Cool mining set up that more miners should copy.

[Wind_FURY]

This #Bitcoin mining farm in Guatemala 🇬🇹 is running on vegetable oil, helping restaurants from throwing it at a local lake ⛏️

https://twitter.com/LuxorTechTeam/status/1677041481486327808

Video included in the tweet. I believe philipma1957 will like it.



The mining set up not just helps secure the network and profits in Bitcoin, it also helps restaurants dispose of their waste. It's another illustration of how the incentive structure within Bitcoin fills gaps in the real world and make it better.

The same example as the "ransomware market" that I keep on repeating like a broken record. Haha.

[goldkingcoiner]

This #Bitcoin mining farm in Guatemala 🇬🇹 is running on vegetable oil, helping restaurants from throwing it at a local lake ⛏️

https://twitter.com/LuxorTechTeam/status/1677041481486327808

Video included in the tweet. I believe philipma1957 will like it.



The mining set up not just helps secure the network and profits in Bitcoin, it also helps restaurants dispose of their waste. It's another illustration of how the incentive structure within Bitcoin fills gaps in the real world and make it better.

The same example as the "ransomware market" that I keep on repeating like a broken record. Haha.

Lol. Its running on vegetable oil or is it just cooled by vegetable oil? Both seem like bad ideas to be honest. 

I heard that you can even mix in vegetable oil with diesel or run modern diesel cars (with a few tweaks) on pure vegetable oil and for the short term, everything will be fine, performance-wise. But in the mid term or long term it will absolutely gunk up and destroy the car's engine.

The same must be true for electricity generation for Bitcoin mining. At some point in the very near future the vegetable oil will gunk up everything and the motor will stop working. Why not just use old motor oil or something? Hell, you could even melt down and distill plastic into use-able fuel which won't gunk up the motor (much).

But I do like the idea of using waste to fuel Bitcoin mining. Another good idea would be to ferment alcohol from scraps or methane gas from cow dung. 

[Wind_FURY]

This #Bitcoin mining farm in Guatemala 🇬🇹 is running on vegetable oil, helping restaurants from throwing it at a local lake ⛏️

https://twitter.com/LuxorTechTeam/status/1677041481486327808

Video included in the tweet. I believe philipma1957 will like it.



The mining set up not just helps secure the network and profits in Bitcoin, it also helps restaurants dispose of their waste. It's another illustration of how the incentive structure within Bitcoin fills gaps in the real world and make it better.

The same example as the "ransomware market" that I keep on repeating like a broken record. Haha.

Lol. Its running on vegetable oil or is it just cooled by vegetable oil? Both seem like bad ideas to be honest. 

I heard that you can even mix in vegetable oil with diesel or run modern diesel cars (with a few tweaks) on pure vegetable oil and for the short term, everything will be fine, performance-wise. But in the mid term or long term it will absolutely gunk up and destroy the car's engine.

The same must be true for electricity generation for Bitcoin mining. At some point in the very near future the vegetable oil will gunk up everything and the motor will stop working. Why not just use old motor oil or something? Hell, you could even melt down and distill plastic into use-able fuel which won't gunk up the motor (much).

It's not without its own solutions though.

Modified fuel systems

Most diesel car engines are suitable for the use of straight vegetable oil (SVO), also commonly called pure plant oil (PPO), with certain modifications. Principally, the viscosity and surface tension of the SVO/PPO must be reduced by preheating it, typically by using waste heat from the engine or electricity; otherwise, poor atomization, incomplete combustion, and carbonization may result. One common solution is to add a heat exchanger and an additional fuel tank for the petrodiesel or biodiesel blend and to switch between this additional tank and the main tank of SVO/PPO. The engine is started on diesel, switched over to vegetable oil as soon as it is warmed up, and switched back to diesel shortly before being switched off to ensure that no vegetable oil remains in the engine or fuel lines when it is started from cold again. In colder climates it is often necessary to heat the vegetable oil fuel lines and tank as it can become very viscous and even solidify.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable_oil_fuel

Human ingenuity.

