How a Renewable Energy-Powered Bitcoin Startup Helps Electrify Rural Africa (cnbc.com) 66
CNBC visited a small group of bitcoin miners who "set up shop at the site of an extinct volcano" near Kenya's Hell's Gate National Park.
Their mine "consists of a single 500-kilowatt mobile container that, from the outside, looks like a small residential trailer." But what's more interesting is it's operated by a startup called Gridless. (According to its web site Gridless "designs, builds, and operates bitcoin mining sites alongside small-scale renewable energy producers in rural Africa where excess energy is not utilized...") Backed by Jack Dorsey's Block, Gridless electrifies its machines with a mix of solar power and the stranded, wasted energy from a nearby geothermal site. It's one of six mines run by the company in Kenya, Malawi and Zambia, powered by a mix of renewable inputs and working toward a broader mission of securing and decentralizing the bitcoin network... In early 2022, [the three Gridless co-founders] began brainstorming creative solutions for the divide between power generation and capacity, and the lack of access to electricity in Africa. They landed on the idea of bitcoin mining, which could potentially solve a big problem for renewable energy developers by taking their stranded power and spreading it to other parts of the continent.
In Africa, 43% of the population, or roughly 600 million people, lack access to electricity.... Africa is home to an estimated 10 terawatts of solar capacity, 350 gigawatts of hydro and another 110 gigawatts of wind. Some of this renewable energy is being harnessed already, but a lot isn't because building the specialized infrastructure to capture it is expensive. Even with 60% of the best solar resources globally, Africa only has 1% of installed solar PV capacity.
Enter bitcoin miners.
Bitcoin gets a bad rap for the amount of energy it consumes, but it can also help unlock these trapped renewable sources of power. Miners are essentially energy buyers, and co-locating with renewables creates a financial incentive to bolster production. "As often happens, you'll have an overage of power during the day or even at night, and there's nobody to soak that power up," said Hersman. He said his company's 50-kilowatt mining container can "take up whatever is extra throughout the day...." Demand from bitcoin miners on these semi-stranded assets is making renewables in Africa economically viable. The power supplier benefits from selling energy that previously had been discarded, while the energy plants will sometimes lower costs for the customer. At one of the Gridless pilot sites in Kenya, the hydro plant dropped the price of power from 35 cents per kilowatt hour to 25 cents per kWh.
The buildout of capacity is also electrifying households. Gridless says its sites have powered 1,200 houses in Zambia, 1,800 in Malawi and 5,000 in Kenya. The company's mines also have delivered power for containerized cold storage for local farmers, battery charging stations for electric motorcycles and public WiFi points.
Their mine "consists of a single 500-kilowatt mobile container that, from the outside, looks like a small residential trailer." But what's more interesting is it's operated by a startup called Gridless. (According to its web site Gridless "designs, builds, and operates bitcoin mining sites alongside small-scale renewable energy producers in rural Africa where excess energy is not utilized...") Backed by Jack Dorsey's Block, Gridless electrifies its machines with a mix of solar power and the stranded, wasted energy from a nearby geothermal site. It's one of six mines run by the company in Kenya, Malawi and Zambia, powered by a mix of renewable inputs and working toward a broader mission of securing and decentralizing the bitcoin network... In early 2022, [the three Gridless co-founders] began brainstorming creative solutions for the divide between power generation and capacity, and the lack of access to electricity in Africa. They landed on the idea of bitcoin mining, which could potentially solve a big problem for renewable energy developers by taking their stranded power and spreading it to other parts of the continent.
In Africa, 43% of the population, or roughly 600 million people, lack access to electricity.... Africa is home to an estimated 10 terawatts of solar capacity, 350 gigawatts of hydro and another 110 gigawatts of wind. Some of this renewable energy is being harnessed already, but a lot isn't because building the specialized infrastructure to capture it is expensive. Even with 60% of the best solar resources globally, Africa only has 1% of installed solar PV capacity.
Enter bitcoin miners.
