#1059 – Episode 1059: Life in the Boonies, Solar Power, and the Real Cost of Bitcoin

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now that I wonder Hello there all you ex-pat wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started today Once again, I can't promise I won't offend anyone. I always seem to do that. The hate mail pile is getting bigger and bigger Hey, and I don't mind reading them I get lots and lots of emails and I read all of them and I answer a lot of them personally and some Believe it or not go on for pages and pages thousands of words. I read those two now

[00:50] I know lots of you expat gonna bees and wannabes You're thinking of coming down and being pretty much self-sufficient Getting a plot out in the boonies or near enough to a small town or city that you can pop in and out in a half Hour or so to hit the markets and such and I know a lot of you want to grow your own and not just weed Either you won't have a garden fruit trees raise some animals driveway chickens dogs, you know, the green acres thing Hopefully there won't be a mr. Haney or that blockhead ebb in the neighborhood. Just a Latino version of good old mr Drucker Hmm. Am I dating myself or do you Gen X and wires catch green acres on Nick at night bottom line having a plot out in The boonies is a good thing. And now that solar power is so efficient and within reach It's a no-brainer to get started on that too, especially if you're in the alti plan or have no heating or air conditioning costs

[01:38] Well, that means you'll need half of the system. You'd need up in New York Philly or Chicago Oh, and here's a bit of really good news about solar the major solar panel manufacturers throughout the world are starting to produce panels that are 150 watts that's for the standard 2 meter by 1 meter panel That's slightly over 6 foot tall by 3 foot wide by the way commercial sized panels like that I've always weighed around 50 pounds each Just think of it four or five years ago the most efficient standard-sized solar panels like that. We're only putting out about 350 watts so they've virtually doubled the output in just a couple of years So that means for example if your system back in 2015 needed 20 solar panels at 350 watts a piece Today you'll only need 10 that means you need half the area on your roof today that you needed just five years ago

[02:27] Oh, and even though the power output is about doubled since then the cost of the panels has either gone down a little or remain The same about 25 cents a watt now I want to mention something you're never gonna hear about anywhere even if you're a solar panel installer now Of course, you want to put out their rated power in the case of the new ones 650 watts that'd be when the Sun is high in the sky And really when you think about solar panels are unbelievably tough all the good ones have a 25 year guaranteed Come on. What other appliance or electronic gadget around the house has a 25 year guaranteed Nothing does but solar panels do they're extremely tough once you get them mounted, but in transport They're somewhat fragile and of course They're nicely boxed and packaged from wherever they come from usually in China So they land boxed and packed at your job site without any damage whatsoever

[03:15] Hopefully along that one to five thousand mile journey They didn't fall off a truck or get dropped by a forklift But here's the problem Once you take them out of the box and until you get them mounted to the roof in that very short journey from the truck To where you're placing them. They could be damaged forever in subtle ways Most people even installers don't know this that is your hoist them up the roof one at a time You have to watch out because if you flex them or put pressure on the center of them You could cause little micro cracks in the solar cells that you can't even see It can permanently degrade the output of your panels from two to three percent So for example, if you're hoisting up a solar panel and you let the center part of the panel the glass part Rest on your shoulder as you're hauling it up In other words the center of the glass is supporting some of the weight of the panel

[04:02] You're asking for trouble though You won't notice the degradation till you fire the system up and see that in full sunlight It's not putting out exactly What the manufacturer says it should and who knows just how many thousands even millions of solar panels were hauled up ladders that way By the way If you want to see a short video on how to haul a solar panel up the right way versus the wrong way Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com and I'll send you the link Oh, and it goes without saying you never want to walk on your panels Although believe it or not, they can take it even so you'll surely put some micro cracks in the solar cells And you won't notice the degradation till you monitor their output at full power So just remember there's a definite right and wrong way to carry solar panels up a ladder onto your roof Though you might only degrade the panel two or three percent over the long term of that 25 year guarantee

[04:51] That's thousands and thousands of kilowatt hours that you've lost forever. Oh and about that 25 year guarantee They're not guaranteed to put out a hundred percent of their rated output after 25 years They're ready to put out 80% and that's still pretty good though It's also why I always recommend you oversize the number of panels You need by around 20% to compensate for later degradation And that of course means when you first fire it up and the Sun is high in the sky You'll be producing 20% more than you can use so that's energy lost to you Even if you've got tons of batteries though, you could elect to sell it back to the power utility Oh, and you know that directly relates to the misinformation You've been hearing lately about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies being huge energy hawks Well, according to a Cambridge study of Bitcoin electric consumption use

