William Shatner who is best-known for his role as Star Trek's “Captain James T Kirk” has taken on some interesting projects in his time.
The veteran actor has now signed up to be the spokesperson for Solar Alliance, a Vancouver-based alternative energy company.
Solar Alliance recently announced that it plans to set up a bitcoin mining farm that will be powered by solar energy.
Solar Alliance won't actually be mining – they will be offering the indoor space to bitcoin mining companies who want access to cheap electricity provided by the solar panels.
The mining farm will be built in an abandoned factory in Southern Illinois. Bitcoin mining is a process in which participants in the blockchain network process transactions by validating and ensuring that they are legitimate. For doing this service, miners are paid a transaction fee.
However, to run the processors that do this service, a lot of electricity is consumed. A lot of the time, bitcoin mining farms are located in countries where electricity is cheap. Solar Alliance is looking to innovate and break the traditional mode by leveraging solar power in the middle of North America. The Solar Alliance bitcoin mining project is the result of two fortuitous factors. First, Illinois has a law that requires utility companies in the state to buy renewable energy. A solar bitcoin mining farm would be able to produce additional electricity that it could sell back to the grid – which makes the operation very economical.
Second, Murphysboro, the town where the bitcoin mining operation will be built offered Solar Alliance the floor space for free. The place has 165,000 square feet indoors, which would be more than enough to set up a lot of mining servers. The location used to be a label-making factory and has been vacant since 2004.
William Shatner Ready To Visit Mining Farm
William Shatner admits that he does not know much about bitcoin mining or blockchain technology but is eager to learn as he finds the whole thing very interesting.
RU a blockhead when it comes to the blockchain? ? Do you get it? ??♂️ My friends at @Solar_Alliance do They’re starting a new green energy cryptocurrency mining facility in Murphysboro, IL! How craycray is it that? A mining town goes into green energy mining? It's wild!
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) June 14, 2018
He got in touch with Solar Alliance to install solar panels at his home in California and the relationship developed from there. Shatner admitted that he would like to visit the solar bitcoin mining farm and see how things work.
In a statement, Shatner said
I’m in Chicago a lot, and I live in Kentucky part of the time. I might very well do that. It’s an interesting idea to see it at work because it’s so esoteric that it’s difficult to understand