Bitcoin gets a bad rap for the amount of energy it consumes, but it can also help unlock these trapped renewable sources of power. Miners are essentially energy buyers, and co-locating with renewables creates a financial incentive to bolster production. "As often happens, you'll have an overage of power during the day or even at night, and there's nobody to soak that power up," said Hersman. He said his company's 50-kilowatt mining container can "take up whatever is extra throughout the day...." Demand from bitcoin miners on these semi-stranded assets is making renewables in Africa economically viable. The power supplier benefits from selling energy that previously had been discarded, while the energy plants will sometimes lower costs for the customer. At one of the Gridless pilot sites in Kenya, the hydro plant dropped the price of power from 35 cents per kilowatt hour to 25 cents per kWh.
The buildout of capacity is also electrifying households. Gridless says its sites have powered 1,200 houses in Zambia, 1,800 in Malawi and 5,000 in Kenya. The company's mines also have delivered power for containerized cold storage for local farmers, battery charging stations for electric motorcycles and public WiFi points.
It's Shitcoins we're talking here. (Score:2, Funny)
They're now trying to swindle the Nigerian princes out of their money?
Talk about trying to teach an eagle to fly....
How bogus "story" is bogus (Score:5, Insightful)
Bitcoin and other crapto only helps to facilitate crime and to separate the gullible form their money. No other uses.
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Indeed.
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Does this mean you believe all the businesses/services/websites that claim to accept bitcoin are involved in a coordinated deception?
Tell me more about your conspiracy theory.
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And in addition to being a moron and much, much worse, you are bad at sarcasm!
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I have the same issue. Quickly, plot with me so gweihir's brain doesn't explode.
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Yup. But give some charity to the locals, and they'll defend your crime family when others oppose you.
There has to be something better (Score:4, Insightful)
To do with excess energy production than making little numbers to make money for people that are just collecting dollars at the margins, hardly altruism.
I get grid batteries and other storage is still a bit out of reach for many places but still, there has to be a more useful industrial process we can use to soak up energy.
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The one usually done in Europe is heating water. Cooling and desalination would be other legitimate uses. Crapto, on the other hand, produces nothing, consumes hardware and makes things worse for everybody by supporting crime and scams.
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There we go, that's an obvious one, does everyone in this African village or town have hot running water?
Re:There has to be something better (Score:4, Insightful)
Altruism isn't a sustainable model of resource allocation, capitalism is, in fact it is the only model that has been successful at scale over long periods of time.
"There has to be something better to do with excess energy production than making little numbers to make money for people"
It is a decentralized and universal system of currency and trade. Living in the first world the benefits likely don't seem as big to you because you enjoy a fairly stable government provided economic and banking system but for much of the world that isn't the case. My mother's ex was from Guyana, South America and when they went back they always had various schemes to hide or otherwise smuggle their travel money from customs and another bit less hidden to use to pay customs not to steal their electronics. In the world of bitcoin, you've eliminated half that problem. Throughout much of the world regimes change like the weather, property ownership and currency can vanish overnight, with crypto your money isn't impacted.
An essential element to a free society is a functioning black market and especially as governments begin to look toward the elimination of anonymous and paper currency this too becomes a critical use of bitcoin. Look at the current crackdown on narcotic pain medication in the US as part of the latest popular trend. My wife just discovered GP's literally aren't allowed to prescribe more than a 7 day supply anymore and between blood pressure issues, depression issues caused by the antidepressants they prescribe, and a general lack of effectiveness of the alternatives she needs this medication. The pain management specialist, several thousand dollars worth of ineffective treatments later, will prescribe but indicates 3.5 a day while only prescribing 2. Where will the difference come from? You figure it out. This is just one example but these edge cases will always exist and so the black market must as well.
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I never said it was, it was simply the articles was framing it as a side effect. I was noting the hypocrisy of Bitcoiners yet once more. I would have more respect in just coming out and saying what you are actually doing.
Also capitalism wasn't the only "successful" model of resource distribution. Feudalism was "successful" in that it existed for an even longer amount of time, it was successful for those who got the bulk of the resources. Capitalism is successful in a more efficient and equitable resource
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"Feudalism was "successful" in that it existed for an even longer amount of time, it was successful for those who got the bulk of the resources."
I suppose if you are literally going to look on the system via hindsight and cherrypick something working for SOMEONE as the definition of success. But it didn't work out for the people in general nor for the states and is generally directly credible for the collapse of its own structure [states collapsed/people rebelled] both as an economic system and system of go
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Yeah I am not arguing against all those things but I also worry about a bit of the capitalism is the answer to all problems side as well.
