Although Bitcoin users often fight solar simply as another ESG attack vector, it could make Bitcoin more resilient and decentralized.
This is an opinion editorial by Robert Hall, content creator and small business owner.
I don’t know where you stand on the solar energy debate, but whether you are for or against investing in more solar energy is irrelevant. Regardless of how you feel about green energy, installing rooftop solar panels has become a popular choice for home, school, and business owners over the past 10 to 15 years, and installations don’t seem to slow down anytime soon. the short term.
Did you know that nearly 4% of US households Have you installed solar panels? This is not a small number and it will continue to increase, especially with the Inflation Reduction Law that grants subsidies to solar energy.
TO Princeton University study found that additional solar capacity could increase from 10 gigawatts (GW) in 2020 to five times as much by 2024 and 100 GW per year by 2030.
As you can see, solar power isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. So instead of being hostile to solar power, should bitcoiners think about changing their position on solar power? I think it might be time to reconsider.
Hostility towards solar energy
In Bitcoin circles, solar power is often synonymous with ESG, a set of guidelines used by socially conscious investors to determine how companies impact the environment and communities where they operate. Sounds harmless right?
But if you’re aware, you’ll understand that behind the platitudes that sound good, there is a agenda enacted by the elites of society to control how much energy others can use, how much meat they can eat, how many miles they can travel, etc. It’s a very twisted way of looking at the world.
This world view is not surprising because these elites are used to getting their way and using the Canton effect in your favor. For that reason, many Bitcoiners associate solar power and ESG considerations with the fundamental issues of the legacy economy.
But the real question we face as Bitcoiners and as free people of the world is: What can we do to secure our freedom in an environment of increased surveillance and raging inflation that is stealing our wealth and our time?
The answer is that we need to acquire our own energy production.
Personal Energetic Sovereignty
The one thing Bitcoin has taught me is that decentralization is critically vital to the resilience of any system, especially energy and Bitcoin. The centralization of power makes a population easier to control and manipulate.
Take a look at what Ukraine is going through like Concerted attacks by Russia attempt to knock out its power grid.. This is only possible because their power grid is centralized, like every other country in the Western world. Centralizing power production may make power cheaper to produce, but it remains a central point of failure that any adversary could exploit to their advantage.
Decentralizing power production is the only way to make a nation resistant to attack and keep the lights on in an emergency. And rooftop solar is the only technology that could do this at scale and relatively quickly.
Rooftop solar frees the individual from the central power grid, promotes self-sovereignty, and turns an energy buyer into an energy seller. Being self sovereign is where rooftop solar and Bitcoin values align perfectly.
Solar Plus Bitcoin Mining Equals Freedom
According to the United States Energy Information Administration, the average US home uses about 886 kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy per month. Solar installation costs vary by location, but on average, you can expect to pay about $18,000 to $25,000. Using a website like sunroof project, you can enter your address and see how much a solar panel for your home would cost. This is what I got when I entered my address:
As you can see, the potential savings are quite significant. Money saved from rooftop solar can buy more bitcoins, instead of paying a utility company. More bitcoin, you say? Yes please!
And the savings aren’t even the best part, my friends. When you add a Bitcoin miner to the mix, now you really are cooking with gas! Rooftop solar is notorious for being unpredictable and oversupplying the grid with power during the day when demand is lower. Utility companies will often pay you for this excess power supply, but they won’t pay you very much.
For example, in Arizona, utility companies will pay you up to 9.4 cents per kWh of excess energy. The trick is that this rate has the potential to drop 10% each year. This, no doubt, is meant to prevent people from putting solar panels on their roofs, limiting self-sovereignty and independence from the grid.
So instead of selling your excess power to the utility company, you can use the excess power to mine Bitcoin! Which sounds like a better offer? Accumulate sats with the sun or get paid with a dirty and devalued fiat currency?
Not only are you monetizing the excess energy your home produces with solar panels, but home mining with them also further decentralizes Bitcoin mining, making the network stronger and more resilient in the long run.
Now, imagine this at scale: Millions of solar-powered homes and Bitcoin miners laying waste. This is the kind of future I want to live in. Honestly, I could see solar companies in the future offering Bitcoin mining as a value-added product. It’s a no-brainer if you ask me.
Rooftop solar aligns with the spirit of Bitcoin and should be embraced by Bitcoiners.
This is a guest post by Robert Hall. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.