• Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    Solar panels give about 100 watts per square meters best case, practically you’ll be on half of that… With the amounts of electricity they use, they’ll need to cover entire nature reserves with solar panels to feed their miners. It’s simply not practical

    • zergtoshi@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Solar panels can have more than 200 watts peak per square meter and provide around 200 kWh per year and square meter, although these values vary a lot depending on where the panels are installed.
      Given these numbers, generating 200 TWh annually (which is more than the current electric energy consumption of Bitcoin mining devices) would require 10^9 square meters; that’s slightly more than 31 square kilometers.
      Don’t misunderstand this as defending the electric energy consumption of Bitcoin mining! I’d rather see this electric energy being used elsewhere.
      I merely wanted to show how much electric energy can be harvested using solar panels.

      • Chriswild@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        They’d still need some type of battery to make solar work though. They want to mine 24/7.