Also the idea I need to upend the system to correct modern capitalisms numerous and critical flaws is not applicable.
Really my point is if you are going to make the argument that the success definition is that the system does the best for the most number of people, lifting them out of poverty then we can use that to judge the failures of the system and this would be one of
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The one where even remote areas of Africa are serviced by feed the children have access to computers, global communication and wear the same clothing and designer jeans of first world nations (because they bought your worn twice jeans for pennies, capitalism found this works because of just how many clothes fail to sell in 2nd hand stores/goodwill and sells them for dollars the ton to squeeze every spec of value out of those resources while establishing a sustainable chain of parties with an ongoing profit
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computers, global communication and wear the same clothing
Institutional research and subsidies
not only wired and but have access to healthcare
Healthcare, even in the US is a largely governmental affair. Really healthcare is the largest sector in the global economy where capitalism in fact does not work, at least in terms of patient care, that's why it's so tightly regulated.
I am admittedly being a pedant a bit, and I am a capitalist but this is the dogmatic approach to captialism that leads to real troubles. It's good *most of the time* but when it's not working or doesnt give good outcomes they tend to be ve
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"Institutional research and subsidies"
Driven by *drumroll* capitalism. Those institutions get their money from foreign students, or rather from the companies who figured out it was overall cheaper to import and educate them while diluting the local labor pool than pay experienced domestic talent. And government subsidies come from taxes, the money is siphoned from the economic output of capitalism.
"Healthcare, even in the US is a largely governmental affair."
That is an odd way to look at it. In the US the g
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Altruism isn't a sustainable model of resource allocation, capitalism is, in fact it is the only model that has been successful at scale over long periods of time.
What do you mean by "long periods of time"? Various models of resource allocation, some of them egalitarian, managed to sustain themselves for ~200,000 years before capitalism came along. Capitalism has been around for maybe a few hundred years (depending on how you define "capitalism"; if you're thinking of industrial capitalism in particular, even less time than that), and there are already serious questions about whether it can avoid exhausting the resources that made its growth possible. Will capital
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"What do you mean by "long periods of time"?"
You are leaving out, 'at scale.'
"to sustain themselves for ~200,000 years before capitalism came along"
Please provide a citation for recorded evidence for this egalitarian system which was not a form of capitalism and had continued existence for 20x longer than our oldest recorded evidence. Because we had capitalism in at least the form of a barter system across most of the globe for the entire period in which we actually do have historical evidence.
Egalitarianis
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The relevant "large scale" would be the largest sustainable scale, wouldn't it? If we calculate the peak power output of a hydrogen bomb to be a few yottawatts, that doesn't mean we've created a sustainable nuclear power output of a few yottawatts, does it? It means we've created an explosion that has used up all its fuel.
You make a fair point about the evidence for long-term egalitarianism. The best evidence we've got is that everywhere that Europeans explored they found a mix of societies ranging fro
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"The relevant "large scale" would be the largest sustainable scale, wouldn't it?"
No. It would be a large enough scale to provide a statistically significant dataset that eliminates local factors. If your scale is a city with some historical cultural principles most of the world doesn't share then it is pretty meaningless. If the system worked well for awhile but slow leaks, corruption, and human elements caused it collapse in a couple hundred years then that would be meaningful, as a failure because human f
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Climate change suggests that capitalism is anything but sustainable.
There are many better ways, just none implemented (Score:3)
Don't get my started on the use of electricity for Bitcoin. Bitcoin has been responsible for more resource wastage than many major wars. One example of one outfit making something good is one drop in the bucket of resources that Bitcoin has been responsible for pissing away.
These coins need a proof of work. Fair enough. But anything could have been chosen. Literally anything that expends resources could have been the work required. The only reason flipping bits was chosen is that it's automatable and
Do other kinds of computation (Score:2)
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I think most people here are old enough to remember SETI@Home and Folding@Home, those were simpler times.
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One obvious thing to do with it is make hydrogen. Then you can use the hydrogen to provide power for peak periods later. Storing hydrogen isn't so bad when it's remote and stationary and you can have a large fuel tank because you're not trying to cram it up underneath a car.
