[Official Thread] - The SolarWind Mining Company

[CoinHoarder]

The problem with renewable energy/green energy is that it is more expensive than regular energy if you are sourcing it through a power provider. If you are setting up a custom solution, solar and wind energy solutions are expensive to build yourself (due mostly to costs of the parts) and will add A TON of extra costs to the farm that you are unlikely to ever break even on.

It is hard enough to break even on mining hardware as is. I understand the importance of our environment, but I don't see how it would be profitable to setup a green mining operation. Please enlighten us.. I have looked into it before and green energy is quite expensive to setup, especially in the quantity that would be needed with 100Th.

If you have some secret plan that's all nice and good, but I can't imagine you'll get many investors without revealing this plan. Also, please consider there is a reason why no one is "going green" with their mining operations, because it adds a lot of extra unnecessary expense as stated above.

Now I'm just being repetitive... carry on.

[1715331401]

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[1715331401]

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[floatyfish]

The problem with renewable energy/green energy is that it is more expensive than regular energy if you are sourcing it through a power provider. If you are setting up a custom solution, solar and wind energy solutions are expensive to build yourself (due mostly to costs of the parts) and will add A TON of extra costs to the farm that you are unlikely to ever break even on.

It is hard enough to break even on mining hardware as is. I understand the importance of our environment, but I don't see how it would be profitable to setup a green mining operation. Please enlighten us.. I have looked into it before and green energy is quite expensive to setup, especially in the quantity that would be needed with 100Th.

If you have some secret plan that's all nice and good, but I can't imagine you'll get many investors without revealing this plan. Also, please consider there is a reason why no one is "going green" with their mining operations, because it adds a lot of extra unnecessary expense as stated above.

Now I'm just being repetitive... carry on.

CoinHoarder echoed some of my concerns as well. I'm no expert in solar energy, but the initial setup would be VERY expensive, correct? Also, I know solar's efficiency is going up, but the most conducive spots for solar also happen to be in the hottest part of the country (Arizona, New Mexico). Would you end up spending your generated solar electricity on the massive amounts of required A/C during the summer, leaving the powering of the miners up to the power company?

[pedrog]

The problem with renewable energy/green energy is that it is more expensive than regular energy if you are sourcing it through a power provider. If you are setting up a custom solution, solar and wind energy solutions are expensive to build yourself (due mostly to costs of the parts) and will add A TON of extra costs to the farm that you are unlikely to ever break even on.

It is hard enough to break even on mining hardware as is. I understand the importance of our environment, but I don't see how it would be profitable to setup a green mining operation. Please enlighten us.. I have looked into it before and green energy is quite expensive to setup, especially in the quantity that would be needed with 100Th.

If you have some secret plan that's all nice and good, but I can't imagine you'll get many investors without revealing this plan. Also, please consider there is a reason why no one is "going green" with their mining operations, because it adds a lot of extra unnecessary expense as stated above.

Now I'm just being repetitive... carry on.

CoinHoarder echoed some of my concerns as well. I'm no expert in solar energy, but the initial setup would be VERY expensive, correct? Also, I know solar's efficiency is going up, but the most conducive spots for solar also happen to be in the hottest part of the country (Arizona, New Mexico). Would you end up spending your generated solar electricity on the massive amounts of required A/C during the summer, leaving the powering of the miners up to the power company?

I was going to say that it all depends on how cheap you get the electricity from the grid, because in some countries, like mine, a residential solar setup pays itself in like 3 or 4 years, mainly because electricity is very expensive.

But as I understand, this operation is US based, so maybe electricity from the grid comes cheaper...

[floatyfish]

The problem with renewable energy/green energy is that it is more expensive than regular energy if you are sourcing it through a power provider. If you are setting up a custom solution, solar and wind energy solutions are expensive to build yourself (due mostly to costs of the parts) and will add A TON of extra costs to the farm that you are unlikely to ever break even on.

It is hard enough to break even on mining hardware as is. I understand the importance of our environment, but I don't see how it would be profitable to setup a green mining operation. Please enlighten us.. I have looked into it before and green energy is quite expensive to setup, especially in the quantity that would be needed with 100Th.

If you have some secret plan that's all nice and good, but I can't imagine you'll get many investors without revealing this plan. Also, please consider there is a reason why no one is "going green" with their mining operations, because it adds a lot of extra unnecessary expense as stated above.

Now I'm just being repetitive... carry on.

