Response Brief
Summary of Core Information about Solar Bitcoin Mining
Two of the world’s largest energy problems are:
Most of our energy production still produces greenhouse gas emissions.
Hundreds of millions of people still lack access to energy entirely.
It is the production of energy that is responsible for 87% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Source: https://ourworldindata.org/worlds-energy-problem
Source: https://ourworldindata.org/global-energy-200-years
To focus on the largest problematic sources of greenhouse gases in energy generation, we can isolate the discussion to Coal (25%), Oil (31%), and Gas (23%).
The worst offenders of Coal, Oil, and Gas make up 79% of the greenhouse gas problem when it comes to energy generation/production.
To make a clear distinction, Bitcoin mining is made up of computer chips (ASICs) running on electricity only, so it's important to realize that Bitcoin mining is already heavily aligned with clean energy goals. Furthermore, it is a leader across all industries with more than 66% of energy coming from a mix of clean sources, as of Q4 2021.
No other major industry operates on as clean of an energy mix as Bitcoin mining does today.
In contrast, the Fashion industry is responsible for 10% of human-caused global greenhouse gas emissions, and uses more energy than the aviation and shipping sectors combined. Source: https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/06/10/why-fashion-needs-to-be-more-sustainable/
What will be the incentive for textile manufacturers and global fashion brands to make the move to sustainable energy when they can use coal-based energy mixes so cheaply?
To be most effective in solving the greenhouse gas production issue at a global scale, it's very simple to recognize that we should work as rapidly as possible to achieve two major goals:
Replace all greenhouse gas production sources with clean sources like Solar. To make this goal more obvious we should all work together to reduce Coal, Oil, and Gas production to near zero. This is fixing the dirty energy "supply" problem.
Replace all products and services that directly run on coal, oil, or gas with products and services that run on electricity. This is fixing the dirty energy "demand" problem.
Bitcoin mining is already 100% in alignment with goal #2, so it's the primary point of this RFI response to show how Solar Bitcoin Mining is the top global incentive to drive the world to achieve goal #1. It's also a free market incentive, which makes it even more attractive.
At the scale of the United States, but more significantly at the scale of the world, Solar Bitcoin Mining does something that no other government or organization can do.
Solar Bitcoin Mining is a largely unrealized opportunity to solve the climate crisis
With the simplest concepts in mind, let's examine how and why Bitcoin mining is the top national and global incentive for the expansion of clean solar energy. And to go even further, we'll demonstrate how Bitcoin mining will likely play a role in the build out of all clean energy generation in the future.
If we start with the obvious question, we can reach the solution very quickly.
The obvious question is: "Why don't we have 100% clean energy generation/supply around the world right now?"
The most obvious answer is: "Because it's very expensive to pay for the massive amount of new renewable energy generation infrastructure needed at a global scale." This is, in fact, the main topic of discussion of governments around the world.
If something is expensive - but important to the future of humanity and the planet - we usually find a way to "invest" in its future.
Definition of "invest": expend money with the expectation of achieving a profit or material result by putting it into financial plans, shares, or property, or by using it to develop a commercial venture.
Governments can and should invest in this clean energy future, but 80% of the global energy generation & distribution infrastructure in the United States is owned by the private sector. So there are real limitations to change without a free market incentive like Solar Bitcoin Mining that could be used by both the private and public sectors.
Source: https://www.cisa.gov/energy-sector
Private investments in energy generation in the United States and globally can be made up of three main categories.
Utility Scale Investments
Commercial Scale Investments
Personal Scale Investments
It's rare to find both a technology solution and an investment payback incentive that works at all three of these scales. Solar Bitcoin Mining is the only solution for energy generation and investment payback that provides an average 5x improvement in incentive at any scale.
In the United States, the investment payback incentives may reach as much as 20x in some areas of the country.
Source: https://www.canva.com/design/DAE53Git5EM/65_TX5XLY_W88doD6VVZOw/view
To understand more deeply, an improvement in "investment payback" can be seen in an example at each scale.