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See, there we go, that was easy. And if you can make hydrogen and store it on site with a fuel cell you have a "hydrogen battery" of sorts. Not very efficient but a battery nonetheless.
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More efficient than a Diesel generator.
And as bonus points it provides clean water.
Re: There has to be something better (Score:1)
Re: There has to be something better (Score:2)
What are you talking about? The "infra" (you absolute tool) for a hydrogen storage peaker is a concrete pad and a grid connection.
Re: There has to be something better (Score:1)
What other process soaks up energy but can scale up and down in seconds? Most industrial processes require stable energy, renewables are anything but and things like geothermal and nuclear ideally require a constant consumption. Bitcoin and certain cloud computing can scale up and down very quickly, these are countries where no stable currency exists either so it helps them with a method of global money exchange. In Africa, much of the Middle East and even South America, mobile, decentralized payments are k
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Literally any other form of computer processing shares that ability.
where no stable currency exists
If they are so lacking in material conditions that they lack how is bitcoin with it's massive infrastructure costs and minimum requirement of internet an answer? I've been hearing about this for YEARS now and none of the crypto boosters predications about 3rd world countries are true. There are cases yes, but its like they made 3% inroads and calling it total victory. Sorry, not buying it.
decentralized payments are king.
And yet they do business in fiat currencies, again
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You have never gone to Africa I see. About 90% of payments in Africa's small business commerce are peer-to-peer mobile payments (which includes everything from bank apps to Bitcoin). You think they all sit around with the choice of shiny pebbles or someone in the village has a hoard of US dollars? Africa accounts for 70% of the world's P2P bank payment market and nearly 10% of the global $3T crypto market.
To put it in perspective, the number of Africans using Bitcoins on a daily basis is roughly the same ra
Cool (Score:2)
So there's extra "free" electricity and they want to make some money. Good for them! I think it's an interesting concept, what do you do with excess energy in a world with increase demand. You can sell it back to the grid, store it, or use it. I think the concept of these mobile mining units are interesting, although crypto is not what I would use it for.
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No, it's just a PR exercise subsidised by Dorsey.
Media are just complete fucking idiots as always.
Wording (Score:4, Interesting)
This caught me off-guard: "The company's mines also have delivered power for containerized cold storage for local farmers", Wait are they talking about real farmers & refrigeration or bitcoin farming?
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Seems to be real farmers and real fridges for their produce. A big deal for those who don't have access to them.
Lies or loss (Score:2)
25 cent per kWh intermittent ... that's not going to be profitable.
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Oh, it's a Dorsey Potemkin village ... that explains it.
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Depending on region and season, Solar is not intermittent. The sun goes up around 6:00 and goes down around 18:00, shines all day.
A 500W solar panel costs here about $80.
So with your idiotic 25cent per kWh, the panel is paid off in a week or two.
Obviously you have think about battery and inverter. You can go small on the battery if you dump surplus into the cooling trailer and surplus on top of that into the water pump and finally into the bitcoin miner. If your cooler is good enough, it stays cool over nig
Re: Lies or loss (Score:1)
25c is the retail cost when there is demand, when there is no demand, the energy company has to do âoesomethingâ so the geothermal plant doesnâ(TM)t blow up.
But the fact they can pay for the âoeunusedâ energy means they can lower the price elsewhere. Even if it is 5c which is well under the break even point for crypto mining, that is money they can use to offset the cost, thereby providing more people with energy which drives down cost etc.
A puff piece that's outright misleading (Score:3)
The article is very light on any detail at all... but it implies - in several places - that this Bitcoin mining company is building generating capacity where none existed before. However the Olkaria Geothermal station at Hell's Gate [wikipedia.org] was set up in 1981, and has had multiple expansions since then - none of which were apparently funded by Gridless (they aren't even mentioned in the Wikipedia article - as of this moment). And does anyone believe Iceland needs Gridless' "help" to develop geothermal energy?
It seems to boil down to the old, specious argument that Bitcoin miners have tried to shill in the past: "we create demand, which encourages the build-out of extra capacity - some of which may serve other non-Bitcoin uses".
But basically Gridless is a leech, like every other Bitcoin-mining outfit. They're just claiming they're less of a leech than most other Bitcoin miners. Why the vapid "reporter" didn't ask the obvious question is beyond me - "So as the non-Bitcoin electrical demands at these sites grows, do you plan to permanently shut off those mining rigs?"