CoinHoarder echoed some of my concerns as well. I'm no expert in solar energy, but the initial setup would be VERY expensive, correct? Also, I know solar's efficiency is going up, but the most conducive spots for solar also happen to be in the hottest part of the country (Arizona, New Mexico). Would you end up spending your generated solar electricity on the massive amounts of required A/C during the summer, leaving the powering of the miners up to the power company?

I was going to say that it all depends on how cheap you get the electricity from the grid, because in some countries, like mine, a residential solar setup pays itself in like 3 or 4 years, mainly because electricity is very expensive.

But as I understand, this operation is US based, so maybe electricity from the grid comes cheaper...

True, I guess my US-centric viewpoint got ahead of me! I'm assuming they're also taking into account that once the initial investment in the panels is paid off, they'll have more money to use as well.

What miners are you guys looking at?

[SolarWindMiningCompany]

The problem with renewable energy/green energy is that it is more expensive than regular energy if you are sourcing it through a power provider. If you are setting up a custom solution, solar and wind energy solutions are expensive to build yourself (due mostly to costs of the parts) and will add A TON of extra costs to the farm that you are unlikely to ever break even on.

It is hard enough to break even on mining hardware as is. I understand the importance of our environment, but I don't see how it would be profitable to setup a green mining operation. Please enlighten us.. I have looked into it before and green energy is quite expensive to setup, especially in the quantity that would be needed with 100Th.

If you have some secret plan that's all nice and good, but I can't imagine you'll get many investors without revealing this plan. Also, please consider there is a reason why no one is "going green" with their mining operations, because it adds a lot of extra unnecessary expense as stated above.

Now I'm just being repetitive... carry on.

CoinHoarder echoed some of my concerns as well. I'm no expert in solar energy, but the initial setup would be VERY expensive, correct? Also, I know solar's efficiency is going up, but the most conducive spots for solar also happen to be in the hottest part of the country (Arizona, New Mexico). Would you end up spending your generated solar electricity on the massive amounts of required A/C during the summer, leaving the powering of the miners up to the power company?

I was going to say that it all depends on how cheap you get the electricity from the grid, because in some countries, like mine, a residential solar setup pays itself in like 3 or 4 years, mainly because electricity is very expensive.

But as I understand, this operation is US based, so maybe electricity from the grid comes cheaper...

True, I guess my US-centric viewpoint got ahead of me! I'm assuming they're also taking into account that once the initial investment in the panels is paid off, they'll have more money to use as well.

What miners are you guys looking at?

Thanks guys, this is the kind of discussion I have been waiting for.

It is true that installing green-energy electrical sources is costly and your posit would be correct. It is only correct if one thinks in terms of trying to start off using using green-energy electrical sources alone rather than phasing in the equipment. It would be foolish to think that one could just buy the green-energy equipment right off the bat and still recover costs in any reasonable amount of time. To do so would require a large amount of capital, larger than the company has and likely more than it could raise without a long and successful history. There are a few things that make me believe that now is (or close enough to) the best time to begin the process of converting the bitcoin network into a greener technology. The first fact is that the energy requirements for bitcoin mining are dropping rather rapidly and it is highly likely that this trend will continue. Second is the fact that solar and wind energy technology is also making rapid advancements in efficiency and that will provide a lower watts-per-dollar ratio than is historically the case. Third, we all believe in the Bitcoin Ideology and I have faith that bitcoins value will continue to rise, in fact bitcoins value MUST continue to rise or there is no point to bitcoin. Forth, this one is specific to SolarWind. I do not believe that mining bitcoin should be for the single purpose of just converting bitcoin into dollars (or any fiat currency), it should be to make an investment in bitcoin as the bases for the future of the worlds economy. A small portion of the bitcoin generated by SolarWind will be held as an asset of SolarWind, it will not be exchanged (ever) for any fiat currency and when even a small amount of bitcoin at today's value is worth an enormous fortune in the future (remember there are only going to be 21 million bitcoins, ever, and those 21 million bitcoins will (in theory) be distributed among billions of people as the main or only currency, so even 0.00000001 BTC will be worth quite a bit! If this doesn't happen then bitcoin is worthless and all we do today is for naught.) The small portion that SolarWind puts aside will be held in the name of the SolarWind Shareholders, when it is believed that bitcoin has gain a significant value SolarWind will release some or all of its bitcoin holdings to its Shareholders. That being said, I will return to the topic of green-energy and how it is connected to bitcoin mining.

