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Elon Musk’s EV maker Tesla forged a partnership with digital payments company Block (formerly Square) and bitcoin infrastructure company Blockstream. The trio will set up an off-grid, solar-powered Bitcoin mining facility in Texas. As announced by Blockstream’s Adam, the project will use Tesla photovoltaics and Megapack battery equipment.
Tesla will operate solar bitcoin mining facility in partnership with Blockstream and Block
Block and Blockstream will fund the construction of a Bitcoin mining facility in Texas at one of Blockstream’s mining bases. Blockstream co-founder and CEO Adam Back announced the update during the Miami Bitcoin 2022 conference, arguing that “building things is a better solution than arguing about things.”
Blockstream and Block began collaborating on the solar bitcoin mining unit in June 2021, with Block committing $5 million for construction. The total construction cost of $12 million will be split equally between Block and Blockstream, and the project is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
Tesla will provide a 3.8-megawatt photovoltaic array and a 12-megawatt-hour megapack to power the bitcoin mining operation. The solar powered mine will have 30 petahashes per second of processing power. With a power capacity of just 1 megawatt, the Texas facility could mine about 4.11 bitcoins per month.
Bitcoin mining has long been a serious bone of contention, with some critics arguing that its carbon footprint is a concern. Late last month, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, along with Greenpeace USA, even launched a lobbying campaign advocating a code change to drastically reduce the energy consumption of the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency.
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Back stressed that the purpose of the solar-powered company is to prove that running a zero-emissions Bitcoin mine using renewable energy is possible. “This is a step towards proving our thesis that bitcoin mining can fund zero-emission energy infrastructure and build economic growth for the future,” he joked.
Specifically, the Blockstream and Block teams will maintain a public dashboard so anyone can see the project’s performance output, number of bitcoins mined, and uptime in real-time.
Elon Musk, Tesla and Bitcoin
Elon Musk’s love affair with Bitcoin over the years is well documented. In February 2021, he announced the company’s $1.5 billion Bitcoin investment. However, the eccentric CEO has raised concerns about the environmental impact of bitcoin mining on multiple occasions.
Musk rocked the bitcoin market barely three months later when he revealed that Tesla had suspended bitcoin payments due to environmental concerns, though the auto giant continued to HODL its BTC cache.
Musk then announced that Tesla will likely start accepting Bitcoin payments again if there is evidence that about 50% of mining is powered by renewable energy. The recent collaboration with Block and Blockstream demonstrates Musk’s commitment to supporting clean energy mining.