But I do like the idea of using waste to fuel Bitcoin mining. Another good idea would be to ferment alcohol from scraps or methane gas from cow dung. 

I think philipma1957 posted something about starting a small scale mining farm that uses methane as an energy source besides his solar mining enterprise.

[FP91G]

I do not understand how these ASICs stand in the open air. If it rains or thunderstorms, then water can get on the asics. ASICs stand in a place that looks like a garbage dump, it is dusty there, and it is not known what humidity is. Maybe these are old ASICs that you don’t mind breaking, but I wouldn’t mine in such conditions.

[serveria.com]

This #Bitcoin mining farm in Guatemala 🇬🇹 is running on vegetable oil, helping restaurants from throwing it at a local lake ⛏️

https://twitter.com/LuxorTechTeam/status/1677041481486327808

Video included in the tweet. I believe philipma1957 will like it.



The mining set up not just helps secure the network and profits in Bitcoin, it also helps restaurants dispose of their waste. It's another illustration of how the incentive structure within Bitcoin fills gaps in the real world and make it better.

The same example as the "ransomware market" that I keep on repeating like a broken record. Haha.

Interesting concept. The device powering the whole setup looks like a diesel generator. Perhaps it has been modified somehow as I'm not sure if a stock diesel generator can run on vegetable oil (most probably not).

[Stalker22]

I do not really see any significant advantage to this method, to be honest. Sure, it takes advantage of waste vegetable oil that would otherwise go to waste or harm the environment, but isn't burning oil even worse for the environment? On top of that, the actual effectiveness of such a generator is seriously up in the air.

In my book, a smarter approach would be to store that oil and put it to good use in a different way. How about using it to heat buildings or greenhouses during those chilly winter months? Not only would it be more eco-friendly, but it would also serve a practical purpose.

[paid2]

I do not understand how these ASICs stand in the open air. If it rains or thunderstorms, then water can get on the asics. ASICs stand in a place that looks like a garbage dump, it is dusty there, and it is not known what humidity is. Maybe these are old ASICs that you don’t mind breaking, but I wouldn’t mine in such conditions.

Yeah, you can see a roof on the video, but you're right, in the event of a storm or rain, the humidity must be terrible.

Maybe they only mine part-time with this infrastructure and put them under cover during bad weather? It sounds like a lot of extra work, but at the same time they don't seem to have many ASICs, so it must be feasible.

Apart from that I find the concept interesting, I'd love to be able to recycle a polluting and wasteful resource to power some Antminers. Even if it's only two or three S9s, for example, they're will give satoshis that are practically free, and many of us (at least in my case) have old ASICs that have long since paid for themselves, which we could "sacrifice" for such a project.

[Wind_FURY]

The replies in the topic are both positive and negative. For those who replied negatively, listen, it's probably just a prototype showing that it could be done. Because why not, right? If they could run it more efficient enough to actually make some profit, they could be starting a new kind of small scale business for used oil disposal. It's very amazing that Bitcoin could fill in gaps and incentivize people to make some facets of the real world more efficient. Don't shut your minds from ideas.

If it's actually feasible to do as a profitable business is a different debate. Perhaps philipma1957 could give us his personal opinion.

[philipma1957]

The replies in the topic are both positive and negative. For those who replied negatively, listen, it's probably just a prototype showing that it could be done. Because why not, right? If they could run it more efficient enough to actually make some profit, they could be starting a new kind of small scale business for used oil disposal. It's very amazing that Bitcoin could fill in gaps and incentivize people to make some facets of the real world more efficient. Don't shut your minds from ideas.

If it's actually feasible to do as a profitable business is a different debate. Perhaps philipma1957 could give us his personal opinion.

Well its never cold in Guatemala so they only worry about humidity.

The gear will last about a year s9's are waste scrap.

The oil is waste scrap.

They may not have a recycle program for it.


So if the oil is free just come and get it.

And the s9's were purchased for 100 each.

they make 1 dollar a day. They should last 300 days.