ASICs are new to the game but in-spite of this fact they have rapidly taken over the majority of the hashing power of the network, now I am not sure if the total power usage is roughly the same with ASICs as it was before ASICs or not but, if so, it would(will) not negate my point. ASICs, being new, will likely become more energy efficient as they are further developed (they simply must do so to make bitcoin mining worth it) and in the absence of a replacement for ASICs the push will be to make them super efficient to increase/maintain mining profitability. In fact, the only way to continue mining profitably, without an ASICs replacement that uses less power per hash, is to make ASICs miners more energy efficient over time. Furthermore, to be more correct, the only way to keep mining profitable over time is to reduce the energy costs of mining itself. Although green-energy power sources incur a larger upfront cost, they are less expensive over time and at some point become sources of (nearly) free energy. The question is, does the offset in the large upfront cost occur over a short enough time span to make mining with green-energy technologies profitable.

Now, if a company mining bitcoins has reduced its need to pull electricity of the grid, it has an advantage of being able to mine at a lower cost in electricity per hash. There are also advantages provided by overlaps between the reduction of power needs for mining bitcoin at the time when the company adds/switches to more efficient mining hardware and the (possibly) inevitable return to the power requirements to mine X number of bitcoins. Of course, this would be because there is a narrow window of opportunity to take advantage of the lower power requirements during the overall transition to newer equipment across the entire bitcoin mining network before any spike occurs in difficulty levels. To explain a little better, if a bitcoin mining company can continue to run mining hardware and remain profitable using the same hardware as the majority for a longer time frame than the same majority, then that company will enjoy the returns of not only transitioning to newer more efficient hardware but can do so while running hardware that the majority is(has) phased out of use. That gives that particular mining company a slight advantage in hashing power over all. This slight advantage could provide a large return in bitcoin-per-kilowatt-hours. Once a full transition to more energy efficient hardware is completed, the company in question would be able to run more hashing power using the new mining equipment at the same or even less electricity than any competitors can. This advantage could grow exponentially...

I will be back to edit and finish this at a later time I am continuing to make revisions as soon as I can and I am happy to let you observe my thought process as I continue to define and refine my thoughts... please consider this a draft that may contain errors. You are welcome to comment non-the-less.

[floatyfish]

The problem with renewable energy/green energy is that it is more expensive than regular energy if you are sourcing it through a power provider. If you are setting up a custom solution, solar and wind energy solutions are expensive to build yourself (due mostly to costs of the parts) and will add A TON of extra costs to the farm that you are unlikely to ever break even on.

It is hard enough to break even on mining hardware as is. I understand the importance of our environment, but I don't see how it would be profitable to setup a green mining operation. Please enlighten us.. I have looked into it before and green energy is quite expensive to setup, especially in the quantity that would be needed with 100Th.

If you have some secret plan that's all nice and good, but I can't imagine you'll get many investors without revealing this plan. Also, please consider there is a reason why no one is "going green" with their mining operations, because it adds a lot of extra unnecessary expense as stated above.

Now I'm just being repetitive... carry on.

CoinHoarder echoed some of my concerns as well. I'm no expert in solar energy, but the initial setup would be VERY expensive, correct? Also, I know solar's efficiency is going up, but the most conducive spots for solar also happen to be in the hottest part of the country (Arizona, New Mexico). Would you end up spending your generated solar electricity on the massive amounts of required A/C during the summer, leaving the powering of the miners up to the power company?

I was going to say that it all depends on how cheap you get the electricity from the grid, because in some countries, like mine, a residential solar setup pays itself in like 3 or 4 years, mainly because electricity is very expensive.

But as I understand, this operation is US based, so maybe electricity from the grid comes cheaper...

True, I guess my US-centric viewpoint got ahead of me! I'm assuming they're also taking into account that once the initial investment in the panels is paid off, they'll have more money to use as well.

What miners are you guys looking at?

Thanks guys, this is the kind of discussion I have been waiting for.

It is true that installing green-energy electrical sources is costly and you posit would be correct. It is only correct if one thinks in terms of trying to start off using using green-energy electrical sources alone rather than phasing in the equipment. It would be foolish to think that one could just buy the green-energy equipment right off the bat and still recover costs in any reasonable amount of time. To do so would require a large amount of capital, larger than the company has and likely more than it could raise without a long and successful history. There are a few things that make me believe that now is (or close enough to) the best time to begin the process of converting the bitcoin network into a greener technology. The first fact is that the energy requirements for bitcoin mining are dropping rather rapidly and it is highly likely that this trend will continue. ASICs are new to the game but in-spite of this fact they have rapidly taken over the majority of the hashing power of the network, now I am not sure if the total power usage is roughly the same with ASICs as it was before ASICs or not but if so it would not negate my point. ASICs, being new, will likely become more energy efficient as they are further developed and in the absence of a any replacement for ASICs the push will be to make them super efficient. This means a few different thing, one is that if a company mining bitcoins has reduced its need to pull electricity of the grid, there will be a slight overlap in a reduction of power needs when the company adds/switches to more efficient mining hardware and the (possibly) inevitable return to normal power requirements (of course this would be because there is a narrow window of opportunity to take advantage of the lower power requirements during the overall transition to newer equipment across the entire network before any spike occurs in difficulty levels.)

