HOW TO MINE FOR FREE OR ATLEAST ON THE CHEAP (LEGALLY)

[Hqen2000]

Tidal power is free.   Hydro power is fairly efficient but you do need to live near a river or sea, so basically land rich but I still call it free if you are skilled enough

Yes. Free after spending a few million on infrastructure to support it.

[beaknuke]

UK gov were offering grants for upgrades to houses for Solar / other heating systems... so I am wondering about Solar and if the program's are available and worth doing, my elderly dad's house around the corner could do with it and run a rig in there

[STT]

Tidal power is free.   Hydro power is fairly efficient but you do need to live near a river or sea, so basically land rich but I still call it free if you are skilled enough

Yes. Free after spending a few million on infrastructure to support it.

Any carpenter skilled type person can build a water wheel, it can scale pretty well.   Its the kind of thing they'd do in frontier towns where being lazy isnt an option, here its red tape that be the biggest reason why not

[Lucky7Gaming]

I suppose it's all relative to your power usage, being only a hobby miner at 15gh/s my power usage is low.

I have 4 x 170 watt pv panels and a couple of soladin 600 micro grid tie inverters, that I picked up cheap a while back just to mess about with.

So what I do is not directly run my rig off the PV (well the soladins are plugged into the same ring main as the miners so in reality during the day it is) but offset the power usage by what my panels produce thought the day, so it works out atm anyway I'm not paying for any mining electricity usage. 

Are grid tie inverters even legal in the U.S.??  I was hearing that it was illegal?

[Lucky7Gaming]

Has anyone tried something like this out?  You wouldn't need a inverter...just the PC PSU.
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-any-home-appliance-into-a-solar-electr/?ALLSTEPS

Using a cheap charge controller and a 12v relay could allow from switching from a pc power supply to solar.

[Hqen2000]

Has anyone tried something like this out?  You wouldn't need a inverter...just the PC PSU.
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-any-home-appliance-into-a-solar-electr/?ALLSTEPS

Using a cheap charge controller and a 12v relay could allow from switching from a pc power supply to solar.

Would you really want to feed your miner(s) worth thousands of dollars that nasty power?

[xstr8guy]

Oh and HHO generator is snake oil. If you get an HHO generator you might as well order that 125Th system for $10k.. 

There is no magic for free/cheap power. Wind/solar are typically more expensive than city power.

HHO generators are not snake oil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyhydrogen

However, turning it into electricity burning it wouldn't make a lot of sense as you need electricity in the first place to generate HHO.

Options like solar however are totally viable. Yes, you pay a lot up front for the cells and infrastructure, but eventually they will pay themselves back as the Sun won't burn out for another few billion years or so, and if you generate more than you need your local power company will pay you for it if you are grid tied. My local power company even offers grants and other help for solar projects, and encourages green power development. How this is "more expensive" than city power escapes me.



As an alternative energy researcher myself I have been thinking of how a mining company could implement those technologies to power itself, though many are very underdeveloped and/or are just BS.

Oh yeah, it's for real, lol.  Just ignore all of the refererences to "fringe science" and "fraud" in that Wikipedia entry.   

[xstr8guy]

I suppose it's all relative to your power usage, being only a hobby miner at 15gh/s my power usage is low.

I have 4 x 170 watt pv panels and a couple of soladin 600 micro grid tie inverters, that I picked up cheap a while back just to mess about with.

So what I do is not directly run my rig off the PV (well the soladins are plugged into the same ring main as the miners so in reality during the day it is) but offset the power usage by what my panels produce thought the day, so it works out atm anyway I'm not paying for any mining electricity usage. 

Are grid tie inverters even legal in the U.S.??  I was hearing that it was illegal?

I suppose it depends on the area/power company but as far as I know it's completely legal just about everywhere in the US.  Why would it be illegal?

[ZiG]

Oh and HHO generator is snake oil. If you get an HHO generator you might as well order that 125Th system for $10k.. 

There is no magic for free/cheap power. Wind/solar are typically more expensive than city power.

HHO generators are not snake oil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyhydrogen

However, turning it into electricity burning it wouldn't make a lot of sense as you need electricity in the first place to generate HHO.

Options like solar however are totally viable. Yes, you pay a lot up front for the cells and infrastructure, but eventually they will pay themselves back as the Sun won't burn out for another few billion years or so, and if you generate more than you need your local power company will pay you for it if you are grid tied. My local power company even offers grants and other help for solar projects, and encourages green power development. How this is "more expensive" than city power escapes me.



As an alternative energy researcher myself I have been thinking of how a mining company could implement those technologies to power itself, though many are very underdeveloped and/or are just BS.

Oh yeah, it's for real, lol.  Just ignore all of the refererences to "fringe science" and "fraud" in that Wikipedia entry.   

