“Bitcoin miners, under fire for their sizable environmental footprint, are forging partnerships with owners of struggling nuclear-power plants with electricity to spare,” reports the Wall Street Journal:
The matchups have the potential to solve key issues facing each industry, executives and analysts say: Electricity-hungry bitcoin miners want stable and carbon-free power, while nuclear plants facing competition from cheaper power sources need new customers.
Talen Energy Corp. has entered into a joint venture with bitcoin-mining company TeraWulf Inc., which has started land development for a mining facility the size of four football fields next to its Pennsylvania nuclear plant. Nuclear generator Energy Harbor Corp. will provide power to a Standard Power mining center in Ohio starting in December… New nuclear projects are eyeing cryptocurrency miners as well: Startup Oklo Inc., which plans to build a small-scale fission power plant that can run on used nuclear fuel, has signed a 20-year supply deal with hardware and hosting firm Compass Mining.
“Both industry’s challenges are the other industry’s positives,” said Sean Lawrie, partner at consulting firm ScottMadden Inc….
“At the core of bitcoin mining is energy and energy infrastructure,” said Paul Prager, chief executive of TeraWulf.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.