El Salvador to mine bitcoin using Volcanic energy

[Dave1]

El Salvador to mine bitcoin using Volcanic energy, how cool is that? (no pun intended).

https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1442949756993490945

The source is the President himself through his twitter? What can you say about this move?

El Salvador paving the way for "volcanode", Lol.

[1714691964]

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[1714691964]

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[Poker Player]

What he is doing regarding Bitcoin seems great to me, another thing is that I read criticisms of him in other threads, I looked for information and he seems to me a dictator-wannabe. Not for nothing he defines himself on Twitter as "The coolest dictator in the world".

Although mining and legislation on Bitcoin seem to me to be very good ideas, now it only remains for the price to take off for the people of El Salvador to get rid of their doubts.

[crwth]

I like the "Volcanode" Pun. Nice!

It's wise to use that. The geothermal energy from the volcano could be used to power up miners and the mining operations there, which is ideal since it's a renewable energy source. I'm not sure how efficient they can be, but having a lower cost to mine BTC is perfect.

Upon checking the geographical information of El Salvador, they have a hefty amount of volcanoes surrounding them, so it's brilliant as well.

I hope this would be the approach of people mining with all the renewable energy resources to maximize their efficiency and help the environment—no more critics of the "energy-hungry" crypto economy.

[rodskee]

Have already read articles about this even before the finalization of adoption of Bitcoin in that country and not the president finally mentioned about this in particular.

The term Volcanode is one cool word to name this project but if this becomes successful then Other countries will surely follow this footstep and many countries will invest and considered accepting bitcoin as well.

and also this is not only for Bitcoin mining because others will also consider mining altcoins in this matter.

[mk4]

He has been teasing volcano mining for a while now. Right?

But yea, another method of mining in a natural way that puts up another middle finger to those people who think Bitcoin wastes too much energy. Not to mention that it's pretty badass as well!

[Spack17]

It is really interesting news. I'm hearing about a thing like this for the first time. I've never heard about anyone who used volcanic energy to mine any kind of cryptocurrency. This is going to be the first time I guess. I really wonder if this energy source is fully fitting the crypto mining. If it is productive enough, then I can't wait to see them making it happen.

[acroman08]

The source is the President himself through his twitter? What can you say about this move?

it's a great initiative and it shows that bitcoin mining also uses clean energy(which isn't new).

But yea, another method of mining in a natural way that puts up another middle finger to those people who think Bitcoin wastes too much energy. Not to mention that it's pretty badass as well!

damn right, but then again I wouldn't be surprised if they brought up that bitcoin is using more energy than a whole country or another BS that bitcoin is bad blah blah blah.

[Ucy]

Volcanic or geo thermal energy? When I saw volcanic energy it reminded me of huge molten firey substance gushing out of earth in a violent manner , how do you safely convert that to energy? I guess he's talking about something less extreme like the typical geo thermal energy.

Hope most miners are not concentrated there. It's better miners are distributed across the world to keep them decentralized and have an antifragile Bitcoin. Issue like this is basically why centralization is bad. I wonder how they will be able to keep the miners or power plants safe if something unpleasant happen at the location.

[DdmrDdmr]

Reading through an article in Spanish today (*), it seems that the mining equipment arrived last Sunday. The container in the image has "Gobierno de El Salvador" written on it, so I presume that this particular the mining farm is going to be exploited by the Government (as opposed to a private investment), although that is my speculation.

The geothermal powerplant corresponds to one called "Central Geotérmica Berlín", which has been around for over 20 years (see https://www.ecured.cu/Central_Geot%C3%A9rmica_Berl%C3%ADn). I presume therefore that they’ve allocated some space to plug the farm into the network (that's it), but that the exploitation is not new.

Combining the information from the articles referenced on this post, the power plant seems to have a maximum capacity of 109 MW, although the plant is not at full capacity. It also seems to account for 13,3% of the energy required by El Salvador.

(*) Google translated into English:
https://www-criptonoticias-com.translate.goog/mineria/salvador-comienza-minar-bitcoin-energia-geotermica-volcanes/?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=es&_x_tr_pto=nui,elem

[Imran232]

El Salvador to mine bitcoin using Volcanic energy, how cool is that? (no pun intended).

https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1442949756993490945

The source is the President himself through his twitter? What can you say about this move?

El Salvador paving the way for "volcanode", Lol.

