- TeraWulf launches the first behind-the-meter 100% nuclear-powered bitcoin mining facility in the U.S.
- The Bitcoin mining company stands to benefit from a fixed power cost at Nautilus of only $0.02/Kwh for 5 years.
- The firm targets total powering capacity of 5.5 EH/s (for 50,000 miners at 160 MW) across its two sites by mid-2023.
Because of its energy-intensive mining process, Bitcoin has never been a favorite among environmentalists and energy conservationists. This is attributed to BTC’s proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism, which has been said to be harmful to the environment and negatively impact energy resources.
A 2021 report by New York Times claimed that Bitcoin uses more electricity than many countries. According to the report:
“The process of creating Bitcoin (in 2021) to spend or trade consumes around 91 terawatt-hours of electricity annually, more than is used by Finland, a nation of about 5.5 million (people).”
A year later, a CNET report made similar allegations that “Bitcoin mining uses around as much energy as Argentina… and at an annualized level of 131.26 terawatt-hours crypto mining would be in the top 30 of countries based on energy consumption.”
As a result, Bitcoin mining has been completely banned in several countries, including Algeria, Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Nepal, Qatar, and Tunisia. This has forced Bitcoin mining firms to move to crypto-mining-friendly countries such as Sweden, Portugal, the US state of Georgia, Estonia, and Venezuela.
Others have turned to various sources of renewable energy like solar and hydropower. Despite this, the crypto mining industry is still frowned upon.
To bring reprieve to the sector, TeraWulf has announced the launch of a Bitcoin mining facility in the US powered entirely by nuclear power.
TeraWulf’s First Fully Nuclear-Powered Bitcoin Mining Operation
On Monday, March 6, TeraWulf, a company that owns and operates vertically integrated domestic Bitcoin mining facilities powered 91% by zero-carbon energy, announced roughly half of its nuclear-powered Nautilus Cryptomine facility has been energized.
Nautilus Cryptomine is a joint venture between TeaWulf and Cumulus Coin, LLC., and derives its energy wholly from the 2.5 GW Susquehanna nuclear generation station in Pennsylvania. Currently, the Company has brought nearly 8,000 of its miners online, representing a hash rate capacity of approximately 1.0 EH/s.
According to the press release, the entire operation will aggregate to 50 MW and 1.9 EH/s, which is expected to be energized by May. The process will amount to 50 MW and 1.9 EH/s, with an option for the Duluth, Minnesota-based crypto mining firm to add 50 MW of Bitcoin mining capacity,” which the Company plans to deploy in future phases.”
Speaking about the development, Chairman and CEO of TeraWulf Paul Prager said:
“With the recent energization of the Nautilus facility earlier this month, approximately 16,000 of TeraWulf’s owned miners, representing 1.9 EH/s of self-mining capacity, are onsite and brought online daily. The Nautilus nuclear-powered mining facility benefits from the sector’s lowest cost power, just $0.02/kWh for a term of five years.”
Prager also said that TeraWulf was looking forward to a continued working relationship with Cumulus Coin “as the Nautilus facility increases the operational hash rate in the coming weeks.”
As has been the norm, TeraWulf intends to provide an unaudited monthly production and operations update for February 2023.
