President of El Salvador wants to mine Bitcoin with volcanic energy

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El Salvador President Nayib Bukele plans to utilize the energy from the volcano to mine Bitcoin. Bukele is calling on domestic geothermal power companies to provide certain facilities to crypto miners.

In a tweet on June 9 by Bukele, the president said he would instruct Mynor Gil, president of state-owned electricity company LaGeo, to facilitate Bitcoin (BTC) mining “at a price cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable, zero emissions” from the country’s volcanoes. LaGeo currently operates the only two geothermal power plants in El Salvador, based in the regions of Ahuachapán and Berlín, with plans to build new facilities in San Vicente and Chinameca already announced.

I’ve just instructed the president of @LaGeoSV (our state-owned geothermal electric company), to put up a plan to offer facilities for #Bitcoin mining with very cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable, 0 emissions energy from our volcanos

This is going to evolve fast! 🇸🇻 pic.twitter.com/1316DV4YwT

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) June 9, 2021

More than half of El Salvador’s energy comes from renewables, with more than 200 Megawatts of geothermal installed capacity (El Salvador is home to 23 active volcanoes). However, sources suggest that El Salvador’s geothermal potential is close to 644 MW, meaning that LaGeo is currently harnessing about 31% of its existing electricity. According to data from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, Bitcoin uses more than 116.7 terawatt-hours of electricity each year.

The President of El Salvador’s new Bitcoin mining solution is part of a long list of pro-crypto actions he has taken in the past few days. At the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami last weekend, Bukele told attendees via taped text message that he would introduce a bill to legalize Bitcoin in the country – a proposal that has already received a majority. The nation’s legislative parliament members passed it earlier today.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin price is trading around $37,000, up more than 10% in the past 24 hours.