A Colombian senator mentioned that the nation should look to El Salvador for inspiration. Gustavo Petro mentioned that the South American country could use renewable energy to mine Bitcoin instead of making cocaine.
A leftist senator and former presidential candidate in Colombia says the nation should follow in El Salvador’s footsteps.
A high-profile Colombian politician has prompt the nation to look to El Salvador for inspiration and mine Bitcoin using renewable energy—instead of producing cocaine.
Gustavo Petro, a leftist senator retweeted a story about El Salvador President Nayib Bukele announcing that the nation had started mining Bitcoin using volcanic energy and commented: “What if the Pacific coast took advantage of the steep falls of the rivers of the western mountains to produce all of the vitality of the coast and replace cocaine with energy for cryptocurrencies?”
President Bukele, who made Bitcoin authorized tender in El Salvador last month, claims the Central American nation will mine Bitcoin using geothermal power from its volcanoes.
Bitcoin mining is the method of utilizing highly effective computer systems to confirm transactions on the blockchain and produce digital assets. It makes use of numerous vitality, although, so mining corporations are now looking for clean vitality to provide the asset.
Petro, a frontrunner for Colombia’s presidential election next year, added via Twitter that “digital currency is pure information and therefore energy.”
It wasn’t clear what Petro meant but Latin America energy policy analyst Wesley Tomaselli told that the senator was referring to the potential of Colombia’s Pacific coast to use renewable energy.
“He is proper in that Colombia has nice potential for Bitcoin mining as a result of about three-fourths of its electricity generation comes from hydroelectric power,” he mentioned. “The problem is, Petro appears to be selling Bitcoin mining as an alternative model for growth to coca growing and cocaine shipments. It is not. Except Petro has a magic wand.”
Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine, according to the United Nations, and its Pacific coast is where a lot of the coca—the drug’s base ingredient—is grown.
The Pacific coast is also a potential renewable energy hotspot. “Colombia’s severe Andean mountain geography and river systems make it prime for hydroelectric power generation,” noted Tomaselli.
But he added that mega projects in the area “have grown much less popular here because of resistance from environmentalists who see them as damaging to local communities and ecosystems.”
Jehudi Castro Sierra, who advises Colombia’s government on blockchain technology, said on Twitter that Petro’s concept was “absurd.”
El Salvador’s government has said that it’ll use only renewable and clean energy to produce the currency, an idea that has been both praised by Bitcoin believers and slammed by Bukele’s critics.
Source: Decrypt