So turn 100 into 300 over 300 days.  It works in a poor country.

After looking at the photo it looks like 1 s9 and 1 s17 or 65th that's about 4.50 a day.

you could but that gear if lucky as low as 100+500 = 600

300 x 4.55 = 1365 so a profit of 765

if oil = free
if generator was surplus doing nothing.

a lot of labor.

[paid2]

So turn 100 into 300 over 300 days.  It works in a poor country.

After looking at the photo it looks like 1 s9 and 1 s17 or 65th that's about 4.50 a day.

you could but that gear if lucky as low as 100+500 = 600

300 x 4.55 = 1365 so a profit of 765

if oil = free
if generator was surplus doing nothing.

a lot of labor.

I agree, especially if you take into account the local minimum wage. I've looked, and found several sources that are a bit contradictory. However, if I take the source that gives me the highest daily minimum wage in Guatemala, I come up with 101.05 GTQ for a day of 8 hours' work, which gives me around 12.94 USD.

So 765 USD profit is not negligible, it would be like two months of local minimum wage.

Where I have a little more doubt is on the ability of these ASICs to last over time in a stable manner if they don't bother to monitor humidity.
Just as, to get the numbers mentioned above, they'd have to be able to keep them running 24/7, and I don't think that's the case.

In any case, this is further proof that in low-income countries, BTC mining can be a game changer.

[joniboini]

In any case, this is further proof that in low-income countries, BTC mining can be a game changer.

I'd assume that is true as long as they can access cheap electricity. If they don't, then it will probably be as expensive, if not more expensive, than in other countries. My country has relatively cheap electricity, but people would need to spend a lot of money to set up their RIG and wait months before they break even. Not sure if they can do the same thing as OP shared though.

[sesterceshop]

That is awesome. Reminds of the Bitcoin "shitcoin" mining farm in Slovakia that made the news a while back, where they convert human and animal waste into hash rate... but less smelly!

[mikeywith]

In any case, this is further proof that in low-income countries, BTC mining can be a game changer.

How tho? I can't see how mining is a game changer for low-income countries, if the miner generates enough money for them it means the cost of buying and running that miner is also high with respect to their income, someone who lives in a rich country can save enough money in a week to buy a used miner for $500 without having to starve, someone in a poor country will need to work for months and months to afford that same miner.

So really it's pretty much the same equation if you can easily afford to buy the miner - the income will be little to nothing, if the income is good, then you can't easily afford to buy the miner.

In fact, if anything, one could argue that BTC mining favors the rich countries, people in rich countries have access to a lot of money, have excessive electricity which they can access,  in a pool/low-income country, none of that exists, and supply of electricity is probably not close to cover basic needs, expensive, unreliable, no source of funds to pursue any meaningful mining operation.

As for these folks using cooking oil or whatever shit -- none of these methods are sustainable or feasible, you may come up with whatever way of generating electricity, but as long as the other folks can generate it a lot cheaper by burning coal or gas, it makes no sense, you are essentially competing against every other miner, whoever finds a way to make the cheapest electricity will win in the long run.

There is a good reason why U.S miners could not compete against the Chinese, the Chinese had access to cheaper power and a lot of money, and so they did sit on the mining throne from the get-go until China banned miners, as soon as that happened, the second most potential country was the U.S, they have a lot of money and cheap power (not cheaper than China but cheaper than most other potential countries).

Now the U.S is taking the lead, who else can compete against them now that China is gone? Russia, Russia has a lot of money and cheap power, how cheap? we don't know, but the bottom line is that you need both MONEY and CHEAP POEWR to benefit from BTC mining, which is why only countries with those two elements can afford to heavily mine bitcoin.

[paid2]

You're right, but at the same time, there are places where electricity is close to free, and minimum incomes are low. People who earn more than the minimum income there can accumulate cheap, second-hand ASICs from a long-term perspective. There are also those who back in a days bought L3s (for example) at 70-80 usd, who mined on Nicehash or converted their LTC/DOGE into BTC and sold during the last bull run, must have been very pleased. Or with a 100 usd S9, actualy you earn 0.00090849BTC per month approximately, ROI would be 5-6 months with a dirty cheap electricity. It makes sense for someone which is almost not paying electricity, even with the rise of difficulty. So if the said guy accumulated cheap S9s or S15s for example, when difficulty was lower, it could be profitable for him.