[05:40] Bitcoin uses 113 tetra watts of energy per year and gold mining including gold jewelry making and gold Recycling uses about three times as much per year, but no one's complaining about that Oh, and did you know that the energy used by bank branches and their ATMs? It's 700 tetra watt hours per year about seven times the amount Bitcoin uses But no one's complaining about that and the US military they've got over 800 military bases in 70 countries They've even got 29 bases in Africa. What the hell for bottom line? They use more than 2,000 times as much energy as Bitcoin, but no one's complaining about that Well, except me and what about the tetra watt hours consumed by antisocial media? multiples of the energy Bitcoin uses per year and tetra watt our usage for internet porn

[06:30] Well, that's many times what Bitcoin uses, but no one's complaining about that Oh and the worldwide power usage of Christmas and decorative lights throughout the year more than Bitcoin for sure But no one would ever consider banning those by the way If you want that article and a chart showing all of this same in email the expert files at gmail.com Then you'll have plenty of ammo and someone parrots back the fake news about energy use in Bitcoin Oh, and there are a few other things people don't understand about power consumption power plant turbines are spinning all the time 24-7 they're always spinning at the same speed in Europe giving you 50 cycles in the United States and Canada Central South America 60 cycles, they're spinning 60 times a second. That's where you get your 60 Hertz H-e-r-t-z abbreviated HZ you see it listed on every electrical appliance that plugs into a wall named after

[07:19] Hydric Rudolph Hertz a German physicist who discovered electromagnetic wave patterns Oh and get this he died at the age of 36 after having tremendous migraines They did a brain operation on them in 1894 man. That must have been brutal So Hertz means cycles per second and every power plant turbine spins at 60 cycles or 50 And in the day when factories are humming turbines are putting out lots of power and at night when everyone's sleeping They're still spinning away And that's why so many countries have a lower rate at night because they want you to use that electricity because the power is lost Otherwise and that's true of coal nuclear and hydroelectric plants Especially hydroelectric plants because the same amount of water is always flowing past those turbines and what you don't use you lose So for that another reasons, it's totally misleading to say Bitcoin sucking up all this energy because miners aren't stupid

[08:09] They're right there to suck up that extra energy That's unused by the grid at those cheaper prices, wouldn't you? Oh and another thing that's amazing about Bitcoin and crypto money You could stick a hydroelectric power plant in Iceland Greenland Siberia And there's plenty of geothermal energy there, too But it's unusable by cities and big dense populations where there are a lot of factories because the expense and maintenance of the Transmission lines towers and the associated transformers in many cases abundant power resources are too far away from the cities and factories They're not built because it's just way too expensive to bring the power from so far away Imagine the cost and the maintenance and upkeep in repair of let's say 500 miles of high-tension power lines from a power plant to a big city

[08:56] The thing is with Bitcoin mining and other crypto mining you can do your mining right across the street from the power plant No long transmission lines needed a huge savings of infrastructure I mean look that's why they don't build power plants in northern Canada Although they'd be super efficient because of the cheap geothermal energy sure they could produce unlimited amounts of power But they'd have to build a thousand mile long high-tension power lines super expensive in itself But there's another reason to it has to do with the physical properties of electricity traveling long distances over power lines The greater distance the electricity has to travel the more transmission line power loss you get that's why for example If you buy an appliance like a microwave oven or even a power saw they tell you right there in your manual that you'd never read

[09:43] Not to use an extension cord or not to use an extension cord beyond so many feet Why because as far as you get away from the power source your plug-in wall socket the more Electrical what they call line loss you have I know way too much said about that you get the point But we were talking about gringos expats gonna bees and wannabes who want to live out in the county or their boonies with a very Big garden and yard dogs driveway chickens animals to works and in some cases even get off the grid Well if that's your plan B objective I'm sure you have a lot of questions you may be living in the boonies off the grid right now in your home state of Wisconsin or Nebraska, but doing it here in Latin America is a whole different thing not necessarily harder just different So today we have a really good example of an expat family who's done just that

[10:29] They're way out in the boonies in Ecuador and so they've been facing typical problems and coming up with solutions That will certainly be of great interest to you if you're thinking about having a plan B along those lines So let's get on with this email. He says hello Johnny first of all I want to thank you for all the research time and effort you put into your program each and every week Thanks for the info on Bitcoin it helped me convince my dear wife of its value way back in April 2020 Meanwhile, we're all settled in here in a remote rural area of the Oriente, Ecuador We have cleared two acres of jungle build a guest cabana Planted hundreds of fruit trees that are growing like stink and are working away at our dream home overlooking the river We've got no electricity here, and I haven't built a home with hand tools since I was 21 and boy

