A decommissioned mine in the Norwegian Fjords is alleged to have been converted into a data centre, designed to mine Bitcoin in an efficient and sustainable manner.
It’s not the first time an old mine has been re-designed as a Bitcoin mine, there’s a very good reason for that too, old mines allow for the perfect environment for cryptocurrency mining.
According to Coinjournal:
“Frankfurt-based Northern Bitcoin is the company behind the Lefdal Mine in Norway that is challenging the status quo of Bitcoin mining and redefining it. Founded in 2015, Northern Bitcoin is making sustainable infrastructure available to Bitcoin and the blockchain. In order to achieve this it operates a mining pool and its own mining hardware in the Lefdal Mine powered by renewable energies, under cost-effective and secure conditions. And what better place to do this than a country that is surrounded by mountains, glaciers, and deep coastal fjords? With year-round cool temperatures and an excess of renewable energy available at reasonable prices, Norway is showing that it’s possible to mine for Bitcoin in a clean and CO2-neutral fashion.”
The location of many mines (both in and out of Norway of course) offer space, and cool, controlled conditions that make for a great environment for running cryptocurrency mining operations. It’s a nice irony that these mines are being used to mine for the future, right?
This is becoming big industry in Norway
As you know, Bitcoin mining itself is actually relatively unprofitable at the moment as a result of the low price of Bitcoin, high transaction costs, high energy bills and expensive equipment. The latter is less of a worry for big mining operations (as they already have the equipment) but, energy costs are having a huge impact on the profitability of Bitcoin mining. Indeed, operations like this that are utilising green energy sources are getting past these high energy bills, which in turn allows the mining operations to drain every bit of profit that they possibly can.
According to Coinjournal:
“Out of all the Nordic countries, Norway produces 97 per cent of its renewable energy through hydroelectric power. This is compared to Sweden, which creates 46 per cent, while Finland is pegged at 17 per cent. With access to cheap, renewable energy, as well as operating in a country that has political and legal stability, Northern Bitcoin has chosen a prime location. Not only that, but the country has up to 6.7 terawatt hours (TWh) of excess renewable energy available. This puts electricity costs around €0.032 to €0.044/kWh, with a power usage efficiency ratio of 1.08.”
The future for Bitcoin mining is clean energy. The old mines of Norway are offering mining operations a chance to access this clean energy. And in turn, these mines are inspiring the rest of the world to clean up their acts too.
References
Coinjournal
