They say “Australia is the lucky country”. By “they”, I mean Australians. This statement usually refers to its safety, economic success, lack of inequality, natural beauty, bountiful resources and more. There might be another one to add to the list. Enough sunshine to power the entire Bitcoin network in the most economically competitive and clean way.
That’s a big statement and there are a lot of nuances to unpack. At a top level, it’s because Australia has an abundance of sunshine, unused and uninhabitable land and a world-class solar industry to build out a national-scale bitcoin mining operation unlike anywhere else. To add to this, Australians love Bitcoin.
Australia-Asia Powerlink
It wouldn’t be the first time Australia took part in an enormous solar power project. In 2024, it’s expected that Singapore and Australia will complete what’s called the “Australia-Asia Powerlink”, led by Australia’s Sun Cable.
They plan to create a 12,000 hectare solar precinct of arid land about 800km south of Darwin. Unsurprisingly, this is one of the most consistently sunny places anywhere on the planet. They claim that it’s nearly 10 times the size of the world’s largest solar power installation in India, and more than 30 times more energy storage than the last “world’s biggest battery” project.
According to Newatlas “Power will travel north to the coast through overhead cables, and then it'll travel northwest to Singapore via some 4,200 km (2,600 miles) of high-voltage DC submarine cable along the sea floor, making a dog-leg through some of the fiddly islands of Indonesia. It'll supply up to 3.2 GW of dispatchable clean energy, which Sun Cable says will provide up to 15 percent of Singapore's electricity and power up to three million homes.”
Once completed, there is no question this is quite an engineering feat. It shows what’s possible with two stable, tech-focused and enabled countries team up to create large renewable energy projects.
There’s just one problem: Much of this energy will be wasted due to transportation.
According to The Natural Resources Defense Council “The U.S. grid loses about 5 percent of all the electricity generated through transmission and distribution—enough to power all seven Central American countries four times. Separately, grid congestion, like traffic congestion, leads to waste and costs consumers approximately $6 billion annually in higher energy bills. At the same time, many transmission lines are underused, even at peak hours.”
This is based on a country with significantly more urbanisation than Australia. Approximately 10 times more.
Furthermore, most of the project’s expense is the expansive overground and underwater cabling and pipes.
What if you could produce a project of similar size but without the expenses of transportation and the infrastructure that supports it.
Bitcoin mining is the perfect candidate. The machines can operate on-site, directly at the solar plant. No need to build underwater pipes and overground cabling. No need to maintain it. Australia has enough unused, inhabitable land and sunshine to power the entire network in a more cost-effective way than any other energy type.
Solar is the most cost-effective energy
According to a study by IRENA, the cost of solar energy has dropped 85% in the last decade. This decline means that it is now the cheapest form of energy. Less than coal, gas, wind, and nuclear. This is great news for the Bitcoin mining industry, as mining naturally gravitates towards the cheapest form of energy.
As economies of scale take place, this cost advantage is likely to grow, leaving all other energy types behind. It doesn’t mean solar will be the only energy source. Not all countries are blessed with sunshine and many of those that are, don’t have the infrastructure and proximity to urban areas to store and transport it in a cost-effective way.
Fortunately for Bitcoin mining, and Australia, this is not an issue. Australia is blessed with expansive, unused, inhabitable land, together with all-year sunshine. Much of this land and sunshine is incredibly remote. With Bitcoin mining, this is no longer an issue.
Sunshine and Unused Land
There are four major deserts in Australia:
- Great Victoria, WA, SA
- Great Sandy, WA
- Tanami, WA, NT
- Simpson, NT, QLD, SA
Combined, they have a landmass of 977,000 km2, or 241 million acres. These deserts have an almost unparalleled level of sunshine year-round. Most of the land isn’t suitable for farming, agriculture or living.
Australia in landmass is roughly the same size as the United States. The population of Australia is approximately 25 million, compared with 330 million in The United States. Almost all major cities are based on the East Coast with much of the country not only uninhabited but unsuitable for energy production due to transportation costs to coastal cities, or other countries.
The cheapest farmland to buy in Australia is a mining area called Cobar in New South Wales, according to the 2021 Farmland Values Report.
According to Farmland.com “Cobar – a base metals and gold mining town in central-west New South Wales – is the cheapest place to buy farm land in Australia, according to the 2021 Rural Bank Farmland Values Report.
The report found the median price per hectare of farm land in the town was $94 in 2020, up an average of 4 per cent per annum over the past five years.
On average, there are a total of 34 days of rain with sunshine all year-round. Cobar is just one example of areas that could easily be used for sustainable, solar-based Bitcoin mining without the need for expensive energy transportation costs.
So with this in mind, why did Australia-Asia Powerlink choose the location they did? Well, they had one other requirement other than sunshine and cost. That was proximity to Singapore. With Bitcoin mining, there are no such restrictions.
Stable government and rule of law
Unlike countries such as China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, Australia is a stable country with rule of law. It respects property rights, it has a legal system that is based on British Common Law and it has a government that has been encouraging the Bitcoin and crypto sector. There appears to be crypto-friendly regulation in process with rules that encourage the sector’s growth, while protecting investors.
Not everybody agrees with every policy of the Australian government, however, as a place to invest in land and infrastructure, it is usually near the top of most lists when it comes to stability and security.
Given the choice between investing in mining facilities in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, or Australia, most people would choose Australia.
Bitcoin and crypto adoption
In 2022, 23% of all Australians own crypto, which is higher than the global average of 15%. Australia ranks 4th in the world for crypto adoption.
60% of those own Bitcoin, which is above the global average of 36%. This puts it ahead of Nigeria, India, Kenya, Singapore, and many other countries that people associate with Bitcoin ownership.
It’s worth it
One of the biggest criticisms Bitcoin gets is that it doesn’t matter if its energy is renewable. That energy could be used elsewhere and therefore it’s a waste, no matter what. This is true to those who place no value on Bitcoin. And by value, I don’t mean monetary value, I mean value to humanity. In the early days of the Internet, many people placed absolutely no value on it. It was a place of thieves and creeps doing illegal, shady things. Over time, that has changed. It would be hard to find something that people value more today.
I believe the same is true for Bitcoin. Bitcoin isn’t just a digital currency that people can transact with. It’s a movement. It’s a revolution. It’s the separation of money and state. This is important because it has to potential to remove monetary corruption, reduce inequality and provide every person on the planet with financial inclusion.
Is that worth energy? Well, to put it into perspective, here’s a graph to show you what else uses energy and how Bitcoin compares with those.
Australia seems to have the perfect trifecta of government stability and support, societal adoption, and bountiful sunshine and land for clean energy production.
It’s not perfect. More research needs to be done to understand the viability of this. There are valid concerns about heat management, maintenance in highly remote areas, storage of energy so that they can run at night and I’m sure there are more.
The point of this is to outline, at a top level, some of the clear advantages Australia has. Encourage people to explore them further and ignite debate in the Bitcoin community, people in Australia and those who are concerned about Bitcoin’s environmental impact.
Australia may not be the country many people think of as a potential Bitcoin superpower, but maybe they should.