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"It seems to boil down to the old, specious argument that Bitcoin miners have tried to shill in the past: "we create demand, which encourages the build-out of extra capacity - some of which may serve other non-Bitcoin uses""
As a Texan who has enjoyed the benefits of crypto capacity being freed up at a few critical points in the year where we've hit extreme peaks I'm going to have to disagree with your claims of a specious argument. Of course when it was reported that the miners benefitted from being paid no
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Texas didn't build out baseload, they generators just had some surplus from energy saving in industry. Who's going to make baseload investments for 3 decades when bitcoin miners move like locusts?
Given how completely over the barrel grid operators are in shortages and how greedy they are, they probably lost far more than profited. The peaking plant operators are sitting pretty though.
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"Texas didn't build out baseload, they generators just had some surplus from energy saving in industry. Who's going to make baseload investments for 3 decades when bitcoin miners move like locusts?"
Did they explicitly build out baseload in a one to one fashion? No, nor do they do that for anything. The process isn't that direct and simple, it is decentralized and modular with a market component. What they did is increase constant demand, which raises the market price and makes investing in a few more wind t
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Wind is not baseload expansion, wind is build to save on gas and make use of federal subsidies. Additional baseload does not create any extra demand for wind. Only low duty cycle spot price consumers add demand for wind, the couple of edge cases of industry and miner load shedding for exuberant rewards are irrelevant edge cases. Due to massive depreciation of ASICs, miners will run defacto 100% of the time (ignoring Dorsey's PR exercise).
From the consumption side, only the battery banks add demand for wind/
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Classical base load mostly does not exist anymore.
So a non dispatchable wind plant: is of course base load. What else would it be?
You orchestrate your load following and load balancing plants around the fire and forget plants and the variations of wind and consumer behaviour.
Wind is by all means base load.
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Wind is an intermittent substitute for fuel of gas powered generators and to a lesser extent coal.
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All you are doing is stopping the logical process early. Capacity will be added as needed to keep up with constant demand and that will include gas tubines that become profitable to spin up when prices spike due to wind intermittence. When running, wind has a strong priority on the market because many consumers select retail energy plans that specify it... that doesn't mean the line is actually energized by wind, it comes from the grid. Their retail energy company will purchase enough energy from solar/wind
Variant on Broken Window Theory (Score:1)
BWT: if you run around breaking all the windows in town, which creates jobs for window installers, you have not increased the size of your economy or created real jobs. You have created a false demand by breaking perfectly good windows and have hurt the economy by replacing perfectly good windows with new windows at a cost to the window owners.
In this case the bitcoin scum are creating a false demand for energy to create magical nothing fake "coins" of no real world value outside their own bizarre FOMO bub
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Except the money is coming from outside their economy. They get to keep it, and also get to have new windows.
If bitcoins go to zero, their demand for power will also go to zero. Everyone will still get to keep the energy generation left behind.
Your premise relies on the fact there is something better to do with the money. What if there isn't? People sit around on their asses looking out the windows as inflation eats away at their net worth. Doing nothing is only sending them backwards.
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BWT: if you run around breaking all the windows in town, which creates jobs for window installers, you have not increased the size of your economy or created real jobs.
That's now what Broken Window Theory is. BWT is a theory of criminology, not economics. [wikipedia.org]
What you might be thinking of is Bastiat's broken window [wikipedia.org], which is about opportunity cost: a supplier pays to create false demand. But that doesn't apply in this case, as the "bitcoin scum" are the ones on the demand side. The owner of the stranded power asset is the supplier.
blockchain is a complete fraud (Score:3)
There is no such thing as "extra electricity", only wasted electricity. Bitcoin's energy usage produces absolutely nothing positive for society.
Watch this documentary [youtube.com] on the subject.
It's funny that they use really messed up, third world countries as some sort of crypto "use case." These are societies that will try anything and have very lax regulation and environmental standards. Bitcoin doesn't solve any of their real problems. It's just more exploitation.
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I couldn't make it through 2 seconds of the audio intro :)
But here's another great youtube video: "line goes up": https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
You have got to be SH^H^Hing me (Score:2)
They're not helping anything... (Score:2)