[11:16] I sure ain't 21 no more. I found that out for once We're in no hurry for the first time in our adult lives We came here from the Gulf Islands of Southwestern British Columbia, Canada And the rain here in Ecuador is like a comfort food to us and keeps the eat down to a level That's usually comfortable when it gets a little warm We spend time in one of our three swimming holes a win-win situation for us We're amazed how fast our fruit and vegetables are growing here We only lived in a place since October and already we're eating our oranges all the vegetables you can imagine and bananas and papayas Will be ready by July all in all we're exceedingly pleased with our new life Neither of us are very social people by nature So we're perfectly suited to our home way off the gringo tourist trail. I'm talking way way off how far off are we well

[12:07] We're able to walk six kilometers Which is about four miles to a highway and have access to a wee little town Or we can jump on a bus and take a ride 45 kilometers that's about 30 miles take a bus either north or south to access to larger cities of about 35,000 souls, but first Johnny. Here's two things. We don't like about our new chosen country number one the lack of Variety in food unless one travels to the tourist towns the restaurants off the gringo tourist trail are lackluster at best I'm certain though if I was a mediator I'd be a touch more satisfied But as it is there's very little choice for me at the restaurants in fact It's more common than not to find every single local restaurant in a given town all serving

[12:53] Exactly the same dishes. I mean identical even if the menu has dozens of dishes They'll all be the same from my experience locals love their traditional food and can't imagine why they would want to try anything else Thankfully the wife's my favorite cook so that solves a lot of a problem All right me Johnny here with a comment on the Latin American local restaurant front The fact is you can be in a one-horse town with not a single Stoplight and you'll find a bad Chinese restaurant in a pizza joint sometimes It's the same place but regarding small-town restaurants chick is a hundred percent right in fact You can find a great example of that in Pana Hachel the very first town you arrive at from the main highway When you're going to the lake Atitlan region in Guatemala It's a town of 15,000 with the main drag right off the highway that goes straight to the lake

[13:43] Where you pick up a boat if you want to go around it to some of the other little towns now if you walk Down that road from where it starts at the highway all the way down to the lake. It's probably a kilometer long That'd be a little over a half mile walk You'll pass dozens of tiny restaurants each one of them with a little sign out front on a sidewalk with faded pictures or photos Of what's on the menu and like chick said Every last one of them even the pictures are identical the only difference is that the prices vary a bit But not much by the way in all the little towns are on the lake You could get a nice chicken or steak dinner complete with all the fixings even juice or a soft drink for around five bucks And a complete breakfast with all the fixings around two maybe three bucks of course if you're going to one of the little hotels And sit down there and have breakfast. It'll be a buck or two more not much

[14:31] All right back to chicks email where he gives us his second thing He doesn't like about Ecuador number two Johnny in general people in Ecuador treat animals Horribly from cows to horses dogs and cats I won't go into too many details or tell all the stories But I will say that the mother of my two kitties was fetched out of the river And my two puppies were saved from a plastic bag that we found 20 feet in the bush along our road where our pavement reaches the gravel oh and in Ecuador They don't want to spray or neuter their pets because it's not natural, but they don't take any responsibility for their offspring either as far as my Puppies there were five of them in that plastic bag and when I tore it open only three were alive And they were alive with all manner of parasites and maggots on them the plastic bag made me all that more mad

[15:21] If one wants to kill puppies then you twist their necks and have done with it not good But why let them suffer all in all it's just not right that being said Johnny my wife And I will probably have more pets by the next time I write to you But thankfully what starts out bad often turns good, so there was a happy ending to that puppy story We watched the surviving puppies the best we could in a nearby puddle. We walked them to the highway hail the taxi So we drove them the 30 miles 45 kilometers to the nearest little town the taxi charged 20 bucks and soon enough We were at a vets office where they treated the pups like it was a first-world emergency room situation We watched as four vets and vets Assistants worked on them for an hour and they remain there overnight. They received their shots hydration fluid health recovery food

[16:12] They slept on heating pads they were washed inside and out and the bill came to 68 bucks for all of them since then we've had them for a month and a half and they've grown very quickly and happy as clams One can only wonder what the vet bill would have been back home out of sight for sure by the way me Johnny here With a question. Why are clams so happy? I mean everybody says so right even though they've got no reason to be It's one of those questions that it sort of ranks right up there with what is the meaning of life, huh? All right Then chick says complaint number three about Ecuador hand tools here in Ecuador are of the very lowest quality Like poor toys for children then he says can you please recommend a freight forwarding company that serves South America? So I could have some real quality tools for men shipped down here. Oh and please send me the contact for mr.