This is called an experiment. And this is the way you guys can find out the solution if you want to legalize bicoin and bitcoin mining. If you say you can't approve it for the environment, then you can't. But if you say you will approve it and then do experiment, then we will find the best solution. Then we will give permission to all of you to mine bitcoin. But without doing any research or experiment, if you banned it and didn't care about it, then you are such an idiot. You should be up to date with technology. And technology is the thing that generates all the problems' solutions. And El Salvador is doing the same things. They are experimenting with this technology. And they might be the most advanced country in the technology sector soon. All the best El Salvador 

[NeuroticFish]

When I saw volcanic energy it reminded me of huge molten firey substance gushing out of earth in a violent manner , how do you safely convert that to energy? I guess he's talking about something less extreme like the typical geo thermal energy.

It's geothermal energy indeed. But it's the geothermal energy the one that creates that "fiery substance" too  
I'm not sure how it's harvested though. If it's via hot springs it's easy. Else it's them who had to find a way to heat the water using the geothermal energy.

But from my understanding they already have power plants running on this principle, all they've done for now was to bring miners use that energy (and maybe produce some extra for those miners).

Hope most miners are not concentrated there. It's better miners are distributed across the world to keep them decentralized and have an antifragile Bitcoin. Issue like this is basically why centralization is bad. I wonder how they will be able to keep the miners or power plants safe if something unpleasant happen at the location.

Don't worry. This kind of movements actually do decentralization for now. I think that they need much more power plants (and much more miners there) in order to even think on centralization.

[avikz]

El Salvador to mine bitcoin using Volcanic energy, how cool is that? (no pun intended).

https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1442949756993490945

The source is the President himself through his twitter? What can you say about this move?

El Salvador paving the way for "volcanode", Lol.

Geo thermal energy it is! But anyway if El-Salvador starts bitcoin mining operations, that will go a long way for the network. First ever government investment into bitcoin mining will make the network more centralized and if other governments of the small cointried adopt to the Similar approach, the individual miners will simply have to shut down their operations. Not a good news if we think from a long term perspective as it is not really ideal ti have government miners into the network no matter how friendly they are with bitcoin. I hope this just doesn't become a trend.

[stompix]

He will mine sh****.

1) The powerplant has been there for a long time, as DdmrDdmr has posted,
2) Salvador is a net importer of energy:

In 2018, El Salvador’s installed electricity generation capacity was 1.824 MW, and system demand was 1,081 MW.  Total exports to other markets in Central America are 89.6 million kWh and imports are 1.675 billion kWh.  mainly from Guatemala.  

So how the hell are you going to use your already existing plant to mine bitcoin when you don't have enough energy in the country to run your current economy without relying on 20% imports?
At this point, this wannabe dictator's credibility is near zero, he has forgotten he has a country to run he needs to pump the coin on Twitter as his main job.

[masulum]

He will mine sh****.

1) The powerplant has been there for a long time, as DdmrDdmr has posted,
2) Salvador is a net importer of energy:

In 2018, El Salvador’s installed electricity generation capacity was 1.824 MW, and system demand was 1,081 MW.  Total exports to other markets in Central America are 89.6 million kWh and imports are 1.675 billion kWh.  mainly from Guatemala.  

So how the hell are you going to use your already existing plant to mine bitcoin when you don't have enough energy in the country to run your current economy without relying on 20% imports?
At this point, this wannabe dictator's credibility is near zero, he has forgotten he has a country to run he needs to pump the coin on Twitter as his main job.

This is quite surprising. If he wants to develop a project for energy generation as he stated, while his country still lacks energy and also minimal money, then Nayib seems to just want to be someone who is considered influential in the crypto world ^{(want to become Elon Musk 2, maybe )}. I can't imagine how much budget is needed to create an energy generator for mining bitcoin. Which in fact can be made for the development of things that are more important for the country. There is nothing wrong with the opinion that many El Salvadorans reject BTC, because what Nayib did was a little less planned.

[Kittygalore]

Shouldn't that volcano energy be considered geothermal? Meaning that they're going to spend some money to build an infrastructure in the volacano to harvest energy there so it's likely that we're going to see more resistance from people that opposes bitcoin since they're going to see this as a waste of time even though it's not just bitcoin that it's going to help.

[yazher]

Shouldn't that volcano energy be considered geothermal? Meaning that they're going to spend some money to build an infrastructure in the volacano to harvest energy there so it's likely that we're going to see more resistance from people that opposes bitcoin since they're going to see this as a waste of time even though it's not just bitcoin that it's going to help.

