Last updated on
Sep 28, 2021, 12:30 am
Digital cryptocurrency mining is proving to be just as toxic for mother nature as mining of natural resources is. Worryingly, several entities don’t see the bigger picture and continue to mine relentlessly, converting our ecology into virtual resources with limited applicability.
Taking this to a whole new level, Pennsylvania-based Stronghold Digital Mining has purchased an entire power plant to power its Bitcoin mining operations.
Stronghold claims it burns 600,000 tons of coal waste
Tesla boss Elon Musk recently backtracked on his plan to let people pay for its cars in cryptocurrency, citing the environmental impact of cryptocurrency as the reason for his decision.
Meanwhile, Stronghold Digital Mining is a holdings company and its recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing revealed it doesn’t bat an eyelid to combust 600,000 tons of coal waste a year for Bitcoin mining.
Scrubgrass power plant can power 1,800 mining rigs
All the coal waste is burnt at the Scrubgrass thermal power plant in Venango County, Pennsylvania that Stronghold purchased in the summer of 2021.
The company raised $105 million to mobilize the power plant for its cause. Today, the power plant generates enough power to run 1,800 mining computers, known as mining rigs.
Bitcoin mining entails solving complicated digital hash calculations.
Cryptocurrency mining is designed to become exponentially more complex
Bitcoin is one of the harder cryptocurrencies to mine today. It is an old and mature token and solving each hash calculation rewards the miner with a fraction of a token.
Since each hash calculation is exponentially more complicated than the one before it, it takes tremendous computational power to solve. Conventional desktop computers are unsuitable for mining Bitcoin now.
It costs Stronghold just $3,000 to mine one Bitcoin token
You would think Stronghold would stop at acquiring one power plant. Wrong.
In August, Stronghold acquired a second power plant in the state of Pennsylvania, called the Panther Creek power plant. The company could expand to a third power plant as well.
After accounting for Pennsylvania’s state subsidies for burning coal waste, Stronghold estimated that it costs $3,000 to mine one Bitcoin token.
Crypto miners account for CO2 emissions of 10 million people
Given that each Bitcoin token trades for well over $42,000 at the time of publishing, it is clear that Stronghold is turning a handsome profit.
According to the University of Cambridge’s electricity consumption index, Bitcoin mining is expected to use 98 Terawatt-hours of energy a year. Separately, TechCrunch reported that miners account for CO2 emissions equalling Jordan, a country of 10 million people.