In a tiny town in Texas, two Bitcoin mining giants are competing for cheap power. Two mining firms namely, Bitdeer and Riot Blockchain, in the United States, are running data centers situated at a former aluminum smelting facility in the Texan town of Rockdale.
The town’s aluminium smelting factory was formerly the world’s largest until Alcoa shut it down in 2008.
According to Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council, because Alcoa departed, energy capacity was lost from the facility until miners moved in.
Despite its small size of 5,600 inhabitants, Rockdale delivers all of the advantages sought after by industrial-scale miners — crypto-friendly politicians, vast tracts of land hosting abandoned industrial equipment for repurposing, and dirt-cheap electricity rates owing to Texas’ deregulated market.
The relationship between the local grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), and miners is described by Rockdale Mayor John King as mutually beneficial.
He has mentioned that miners use electricity, which would otherwise be wasted, and so they can switch off operations immediately if needed elsewhere.
Riot Blockchain claims that the manufacturing plant in Rockdale is now producing more than 500 bitcoins each month. At current prices, the produced bitcoins amount to $30 million per month. Riot claims that the location has 100,000 mining rigs.
Texas state lawmakers are calling for a wider Bitcoin mining embrace, with Senator Ted Cruz referring to bitcoin mining as a means to flare natural gas that the state currently produces.
“There is no transmission equipment to get that natural gas where it could be used the way natural gas would otherwise be utilized,” Ted Cruz complained at the Texas Blockchain Summit on October 10.
“Use the authority to mine Bitcoin. The fact that you’re doing it as soon as possible helps the environment enormously since rather than flaring natural gas, you’re putting it to good use by turning on a miner, ” he said.