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Clearing the Air on Geothermal Energy: Steve Hanke Berated and Schooled by President Bukele

Atis. Sh
As Steve Hanke called President Bukele out on harnessing energy from inactive volcanoes, he got schooled for his trouble.

Time will tell whether geothermal energy will be the undertaking that disrupts Bitcoin (BTC) mining or not. Nonetheless, El Salvador is making strides in the plans of harnessing volcanos to mine Bitcoin (BTC). 

When President Bukele announces a development on the adoption of Bitcoin (BTC), Steve Hanke is right there, waiting for an opportunity to condemn those choices. Naturally, the criticism on harnessing geothermal energy from inactive volcanos came post-haste, but Hanke did not account for the lesson that President Bukele excitedly provided via Twitter. 

It appears that Steve Hanke was a tad hasty to comment on geothermal energy, and he got schooled by President Bukele for his trouble. 

The roasting of President Bukele towards Steve Hanke began with a Bitcoinist article which was covering Anita Posch’s report on all Bitcoin (BTC) developments thus far. 

The quote that ignited the berating and the schooling of Steve Hanke included Posch claiming that the volcano to power Bitcoin City is actually dead. She went on to claim that “the city shall be powered by geothermal energy that is completely CO2 emission free. The energy is also planned to be used for Bitcoin mining. Yet the problem is that it is uncertain whether the volcano should be considered active. I was told that the volcano is dead, and there is no geothermal energy left to be used.”

Steve Hanke referenced the article and in the spirit of scolding President Bukele tweeted the following: 

Hanke compared the Bitcoin City preparations to Florida preparing for snow as he went on to say that the undertaking is simply “more attention-grabbing antics from a narcissistic president who is full of hot air.”

Related: Steve Hanke Calls El Salvador Bitcoin City an “Absurd Political Stunt”

Yet, would one really build a city under an active volcano? President Bukele left his diplomatic tact for more informal schooling, by tweeting that: 

As if this correction was not awkward enough, Samson Mow of Blockstream also took the opportunity to call Hanke out on his tactical error:

While the former tweets represent only round 1 of the geothermal energy fight, round 2 entailed a grilling by Henke towards President Bukele, asking for a feasibility study of extracting geothermal energy from an inactive volcano and pointing out energy deficits in El Salvador. 

President Bukele responded by calling Henke a fraud as follows: 

In a series of tweets to defend his position, President Bukele gave some facts about El Salvador’s energy grid and more, which are collected below:

“El Salvador doesn’t have an energy deficit, in fact, we can produce twice the energy that we consume. Maximum energy consumption in El Salvador is 1,030 MW, while the installed capacity is able to produce 2,065.79 MW from this sources.” The tweet includes production capacities of all available energy power plants in the country. 

“The reason we still import energy is because we are part of a regional open market and energy producers in other countries still beat some of our producers in price. This is going to change in a few months…” 

“At the beginning of my presidency, we started construction of a natural gas power plant by a private consortium (http://invenergy.com). It’s a 1 billion dollar project that will generate 380 MW of electricity, 24/7, cleaner and cheaper than other producers in the region.”

“With this, instead of importing energy, we will export it, and at the same time make the old power plants (with dirty and expensive energy) obsolete. The plant will start producing energy this May. Actually, we just welcomed the new terminal BW TATIANA, a couple of weeks ago.”

President Bukele yet again took the chance to slam Steve Henke by urging him to do his homework on energy: 

In the tweets that follow, President Bukele explains that though El Salvador is the smallest country in South America, it has more than 170 volcanos whose power the country has been harnessing for more than 50 years now. Seemingly, geothermal production is only beginning and will expand considerably:

So far 4 wells have been drilled, and more will be dug soon. There is a 90% chance to drill a +42 MW well which will be quite enough to power Bitcoin City. 

President Bukele added some flair to his tweets by saying that the Conchagua Volcano was chosen among 170 for the fantastic view: 

The question is, will Steve Hanke finally give up on trying to talk down on President Bukele and his Bitcoin (BTC) mainstreaming plans? It is highly unlikely. Still, geothermal energy, however criticized, could prove to be a groundbreaking innovation in mining the biggest cryptocurrency. 

Also read: 

1,000 BTC Acquired by Bitfarms

El Salvador to Issue First BTC Bond Legislation

El Salvador President Makes Major BTC Forecasts for 2022

BTC Gone Missing from the Wallets of El Salvador Citizens

El Salvador Buying the Dip Wages an All-Out Twitter War

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