El Salvador sees greener cryptocurrency mining in its future

SAN SALVADOR: El Salvador‘s unfolding experiment as a first-adopter of the cryptocurrency bitcoin may very well be more and more powered by new streams of renewable power, the chief of the nation’s hydroelectric fee advised reporters on Friday.

Power-intensive cryptocurrency “mining” is completed by computer systems, and has come underneath criticism from environmentalists as an enormous supply of demand for largely fossil gasoline derived electrical energy.

Final month, El Salvador grew to become the primary nation to undertake bitcoin as authorized tender alongside the U.S. greenback, which for years had served because the nation’s sole official forex.

Daniel Alvarez, president of the state-run Lempa River Hydroelectric Government Fee (CEL), stated El Salvador has the potential to generate electrical energy by means of hydroelectric, photo voltaic, wind and tidal energy tasks.

“The chances are countless right here, it is nearly willpower and that now we have the means and the power to begin these tasks,” Alvarez stated.

The Salvadoran authorities in September started harnessing geothermal power for bitcoin mining from a plant on the base of the Tecapa volcano, 106 kilometers (66 miles) east of the capital, that’s owned by an organization which is a part of CEL.

The plant generates about 102 megawatts, and the federal government plans so as to add one other 5 megawatts subsequent 12 months. At current, 1.5 megawatts are being allotted for bitcoin.

Alongside the plant, officers have arrange a room inside a transport container to accommodate 300 computer systems that course of cryptocurrency transactions.

The Tecapa plant together with one other geothermal plant in northwestern El Salvador provide between 23% and 24% of the nationwide energy grid, in response to authorities.