[17:03] C2 we have a friend here who would love to teach English on one last favor Please send me the book you mentioned infidel and many Thanks again for all you do and the entertainment you provide till next time signed chick off the grid in Ecuador And then he sends me a couple of photos of his house the river his construction site the jungle The happy as a clam puppies very cool So if any you listeners who are thinking about a plan be far from the maddening crowd Where electric power hasn't even been installed yet if you want to see these photos send me an email to expat files at gmail.com Now I have to admit you have to be handy to do what chicks doing and you have to have an obliging and resourceful wife Or significant other to make that plan work because you know the old saying if mama's not happy

[17:51] Nobody's happy now I'm sure chicks got a gas generator or some way to get power out there for his tools though It sounds like chicks doing most of the work the old-fashioned way with hand tools and thus the basis of one of his main complaints But first let's talk a bit about the way Latinos treat their animals. Well, I agree completely It's a disgrace. In fact, I never realized until I came to Latin America That most middle and lower middle class Latino families that have pets and most of them do they often don't even feed them They just let them out in the morning to forage for themselves And that's why in a lot of the big cities, especially in the crappier neighborhoods You'll see packs of dogs foraging through garbage cans and junk piles Not that it doesn't happen in first world countries. You see that in crappy neighborhoods there, too That's why first world cities employ dog catchers. Well, there doesn't seem to be any such thing as a dog catcher down here

[18:40] But don't assume the street dogs you might run into are just wild and foraging on their own A lot of them are actually somebody's pet though I have to say in all my years here in Latin America I've never run into an aggressive dog even when they're actively foraging in the garbage They seem to be very calm and friendly and docile now, don't get me wrong It's not like you see them everywhere You really don't but it seems to that every little corner restaurant and cafe has a dog or two Hanging around for scraps and luckily the weather's nice here in Latin America So at night they just sleep around the corner or under a stoop oftentimes early in the morning You'll walk by a little cafe or a restaurant. You'll see a dog sleeping right next to the front door first one They're waiting for it to open and most restaurant owners don't mind a dog or two around

[19:26] They don't seem to do anything about it As long as they're not wandering around begging and bothering people as long as it's just one dog hanging around or maybe two And most restaurant owners and I'm talking about restaurants that have an outdoor portion or tables They set up under umbrellas or awnings out front They're the ones that normally have a dog or two hanging around. Oh and restaurants that are totally indoors that don't have an outside Portion at all. They don't have a dog problem or a dog hanging around at all That's just not very hygienic and in the rare case you do see a dog in a restaurant that doesn't have an outside seating area It's probably the owner's dog. By the way, if you go back into my show archive There are a couple of shows where I mentioned how badly Latinos treat their dogs now I'm not saying they to physically abuse them or beat them or anything

[20:11] They don't do that. Well, not any more than a dog owner in the first world. Anyway, it's just that they let their animals run wild They don't train they rarely bathe or groom though It does depend on the class of people in the neighborhood the dogs live in it because I do know some very wealthy Latinos with dogs And they do take them to the vet and to the groomer Regularly, so they eat well and they look good, but still they have the run of the house and are completely untrained It's strange though because when you go into any vets office, you'll see posted on that bulletin board One or two geyser gals who offer dog training services problem is and I see this all the time Latinos with money will send their dog to the trainer, but they don't bother going themselves They leave it completely in the hands of the trainer, which is a big mistake Of course, the dog will obey and listen, but only to the trainer and back at home

[20:58] They'll fall into their bad habits, but you knew that already right and you know dogs are smart Well smarter than any politician I've ever known and the four basic things Every dog needs to learn can be trained and instilled into them in just a couple of days Number one where to poop and pee and how to advise you the owner before they make that mistake number two not to chew No, or jump on furniture number three not to go on a barking jag for no reason at all number four not to rush house guests Especially women and paw them. I don't know about you But to me those are the basics you have to train into every dog and still I've never met a Latin family with a dog Who's met those requirements? Oh, well, by the way as far as vaccinating your dog You know how vets want you to come back every six months to a year and get your dog re-vaxed