 For example, I was recently in Kosovo, with someone who had very very cheap electricity. He collects the cheapest ASICs possible, and has been accumulating them for a long time (several years). This gives him an income that's not insignificant back home (minimum wage more or less 200 EUR in Kosovo if I'm not wrong). Of course, we're not talking about mining on an industrial scale, but what I was trying to say is that over the long term, some people manage to obtain a small amount of sats that is not insignificant in proportion to their country's minimum income.

It's much the same in Russia, where there's industrial mining that requires a lot of resources and investment. But you also meet people who have a few dozen ASICs accumulated over the years that generate an income that would enable them to live a little more comfortably.

Of course, this isn't possible overnight, but I sincerely believe that places where the cost of living is low, and electricity affordable, are one of the few interesting opportunities for 'pleb' mining, even if it doesn't even represent 1% of the total hashrate and is insignificant in the proportion of the total hashrate.

I can give my personnal situation as an example. Where I live, incomes are low, but if you manage to earn 100 EUR a month, you can already say that your rent is paid in most of cities. That's appreciable, even for people who earn more than the minimum wage. Personaly, when I work, I earn like 6-7 times the minimum legal salary, so I could afford to buy more ASICs from time to time.
My mining farm is not crazy big, but thanks to it, if I wanted, I could stop working now and just sell my BTC each month, and live in a very comfortable way as long as the difficulty stays in her actual range. It wouldn't be possible in a Westerner country or in a country where cost of living is high. So keeping all these accumulated sats aside for the long term makes a lot of sense in my situation. It's almost free DCA, insofar as my ASICs are already profitable.

On the other hand, from a professional, stable and industrial mining point of view, I totally agree with you. But that doesn't mean those guys who make the equivalent of a minimum income in "BTC Savings" every month don't exist, and in their case, if they accumulate these sats and sell in bullrun, it can be a very profitable game for them. Even if it's on a small scale, the ratio of earnings to cost of living could be to their advantage

[mikeywith]

Of course, this isn't possible overnight, but I sincerely believe that places where the cost of living is low, and electricity affordable

Exactly the point I am trying to make, cheap electricity, what is the percentage of low-income countries that have cheap and somehow excessive electricity? 1-5% ? the two countries that you named are RICH in energy, Kosovo sits on a TON of coal and uses that coal to produce the vast majority of its energy, and Russia sits on a TON of everything that generates electricity, but what about the rest of the low-income countries? how many countries in Asia, Africa or South America have very low income and cheap electricity? I highly doubt if we were to run the numbers that we would get to anything above 10%, so mining could be good for 10% of the low-income countries.

[stompix]

Oh, the irony!
Just had a power failure while writing this post, I was going to kill somebody if the ups would have failed and lost it.

For those who replied negatively, listen, it's probably just a prototype showing that it could be done. Because why not, right?

Because scaling is a b1tch!
What works for a hobby miner it becomes impossible to run when you multiply it by a dozen.
1 S9? I can run it in my bathroom! 20? I will turn off the power on the street, my neighbors will call the police and I won't be able to hear even 10 cops cars over the noise, and probably from the heat my bathtub will melt before they arrive!

Same here, you got enough power for 5kw miners, how do you get the cheap or zero cooking oil for more?
It's like living on soda cans, you can pick a few hundred each day but can you pick 10 000 a day? Scaling!

How tho? I can't see how mining is a game changer for low-income countries, if the miner generates enough money for them it means the cost of buying and running that miner is also high with respect to their income, someone who lives in a rich country can save enough money in a week to buy a used miner for $500 without having to starve, someone in a poor country will need to work for months and months to afford that same miner.

