Bitcoin Miners Are Giving New Life to Old Fossil-Fuel Power Plants

WSJ ^ | 21 may 2021 | Brian Spegele

[DUMBGRUNT]

In upstate New York, an idled coal plant has been restarted, fueled by natural gas, to mine cryptocurrency. A once-struggling Montana coal plant is now scaling up to do the same.

A University of Cambridge index pegs the annual power consumption of bitcoin mining at around 130 terawatt-hours, more than three times higher than at the beginning of 2019. That would be more than the power consumption of Argentina.

It bought the Greenidge coal-fired power station in 2014 after the plant in Dresden, N.Y. had been shut a few years earlier because it was economically unattractive to operate.

Atlas first converted the plant to natural gas from coal. Then, last year, it launched a data center for mining bitcoin using power the plant generated. The company said it currently has 19 megawatts of mining capacity and plans to raise it to 85 megawatts by the end of 2022.

groups have written letters to New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation and Gov. Andrew Cuomo urging them to revoke the plant’s permits.

[tbw2]

The same thing happened with a coal fire plant in Australia, too.

[C210N]

This might be its own thread, but perhaps start it here as a reply:

MSN: English police hunting cannabis farm instead uncover Bitcoin mine

Police in central-west England have uncovered a cryptocurrency mining operation while executing a drugs warrant.

Officers raided a property in Sandwell, near Birmingham, on suspicion that there was a cannabis farm.

However they uncovered 100 computer units running as part of what West Midlands Police described as a "Bitcoin mining operation".

"We heard how lots of people were visiting the unit at different times of day, lots of wiring and ventilation ducts were visible, and a police drone picked up a considerable heat source from above," West Midlands Police said in a statement.

[DUMBGRUNT]

—”English police hunting cannabis farm instead uncover Bitcoin mine”

Same event different article/headline.

And all this time I have heard that England was nearly crime-free! The Police spend their time looking for vendors peddling bananas with “abnormal curvature”.

But with Brexit, they are now on to other crimes?

[DUMBGRUNT]

Helps to include the link.

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3963273/posts

[C210N]

Thanks!

Well, I posted a link to a different source with a different title, thus my search didn’t find it.