[21:44] It seems a routine matter, but studies have shown you really only need to fax your dog Once in his whole life when they're puppies at from three to six months and there are only a few vaccinations They actually need though. Normally vets will insist on a Ton of them and dog owners take it as gospel. They never question it. Mmm sound familiar I've got the data and the scientific Reports to prove it if you're interested send me an email the expat files at gmail.com for dog Vaccination guidelines and you'll see vets to have been sucked into the big pharma vet vax mentality though There are some vets that resisted problem is that for vets has become a big recurring source of income Don't fall for it though I do know some dog and cat owners up in the states whose vet tried to make them feel guilty

[22:33] When they brought up the fact that studies show that vaccines don't need to be given after the first year that pets to get lifetime immunity and that adverse reactions are very frequent in pets But because they can't talk or communicate they suffer and we just don't recognize it But back to the fact that many expats idea of a great plan B is to live quite a ways out in the boonies Well that brings us to another problem the availability of first-class health care because it's obvious in Latin America The farther you get away from a city of at least five thousand people the less likely you'll have quick and easy access to top-notch health Care, so my advice if you're gonna live out in the boonies hook up with one of those emergency ambulance services like alert to Medica I think it's in 15 Latin American countries now for something like two or three hundred bucks a year

[23:19] You can call them I think it's up to 12 times a year and they'll show up at your house with EMTs and an on board Physician and they'll haul you quickly to the nearest hospital problem is most young gringos and expats Don't think about health care because you know when you're under 40, you're invincible, right? But once you hit around 50, that's a primary concern Speaking of first-class health care in Latin America You've heard me say over and over again You want to get a private medical insurance plan as soon as you get down here I only pay less than a hundred bucks a month for mine and I've got something like a $250 yearly deductible No, it's not a twenty five hundred five thousand or ten thousand dollar deductible. It's 250 bucks people tell me that's unheard of up in the states, but here's the point I've been telling people for years once you're here in Latin America

[24:05] You should never ever count on or rely on the national health care system They've all got universal health care, but it's not universal and it's not acceptable health care Just take a stroll through any national health care hospital and you'll see what I mean However, as long as I've been singing that tune I've been getting emails from people here and there saying yeah But International Living or Conde Nast Travel or AARP say that countries like Colombia and Costa Rica and Ecuador have really good quality National health care systems and gringos and expats should take advantage of that Meanwhile a guy like me with 30 plus years boots on the ground who has actually visited many many national health care clinics and hospitals I have to call out BS on that one In fact rags like International Living say the number one public national health care system in Latin America is in Ecuador

[24:53] You may have heard that yourself and you've heard gringos who move there can get on it right away For just 15 or 20 bucks a month In fact the high ratings that expat rags give the Ecuador national health care system have been a big draw for older gringos and expats So who are you gonna believe me a gringo you've never met who just babbles a bit on a couple of weekly podcasts or? Aarp International Living or Conde Nast Traveler oh and let's not forget Ecuador's national health care blurbs and ads and remember once again Ecuador is touted as being one of the top national health care systems in Latin America Well, let me settle the issue once and for all I'm gonna read from and translate an article that just came out on May 26 2021 the headline Ecuador's new vice president calls their health care system

[25:39] Deplorable he says corruption water contamination and shortage of supplies are the major problems Let me read on here It says Ecuador's health care system is in deplorable condition and needs immediate attention according to new vice president Alfredo Borrero trained as a family practice physician Dr. Bararos says the public health system and medical services have been hit hard by corruption He says thieves have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars in public resources over the last few years Citing the most recent arrests in the early months of covid when it was discovered that hospitals were paying Huge markups to private vendors for supplies in some cases They never even received the vice president goes on to say we've suffered an epidemic of corruption in our national medical system poor

[26:28] Sanitation and lack of clean drinking water, too And he cited the prevalence of general government corruption starting with the past korea administration where money was diverted Causing a cascade of shortages in medicine equipment and personnel throughout the entire national health care system Hmm. So there you have it The new vice president a medical doctor is finally telling it like it is So please no more emails about how you don't need private medical insurance Even though it's dirt cheap down here because international living says this or that national health care system in latin america is just fine for gringos And expats citing equidor's national health care system as a top pick on the list Well as you've just heard equidor's public health care system Absolutely sucks and those expat rags they lie though

[27:16] I don't know why unless it's to paint a rosy picture to get more expats to move down there and buy into their Real estate projects rags like international living have a thinly disguised mission to sell homes in real estate and projects They own but you knew that already, right? You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america If you need some help with your own plan b we can schedule a one-on-one phone or skype consult Just send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week-long expat insider seminar in central america Where you're guaranteed to get a two to five year head start on your plan b Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com