Small-scale Bitcoin mining as an economic enabler for renewable energy in Africa

https://africansignals.substack.com/p/21st-century-villages

by kevinak • 4 years ago

27 10 4 years ago

africansignals.substack.com

Same solution in search of a problem as all Bitcoin proposals. If you occasionally have spare electricity for compute, you might as well do useful work with it like with Charity Engine.

twelve40• 4 years ago

Yeah he's talking about making it _economical in rural Africa_ and complementing unstable demand with bitcoin earnings to make the ends meet. I think it's a neat idea.

mrguyorama• 4 years ago

The solution to "Africa has unreliable energy" isn't to waste what little they have, it's to help them invest in more things like solar panels. Bitcoin doesn't help anything but itself.

Bloedcoin• 4 years ago

Ignorant green washing.

Baseload with Bitcoin would not just be baseload it would be the only load.

If you invest in Bitcoin hardware and get good money from it somewhere in Africa with a slow economy, why would you suddenly not consume all of it?

The only reason would be that the Bitcoin miner is not the same person as who is building the grid and the grid person only gets the same money from you than from others.

But 1. Why would you start building this and not leverage it yourself? If you can't Bitcoin miner still will be able to pay the highest price after all it is not limited by local economy but by the global one which is much richer.

The right answer than would be a Bitcoin tax. But the Bitcoin tax would only motivate both (producer and consumer) to make as much as possible.

Only after Bitcoin consumed all of this cheap unregulated power it will stop .

So now energy is still not affordable to anyone because they can't afford the inflated Bitcoin price.

You know who has to stir this shit out? Everyone not doing Bitcoin. Like the people in china were it got so bad that Bitcoin miners risked the power stability.

Also of course this doesn't motivate anyone to build up a real sustainable business with local impact like metal smelting, bakery, paper plants etc. They can't pay what a Bitcoin miner pays.

I hate this shortsighted ignorant green washing.

Bitcoin is a virus. It was created out of thin air, consumes tons of energy only to keep its own decentralized integrity for its own integrity sake not adding any value outside of itself.

Small-scale Bitcoin mining as an economic enabler for renewable energy in Africa

Related Stories