Batteries for Bitcoin
Billionaire Elon Musk is turning his hand to reforming cryptocurrency.
Musk is reportedly teaming up with Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, and Blockstream’s Adam Back, to test the feasibility of mining Bitcoin on zero-emission power, instead of its widely criticized use of fossil fuels - one of the biggest reasons cryptocurrencies haven’t become majorly adopted.
Some of you might remember that Elon has courted Bitcoin before. Obviously blockchain tech has always been a point of interest for the tech CEO; and back in 2021, Tesla took the next step by purchasing $1.5 billion in Bitcoin. A short while later, the EV producer announced they would accept payment in Bitcoin; but only a couple days after that the company walked that back, citing concerns over the huge energy consumption which mainly relied on fossil fuels like coal.
Well, if Elon is known for anything it’s applying himself to a problem, and it seems he wasn’t willing to let the Bitcoin opportunity pass him by. The first real rumblings were last summer, as Musk said he thinks Bitcoin would be re-adopted by Tesla after some improvements to its energy consumption were dealt with.
“I wanted a little bit more due diligence to confirm that the percentage of renewable energy usage is most likely at or above 50%, and that there is a trend toward increasing that number, and if so Tesla would resume accepting bitcoin. Most likely the answer is that Tesla would resume accepting bitcoin.”
So the plan seems to be that Tesla, Back’s Blockstream, and Dorsey’s new company Block (formerly Square), are going to build a testing facility in the west Texas countryside, where the conditions for solar and wind power generations are ideal. Using Tesla’s Megapack and Solar to power the venture, the group believes they can use the facility as a proof of concept.
And it seems as though it can work. The off-grid site is primed to produce 3.8MW of peak power and 1MW of mining draw (As solar and wind are variable, you need to plan to overproduce). The array will be paired with a 12MWh Megapack system to bolster mining operations off-peak and at night; and the whole system is calculated to output 30 Petahashes per second of mining equipment - all on 100% renewable power.
So, if after some testing, this site is actually 100% sustainable off-grid, we can probably expect a couple of scaling tests. The companies announced that they plan to release regular reports of the performance metrics to show their progress (and the feasibility of the project); so there should be lots of chances to follow development in the near future.