In a recent report by Tech Spot, Stronghold Digital Mining, a bitcoin mining company based in Kennerdell purchased the Scrubgrass power plant in Pennsylvania to mine crypto. The plant currently has enough capacity to power 1800 Bitcoin miners which is expected to increase to more than 20,000 miners by 2022
The bitcoin mining company describes itself as an “environmentally beneficial and vertically integrated Bitcoin miner,” that will make use of the state’s waste coal to generate power for mining software. As a result of excessive mining, coal waste is produced which is damaging to the surroundings especially when it combines with metals like iron, aluminum or manganese in the soil and near water resources.
The bitcoin company pledges to burn the waste coal and afterward return the non-contaminated land back to the state which will be received by Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). According to statistics, Stronghold has already enabled the state to reclaim more than 1,000 acres of land which is quite significant. As it turns out crypto mining may help use up the coal waste for a greater purpose.
With the increase in crypto transactions and bitcoin mining practices, all lands, industrial infrastructures and factories that had once gone to waste are now back in demand to meet the high demand of crypto mining. “We’ve produced enough machines now to match the surging demand for crypto-mining facilities”, said Mike Colyer, the CEO of Foundry, a financing and crypto mining consultation firm, in an initial Curbed report. “You need to get a lot of air into the building and a lot of air out of the building, so typically you’d open up the side walls and vent it through the roof,” explained Coyler in the report.
It won’t be long before all our energy facilities are dedicated to bitcoin mining and expending that coal waste.