Oct 31, 2018

10 years ago the Bitcoin Whitepaper was published.

Bitcoin is 10 years old today.
10 years ago the Bitcoin whitepaper introduced the concept of using digital ones and zeros as a medium of exchange. It was a little different than Ecash or Hashcash, in that it had a decentralised ledger. So 10 years ago the block-chain concept was created. The first Open Source software was released on Jan 9, 2009 and Hal Finney downloaded it and received 10 Bitcoins from Satoshi. Now, for the last 10 years, a new Bitcoin block has been created every 10 minutes. In the early days every Bitcoin miner who found the right nonce was rewarded with 50 Bitcoins (BTC) but now days there is only a 12.5 BTC reward. Over the last 10 years the software has been improved. Segwit was added to the code 400 days ago and now a Bitcoin transfer can be under 180 bytes. Adding Segwit also brought into existence Bcash. It has taken the crypto community 10 years to realise that other alt coins can't replace Bitcoin if Bitcoin software can barely handle that function. Decentralisation and a store of value is what makes this software GREAT.

Oct 4, 2018

Helping Alberta by reducing power lines (Delivery Charges)

How decentralised should Alberta's Electricity be?

Once a year Jack and I try to solve Alberta's problems. He liked my tweet.
All the income taxes, All the gas taxes, All the cigarette taxes, All the insurance taxes, All the carbon taxes, All provincial property taxes. All of them totalled $20.8 billion last year, even though we spent $21.2 billion on health care alone.
I had also mentioned how a recent health study showed that respiratory problems increase when air pollution is above.
  • 80 micro-grams per cubic metre for fine particulate matter
  • 172 parts per billion for sulphur dioxide
  • 159 parts per billion for nitrogen dioxide
  • 82 parts per billion for ozone
  • 13 parts per million for carbon monoxide

Trying to figure out the right balance between pollution and profit requires bright minds like ours. We might even limit our energy consumption if we get to live healthier lives. :)

Most often we try to make rules for others to obey that allow us to be freer. But when our big 5 Electricity producers are happy (TransCanada, TransAlta, ATCO, ENMAX, and Capital Power) Jack and I start to worry.  

If you look at a chart of my electrical bill, it is the 80% delivery charges that is worrying me. How high can that go? I am starting to know more and more people who are happier than Alberta's top 5 electricity producers because they are off the grid. 

Should I go off Alberta's Electrical Grid?
or What can I get for $40,540 ($1500 electrical bills x 3.70% prime rate).  If I just bought Lithium Batteries I could get 30 kWh of storage.
Would that $40,000 investment improve the lives of Alberta's citizens? If Atco's other 227,000 customers are paying $100 just for delivery That is 22 million spent every month on delivery charges. If we all switch over to Lithium Batteries we could reduce our environmental impact.