I will be back to edit and finish this at a later time... please consider this a draft that may contain errors. You are welcome to comment non-the-less.

I look forward to your update, I don't think that something like this has been attempted/done before (I could be wrong though). You also mentioned how you were drawing attention from some big names in the Bitcoin world, are you at liberty to indicate who these big names are?

[SolarWindMiningCompany]

The share count has been updated, more partners are adding their hashing power to the BitShare Mining Pool.  We are considering creating are own Mining Pool with the mining pool fee as a BitShare option, so stay updated!

[SolarWindMiningCompany]

I have updated the share count section with details on how share funds are distributed and included information on escrow  deposits.

Have a great day/evening. 

[some1]

Hi SolarWind & co, keep up the good work!

It would be nice if we (the first 100) could have an access to the site before it goes public.
This way we could be ready with advertising of our referral links on day 0.

[xTachibana]

where can i get me one of these mining accounts i hear of?

[SolarWindMiningCompany]

Hi SolarWind & co, keep up the good work!

It would be nice if we (the first 100) could have an access to the site before it goes public.
This way we could be ready with advertising of our referral links on day 0.

Good idea. We'll see what we can do when the website is close to ready.

where can i get me one of these mining accounts i hear of?

Send a PM to either SolarWindMiningCompany or BRADLEYPLOOF

Thanks Jorgeminator, that's what I like about the SolarWind Partners. Their willing to help others!

Hey Tachibana, I'll PM you your BitShare Mining Pool account information. [edit: Done!]

[SolarWindMiningCompany]

Hey guys,

Until the website is up and running you can checkout The SolarWind Mining Companies google+ page. Really busy right now with college and working to get SolarWind fully operational. I will try to put a few updates there when I can. The more partners we can get to invest in SolarWind at this early stage the faster we can get things going. We need to raise capital so we can get everything setup for the mining rigs and get them running on day one of delivery. Those of you who have joined The First 100 Club and are already making contributions to the share count should encourage the other partners to start mining in the BitShare Mining Pool or start making some deposits. Remember, you can deposit any amount you would like into your BitShare account. Your deposits, once credited to your account, will double repeatedly until you reach 0.5 or 1.5 BTC (your choice) and then your account is converted to a Standard Share (0.5 BTC) or Founders Share (1.5 BTC) automatically. Even payments from a free faucet can be sent to your BitShare account and they will double and continue to roll over until the share value you have chosen is reached! Also keep in mind that as a member of The First 100 Club, you get an extra 5% credit in addition to the normal 10% credit on your BitShare deposits. That's a total of a 15% return on your investment just for depositing funds!

SolarWind is all about you, you are the reason for SolarWind and it will take you to make it successful. I was going to start a group buy for the mining hardware, but I decided that group buys are not really all that fair to the small miners who simply do not have the hashing power or BTC to afford a group buy share. So, The SolarWind Mining Company was born with the small (and even tiny) miners in mind and it's mission is to help as many people as possible take part in a profitable mining venture. This is the very reason that the BitShare and BitShare Mining Pool options where created, to help YOU!

Lets do this together! Lets Make It Happen! GooOO TEAM!

[Zakryze]

saved for later. this therd is on my watchlist now

[SolarWindMiningCompany]

I have updated my reply to floatyfish, CoinHoarder, pedrog here ==> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=297334.msg3205484#msg3205484

[SolarWindMiningCompany]

I have updated the share count and the BitShare Mining Pool hashrate. We have another addition to the BitShare Mining Pool!!

Steady but sure!

[floatyfish]

When you say that our share will double, I'm assuming will this be through the mining that is occurring? Will you be using the money in the shares to buy solar panels/windmills/necessary equipment to harness that energy? Also, will any of the share money be going ASICs? If it is, have you thought about what to buy once the difficulty goes through the roof?

[SolarWindMiningCompany]

When you say that our share will double, I'm assuming will this be through the mining that is occurring? Will you be using the money in the shares to buy solar panels/windmills/necessary equipment to harness that energy? Also, will any of the share money be going ASICs? If it is, have you thought about what to buy once the difficulty goes through the roof?