Maybe they already have it tested and it seems like using it as an electric energy to mine bitcoins is quite interesting and innovative. I wonder how well it goes for them and if they become successful in doing it I think there will be another change in the price again since the other miners will mimic their idea but, of course, it has a higher chance to become a norm when people is aguing about the energy consumption of mining cryptocurrencies in their place, they can use volcanic energy instead. El Salvador is trying their best to be a guinea pig by testing its economy by implementing BTC payment and using volcanic energy for mining cryptocurrencies.

[kryptqnick]

What he is doing regarding Bitcoin seems great to me, another thing is that I read criticisms of him in other threads, I looked for information and he seems to me a dictator-wannabe. Not for nothing he defines himself on Twitter as "The coolest dictator in the world".

Although mining and legislation on Bitcoin seem to me to be very good ideas, now it only remains for the price to take off for the people of El Salvador to get rid of their doubts.

I read a bit about him as well, and I don't like him. Even though he's been in power for only 2 years, he already gained a reputation as a right-wing populist and an authoritarian leader. Luckily, though, it seems that El Salvador isn't big on classic dictatorships, since nobody stayed in power for more than 5 years over the last hundred years (correct me if I'm wrong). So chances are that he won't be the first, and in the meantime, he might actually do something good for his country with all this crypto adoption. As for using geothermal energy for mining, it's a good idea because geothermal energy seems to be more eco-friendly than coal, being a renewable and reliable source of energy.

[suzanne5223]

What he is doing regarding Bitcoin seems great to me, another thing is that I read criticisms of him in other threads, I looked for information and he seems to me a dictator-wannabe.

Using geothermal energy to mine Bitcoin is a wonderful innovation and when things like this are introduced critics will always have a say. However, this shouldn't be a big deal.

Not for nothing he defines himself on Twitter as "The coolest dictator in the world".

I believe he was indeed the coolest dictator in the world as he self-proclaimed because he taking Bitcoin to the next level and showing every country leader what they are missing by not joining the cryptocurrency scheme.

Although mining and legislation on Bitcoin seem to me to be very good ideas, now it only remains for the price to take off for the people of El Salvador to get rid of their doubts.

There are still some people in El Salvador that understand the President's intention and those we see in the news that vandalized the Bitcoin ATM are just political opponents doing.

[okorieemmanuel]

What he is doing regarding Bitcoin seems great to me, another thing is that I read criticisms of him in other threads, I looked for information and he seems to me a dictator-wannabe.

Using geothermal energy to mine Bitcoin is a wonderful innovation and when things like this are introduced critics will always have a say. However, this shouldn't be a big deal.

Not for nothing he defines himself on Twitter as "The coolest dictator in the world".

I believe he was indeed the coolest dictator in the world as he self-proclaimed because he taking Bitcoin to the next level and showing every country leader what they are missing by not joining the cryptocurrency scheme.

Although mining and legislation on Bitcoin seem to me to be very good ideas, now it only remains for the price to take off for the people of El Salvador to get rid of their doubts.

There are still some people in El Salvador that understand the President's intention and those we see in the news that vandalized the Bitcoin ATM are just political opponents doing.

The president dream may just become a reality. According to his tweets in June, he said the country's engineers had dug a new well to provide around 95 MW of green energy, backed by natural volcanic resources. 95MW is no joke. It will yield profit!

[AicecreaME]

El Salvador to mine bitcoin using Volcanic energy, how cool is that? (no pun intended).

https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1442949756993490945

The source is the President himself through his twitter? What can you say about this move?

El Salvador paving the way for "volcanode", Lol.

I've seen a similar article before and it's really a great move for El Salvador considering that the price of electricity in mining bitcoin is definitely costly. Using geothermal energy as their source of electricity is a great alternative because aside from it being cost-efficient, it is also environmentally friendly because it is a renewable resource. I think most of us are already aware that bitcoin mining really consumes a lot of power, hence some of the countries that have mining sites of bitcoin restrict and limit the mining due to lack of enough power to be used. If they will be able to push this through, bitcoin mining will be cheaper and the environment won't suffer as much due to the additional burning of fossil fuels for electricity. They won't be bothered on where they would get the energy as well because they have abundant volcanoes within their area to use as their source of energy.