When the President talked about “on-shoring,” it’s likely that he didn’t mean bringing back businesses that consume 750 megawatts of electricity per day, enough to power 150,000 homes.
That’s what a cryptocurrency “mine” requires for its warehouse full of computer servers running the Bitcoin algorithm 24 hours a day so it can discover the 6.25 bitcoin that are permitted to be produced every 10 minutes.
Competition is fierce among the estimated 70,000 cryptominers estimated by the Washington Post to be stationed world wide.
And, as China cracks down on its cryptominers, they are starting to immigrate directly to Texas.
Why Texas?
Apparently because of its independent (and recently unreliable) power grid.
In a counter-intuitive arrangement, the “Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), began to pay Whinstone — for having agreed to quit buying power amid heightened demand.”
That kind of capitalism is drawing other mining companies from the U.S., Canada and other places where the legal and economic climate is less hospitable.
But, the town fathers are wondering whether the bet is going to pay off in the long run.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/07/08/bitcoin-mining-texas-electricity/
Source: https://jeffkoeppel.wordpress.com/2021/07/12/wobbly-texas-power-grid-woos-crypto-miners/