The crypto industry’s hunger for energy knows no scruples.
(Photo: dpa)
San Francisco The chimneys are smoking again. The old coal-fired power plant in Montana had long been written off and the wrecking ball was almost on the way when a completely unexpected savior came to the rescue: the Bitcoin. Because the most power-hungry of all cryptocurrencies is constantly looking for the cheapest energy sources. Today, electricity is anything but cheap, and certainly not if it is to be produced in an environmentally friendly manner.
While all over the world is being used to fight climate change, some of which are expensive for private consumers and industry, Bitcoin investors rely on anything that generates electricity in order not to jeopardize their profits. So also on the dirtiest of all power generation systems: coal and even coal waste that is stored in gigantic landfills.
The Hardin Generating Station in Montana “was simply an idle plant,” said Fred Thiel, head of the listed Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital. His company should be the “largest Bitcoin miner in North America with the cheapest energy costs”.
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