Utility: A utility company has to produce energy at the largest scales, distribute the energy to customers, and bill them later for the energy used. Their business model is based on the rate they can sell the energy at, like $0.11 per kWh, the national average. If a utility company needs to acquire land, install solar panels & batteries for the size of energy generation they plan for a 30-year period, they will need to calculate a payback on their new infrastructure investment. Solar bitcoin mining can create a much faster payback option for those infrastructure costs. Based on a present day analysis, the solar panels, batteries, and mining hardware costs could be paid back in as little as 2 years, which would greatly incentivize a utility company to invest in solar generation & storage. Furthermore, there will be many periods of excess solar energy generation where the batteries are at full capacity, and customers won't be drawing that energy. This leads to large amounts of waste energy. With Solar bitcoin mining configured to transform that waste energy load into bitcoin, they will be able to be more profitable.
Commercial: Any commercial operation that uses large amounts of electrical energy can benefit from generating and storing solar energy at their facility. Once their solar infrastructure costs are paid for, their business model can benefit from free solar energy. The most obvious commercial application that will need huge expansion over the next 15 years is solar energy generation for electric vehicle (EV) charging. As EVs take over the auto market, millions of new vehicles will need reliable clean energy charging all over the country. If the operator of solar car charging station makes a 5-year projection about the capacity of vehicles they can charge along a highway, those initial years will have a lot more waste energy than the full capacity at year five. Instead of wasting the energy not sold to EV owners, the operator has the option to use Solar Bitcoin mining to reach a net-profit much sooner.
Personal: In many states all over the country, there is very limited electricity distribution to more rural areas. It's often cost prohibitive to run new electrical infrastructure to rural areas where people might want to build homes and live. A home owner may want to drive an electric truck and be able to charge it at this new home. The extra costs of installing solar panels and adding batteries for energy storage would require enough capacity for this system to work in the winter season as well. In the peak summer, this means the solar system could generate 4 times more energy than the homeowner can use. Solar bitcoin mining could be used by this homeowner year round to mine with any excess energy they generated. It would function as a further incentive to reduce their personal energy use. Solar bitcoin mining would also be an additional source of revenue for the family, helping to pay down costs beyond their energy generation and storage. If in 10 years, an electric grid operator reaches that home, they would have the ability to sell energy back to the grid or to other neighbors. If no grid operator becomes available, new bitcoin mining ASIC chips could be installed to renew their revenue stream in 5 - 10 years.
To summarize, every scale of solar energy generation & storage can benefit from adding bitcoin mining as an infrastructure investment payback option, especially when excess waste energy is produced.
With any financial outlay, it's a huge benefit to have a high confidence way to pay back that investment. It encourages us to freely make smarter decisions for ourselves, our companies, and our communities.
The United States consumes about 25,000 TWh of energy per year, so to replace all greenhouse gas producing sources with clean renewable sources like Solar, we'll need a significant solar energy expansion to meet or exceed the 2050 net zero goal.
Of that 25,000 TWh of energy consumed per year, only 4,000 TWh is currently electricity. That is only 16% of total energy in the United States coming from electricity.
Because only 20% of all electricity in the United States comes from renewable sources, Americans get 800 TWh of clean electricity per year. And just 112 TWh or 2.8% of this electricity came from Solar.
Source: https://www.energy.gov/eere/renewable-energy
To be blunt, we need to reach 25,000 TWh of renewable electricity production per year in the most cost effective way we can produce it. The clearest path is with the majority of the energy as solar because it is already the lowest cost option.
Doing the math, that means we need about 31x more clean electricity to meet the energy consumption needs of the United States. Assuming that 80% of clean energy will be from solar in 15 years, we can set a target of 20,000 TWh of solar energy generation, which is 179x the current solar energy production in the country today. How will we get there?
This is achievable with solar energy installations growing at an average of 44% year over year for the next 15 years.
To achieve a growth like that or something similar, we need all the possible incentives working together in this country, and the top incentive to pay for that kind of expansion is Solar Bitcoin Mining.
Please explore each of the requested sections that follow for specific discussions on Solar Bitcoin Mining.
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