Yes, mining will be the main producer of income and that is where the funds will come from to double the shares. The idea is to pay heavy early on to cover the share payouts and then ride on the residuals. That being said, a portion of BitShares and Founders Shares are meant to help fund expansion costs, at least in the beginning. SolarWind will balance, to the extent possible, doubling shares and investing in new mining hardware, all the while phasing in solar, wind and other green energy sources using primarily residual funds.

If, at a point when SolarWind is producing 'free' energy, the difficulties rise sharply, SolarWind will have the advantage of having lower electrical costs. As for ASICs, of course, ASICs all the way (unless something better comes along.) As for difficulties going through the roof, when and if such an event occurs, there will be a large drop in the number of miners for a short period of time. Since, presumably, SolarWind will have a lower than average cost-per-hash, SolarWind will have, yet again, the advantage. Besides this, difficulties have always been about to go through the roof. The main difference from difficulties before and difficulties now is that it will begin to happen at a more notable rate.

That begs the question, at least for me, where are your bitcoins best invested if there is a substantial rise in difficulties, is it with SolarWind, a company that has as it's first priority a commitment to payout double the initial investment to it's investors as rapidly as possible and actively pursue the lowering of it's own energy costs, or with BTC-Guild's suspiciously low payout despite a HUGE block find rate? How much do you think the other big mining farms are investing in lowering there energy usages? Which mining company will have the infrastructure already in place when the bottleneck of watts-per-hash makes mining to expensive for even large mining farms? Which mining company will be mining happily along when other mining operations are flicking of their machines in a mad rush to keep from going bankrupt? Which mining company will benefit from the sudden drop in the difficulty level right after all those machines have been shut down? Which mining company will be the grasshopper who plays all summer and stores nothing for the winter, and which mining company will be the ant who works diligently early on so he does not starve in the winter? I will tell you which company will be like the ant, it will be SolarWind! And who is the grasshopper? ALL THE REST!!

So, how will SolarWind do it?. There are many was to produce low cost energy, so don't be fooled by the naysayers. One example world be methane production, you take a ton of cow manure, dump it into a pit and nature does the rest. All you have to do is capture the methane (an easy low tech process) then burn it to run a steam powered generator, it is a very cheap way to produce electricity. I suppose we could create an altcoin and call it the crap-poweredcoin, just so we could mine them with the methane powered miners. Anyone want to buy 10,000 crap-poweredcoins? Who wants to develop the graphics for the crap-poweredcoin, it has to have a cow on one side and a cow pie on the other! <== (shit eat'n grin) Here's an idea, if a single individual purchases 10 Founders Shares, SolarWind will commit to building a methane powered generator and develop the crap-poweredcoin to be merge mined with bitcoin! Anyway, SolarWind will use many different methods to meet the power requirements of mining. I think that's where most models for green-energy usages fail, because they rarely include multiple sources of energy.

[Stinky_Pete]

An interesting project, and one I find attractive both from its green energy stand and the small-is-beautiful investors. I am concerned about the capital needed to start, and the very generous payouts predicted, in an environment where Bitcoin mining difficulty increases rapidly. I'll keep watching, and look forward to seeing the business plan. At the moment it looks too good to be true, and you know what people say about those schemes!

[BRADLEYPLOOF]

An interesting project, and one I find attractive both from its green energy stand and the small-is-beautiful investors. I am concerned about the capital needed to start, and the very generous payouts predicted, in an environment where Bitcoin mining difficulty increases rapidly. I'll keep watching, and look forward to seeing the business plan. At the moment it looks too good to be true, and you know what people say about those schemes!

Aye, they say just that...besides the President of SolarWind really wanting this to explode, I want it to come to fruition as well, mostly because this will be THE coolest project I've ever worked on.  I want to make a difference, and I want to make sure that it's felt by everyone willing to invest.  We're not only going to use Mining as a form of income, but we have several other ventures as well to generate revenue.

[Stinky_Pete]

OK, so I can't find a simple sentence or two saying what SolarWind is all about. Suggest you add it to the top of the first post.

[Added later] I finally found it here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=293098.msg3196977#msg3196977

So, in looking around, I have come to the conclusion that you started to go public before the business plan was properly thought out. I understand your excitement generated by this idea, and the desire to start telling people about it, but this is other people's money you are asking for, and some people get very serious about money. Offering to work hard and cover debts is admirable, but revealing you have little experience is not going to generate confidence and attract investors. I suggest you find someone with experience of business (even if it's only in the world of fiat) to give you advice.

Still watching and considering an investment though.