I've seen this so many times I kind of stopped paying attention to it!
Somehow magically investing $200 to get $200 is great in Somalia and investing $5000 to get $5000 is bad in the US or EU, don't know by what logic, don't know how this keeps getting spotted even if it's not simply about mining but about investing too, like some guy who can barely afford 20$ will strike it rich unlike the one affording $5000 cause....reasons!

As for these folks using cooking oil or whatever shit -- none of these methods are sustainable or feasible, you may come up with whatever way of generating electricity, but as long as the other folks can generate it a lot cheaper by burning coal or gas, it makes no sense, you are essentially competing against every other miner, whoever finds a way to make the cheapest electricity will win in the long run.

It will work only on a small scale.

For example, at our farm, we harvest willows and combine it with straws to make pellets, we sell those but we could fire them up and power a generator, it would work for us on our production but if we try to get over that, buying it or investing in planting more trees more land would bring the cost of home generation over the grid costs, and we're talking EU grid prices!
This, and allow me to quote you, "whatever shit' is just meme material!
Love the "Kaboom" sign on that fence!  

Now the U.S is taking the lead, who else can compete against them now that China is gone? Russia, Russia has a lot of money and cheap power, how cheap?

How cheap and, more importantly, how much!
Cause you can have cheap energy for industries like Iceland, but there are only 18Twh of them overall, The US has 4000Twh!

For example, I was recently in Kosovo, with someone who had very very cheap electricity. He collects the cheapest ASICs possible, and has been accumulating them for a long time (several years). This gives him an income that's not insignificant back home (minimum wage more or less 200 EUR in Kosovo if I'm not wrong). Of course, we're not talking about mining on an industrial scale, but what I was trying to say is that over the long term, some people manage to obtain a small amount of sats that is not insignificant in proportion to their country's minimum income.

That's exactly what Mikey said also, he invested 100$ to get a few satoshi and earn 20$ extra per month, now if that miner fails...
Fliping burgers 100km away in Sofia and he will be better!

[philipma1957]

In any case, this is further proof that in low-income countries, BTC mining can be a game changer.

How tho? I can't see how mining is a game changer for low-income countries, if the miner generates enough money for them it means the cost of buying and running that miner is also high with respect to their income, someone who lives in a rich country can save enough money in a week to buy a used miner for $500 without having to starve, someone in a poor country will need to work for months and months to afford that same miner.

So really it's pretty much the same equation if you can easily afford to buy the miner - the income will be little to nothing, if the income is good, then you can't easily afford to buy the miner.

In fact, if anything, one could argue that BTC mining favors the rich countries, people in rich countries have access to a lot of money, have excessive electricity which they can access,  in a pool/low-income country, none of that exists, and supply of electricity is probably not close to cover basic needs, expensive, unreliable, no source of funds to pursue any meaningful mining operation.

As for these folks using cooking oil or whatever shit -- none of these methods are sustainable or feasible, you may come up with whatever way of generating electricity, but as long as the other folks can generate it a lot cheaper by burning coal or gas, it makes no sense, you are essentially competing against every other miner, whoever finds a way to make the cheapest electricity will win in the long run.

There is a good reason why U.S miners could not compete against the Chinese, the Chinese had access to cheaper power and a lot of money, and so they did sit on the mining throne from the get-go until China banned miners, as soon as that happened, the second most potential country was the U.S, they have a lot of money and cheap power (not cheaper than China but cheaper than most other potential countries).

Now the U.S is taking the lead, who else can compete against them now that China is gone? Russia, Russia has a lot of money and cheap power, how cheap? we don't know, but the bottom line is that you need both MONEY and CHEAP POEWR to benefit from BTC mining, which is why only countries with those two elements can afford to heavily mine bitcoin.

Getting old cooking oil forever (years) can be done.

 So I would argue the 'free' fuel could be endless (well for 10 years or more)

But running a generator for 10 years I am not so sure.

Getting the gear could be easy.

A farm could dump gear the cost would be shipping it.

I could give the guy m10's, s15's, t15's for shipping cost and a few dollars.

