by difficulty.

So if I'd ask you what you earn at your job, you would tell me what you should earn measured by the time and effort you put into your work, not what you boss is actually paying you and not subtract taxes and stuff. 

no.