Bitcoin mining is breathing new life into America’s aging fossil fuel power plants, creating a demand environmentalists say discourages investment in renewable energy sources at a time when shifting away from carbon-emitting sources of energy is essential.
Chelsea Stahl / NBC News; Getty ImagesFour years ago, the Scrubgrass power plant in Venango County, Pennsylvania, was on the brink of financial ruin as energy customers preferred to buy cheap natural gas or renewables. Then Scrubgrass pivoted to Bitcoin.
According to the SEC filings, Stronghold plans to operate 57,000 miners by the end of 2022 — an expansion that requires buying up two additional coal waste power plants in the region. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies use blockchain technology, essentially a shared database of transactions, where entries must be confirmed and encrypted. The network is secured by “miners” who use powerful computers to compete in an enormous guessing game that ultimately verifies the transactions. If a computer “wins” the game, it’s rewarded with a newly created bitcoin, currently worth about $40,000.
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