When I was in the navy I could move a reasonable amount of gear from port to port.

There were no miners in 1978, but if there were and a Philippine had the setup above I could get them 5 miners every year or so.

People can make do. When all they have to give is labor the chance to burn the old oil as fuel and make a few more dollars would mean they would.

I do think the stumbling block would be the generator not the fuel not the miners not the labor.

Yeah the mining gear would die off fast 1-2 years at best.

But the generator is a big cost. Hard to replace.

[mikeywith]

How cheap and, more importantly, how much!

A rich country like Russia can build all the power plants they need, Kosovo or any other not-so-rich country, well probably not much.

Getting old cooking oil forever (years) can be done.

Phill, for all I know, if it was feasible to generate power using used cooking oil, then oil would not be cheap, imagine it made economical sense to generate 1kw with every human fart, I bet you that nobody would fart for free anymore, so given that cooking oil is free automatically results in a no-go, and it has probably to do with what you mentioned (the generator) so while oil is free, the rest of the things you need are not, so the cost of generating power using cooking oil is most certainly higher than the other methods.

There are some exceptions of course, let's say you are a retired mechanic, you have an oil generator that sits there doing nothing, has no market value, and there is a KFC down the road from where you live, then ya, by all means, using cooking oil to mine would make sense, but how many people have all those things combined? especially the KFC thing.

There is a huge difference between someone living next to a river which they can drop in a turbine and power up their TV, and someone who lives in a desert and has to dig up a river all the way to the nearest lake, most people don't live next door to rivers, most people don't have a power generator sitting at the back yard, oh, and probably most KFCs don't change oil too often, so you need a lot of stars to align so can mine bitcoin using cooking oil.

[philipma1957]

How cheap and, more importantly, how much!

A rich country like Russia can build all the power plants they need, Kosovo or any other not-so-rich country, well probably not much.

Getting old cooking oil forever (years) can be done.

Phill, for all I know, if it was feasible to generate power using used cooking oil, then oil would not be cheap, imagine it made economical sense to generate 1kw with every human fart, I bet you that nobody would fart for free anymore, so given that cooking oil is free automatically results in a no-go, and it has probably to do with what you mentioned (the generator) so while oil is free, the rest of the things you need are not, so the cost of generating power using cooking oil is most certainly higher than the other methods.

There are some exceptions of course, let's say you are a retired mechanic, you have an oil generator that sits there doing nothing, has no market value, and there is a KFC down the road from where you live, then ya, by all means, using cooking oil to mine would make sense, but how many people have all those things combined? especially the KFC thing.

There is a huge difference between someone living next to a river which they can drop in a turbine and power up their TV, and someone who lives in a desert and has to dig up a river all the way to the nearest lake, most people don't live next door to rivers, most people don't have a power generator sitting at the back yard, oh, and probably most KFCs don't change oil too often, so you need a lot of stars to align so can mine bitcoin using cooking oil.

Okay like I said when I was in the US Navy the P.I. had a big base near Subic Bay

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Naval_Base_Subic_Bay

at Olongapo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olongapo


The port has hundreds of bars and hookers in the 1000's

If
a) mining was around in 1978
b) some sailor would have done the setup with his hired hooker as the supervisor
c) oil would be provided by the bars as lots of foods were deep fried.
d) a few sailors would have help smuggle the miners
e) a few other sailors would have handled the generator

most payments for the sailors would be free women.

I spent enough time there to know this would have happened.

So it may only be 10 miners doing 50th each, but that is around 35 dollars a day which is big money for a poor sailors port.

And it is not scalable ie 100 miners is not going to happen.  But s17's at low 10 can be done.

[KiaKia]

Those miners will die fast, there is no filters and they are opened to that type of weather, what happens when the wind blows? Cool air? Bust way more dusty, no this is not whey I expected to see, I was expecting something more advanced, get a better cooling system in a safer environment, not out in the open, Asic miners are not built to face any form of humidity, they will die in no time, good luck.

Air filters, Dust free environment, good power and you are good to keep your mining operation alive, not this.