Yeah...if Wikipedia is your source of reference...that's right...

Try something more serious, buddy...

[southerngentuk]

Has anyone tried something like this out?  You wouldn't need a inverter...just the PC PSU.
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-any-home-appliance-into-a-solar-electr/?ALLSTEPS

Using a cheap charge controller and a 12v relay could allow from switching from a pc power supply to solar.

Would you really want to feed your miner(s) worth thousands of dollars that nasty power?

That Nasty power would be 12V DC from a battery.. Your Miners will love it 

[Hqen2000]

Has anyone tried something like this out?  You wouldn't need a inverter...just the PC PSU.
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-any-home-appliance-into-a-solar-electr/?ALLSTEPS

Using a cheap charge controller and a 12v relay could allow from switching from a pc power supply to solar.

Would you really want to feed your miner(s) worth thousands of dollars that nasty power?

That Nasty power would be 12V DC from a battery.. Your Miners will love it 

Peaks and valleys in the current.

A battery doesn't provide the consistent current you'd want unless it was a very large battery(s), you'd need something to control the voltage to ensure it didn't go up and down. I would just be wary of feeding my miners power like that. Plus the energy lost going to a battery would make the whole thing inefficient. Would be better to just grid tie the inverter.

Grid tie inverters are 'illegal' if they aren't registered with the power company. When they turn 'off' the power or the power is off in the area if you have 10kw powering the line that nobody knows about you can end up killing someone. So you need to have disconnects they can access so they can disconnect your service from the grid. Most modern inverters will automatically disconnect when the grid power goes off.

[lightfoot]

So breaking into an abandoned dam is off-topic?

C

[regtable69]

Has anyone tried something like this out?  You wouldn't need a inverter...just the PC PSU.
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-any-home-appliance-into-a-solar-electr/?ALLSTEPS

Using a cheap charge controller and a 12v relay could allow from switching from a pc power supply to solar.

Would you really want to feed your miner(s) worth thousands of dollars that nasty power?

That Nasty power would be 12V DC from a battery.. Your Miners will love it 

Peaks and valleys in the current.

A battery doesn't provide the consistent current you'd want unless it was a very large battery(s), you'd need something to control the voltage to ensure it didn't go up and down. I would just be wary of feeding my miners power like that. Plus the energy lost going to a battery would make the whole thing inefficient. Would be better to just grid tie the inverter.

Grid tie inverters are 'illegal' if they aren't registered with the power company. When they turn 'off' the power or the power is off in the area if you have 10kw powering the line that nobody knows about you can end up killing someone. So you need to have disconnects they can access so they can disconnect your service from the grid. Most modern inverters will automatically disconnect when the grid power goes off.

you could use capacitors to regulate the voltage but i recon u would need a damn big one

So breaking into an abandoned dam is off-topic?

C

no as far as i see it it would be fine if you could route power off it and hack its controlls. just live there a few years and its yours.

[oztusk]

what you need is a regular old gasoline powered generator, and a bottle of those pills that change water into gasoline.

[bitterdog]

You can use the heat output of miners to generate electric on some small scale, atleast enough  for the power used to light your facility

The Stirling engine could possibly adapter to power LED lighting around your facility

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_heat_engine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjmaihOvcbc

[smracer]

This would work just fine.

[STT]

Stick a kite with wind vane out the back of a train or bus you are a passenger on and get free power


Power your computer with thousands of potatoes ?

http://totl.net/Spud/media/news.bbc.co.uk/

this small server needs around 12 potatoes to power it and the spuds have to be changed every couple of days.

Each potato generates about half a volt.

[wanna4fun]

Hi man,

do you live next to a river ? you can buy cheap hydro generator like this :

source : http://www.ph-energies.com/index.php/energie-hydraulique/turbine-kaplan/serie-mhg-lh

it will generate about 1kw to 5kw depending on the model you buy.
Advantage : low maintenance cost (almost nothing)
Disadvantage : need a building close to a river with descent water flow, need to plan it seriously with the help of expert because this is serious shit here

As i live in France, it's pretty easy to me to find good place, dunno for USA. Maybe you need to move for free electricity;)


PS : its working

[STT]

Nice setup, have you got a video of yours.   How much for the 1000w one   MHG LH 1000

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[wanna4fun]

Nice setup, have you got a video of yours.   How much for the 1000w one   MHG LH 1000

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no, its not working atm, it's far away from where I live. With my setup, i've been able to take out between 1-2 kwh from a 3.5kwh . My setup is not great and i don't have enough flow to make it work @ 100%.
I've find one for you with the different step of installation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqKiesYY1xQ

edit : I paid 4k€ for a kaplan turbine 3.5 kwh (can remember the brand) without the cost of the additional work.