A new nuclear-powered data center in Pennsylvania will host bitcoin mining.
This is the first nuclear-powered bitcoin mine in the United States.
Bitcoin mining is a historically pollution-filled industry, but it’s beginning to focus on cleaner energy to run energy-hungry computers.
Computers eat up a lot of energy, and so do the blockchains required to constantly mine cryptocurrency. But a new nuclear-powered data center is set to launch in Pennsylvania later this year, and it could shift at least some of that pollution-filled energy consumption to a cleaner version.
Cumulus Data has wrapped the first phase of its 475-megawatt, zero-carbon Susquehanna data center campus in northeast Pennsylvania. The project starts with a 48-megawatt, 300,000-square-foot data center to power TeraWulf, a bitcoin mining company.
The 1,200-acre campus aims to provide zero-carbon energy from Talen Energy’s Susquehanna nuclear power generation facility. The Cumulus data centers will connect directly to the facility without legacy electric transmission and distribution utilities. The data centers employing direct-connect, on-site nuclear power generation will make it the first nuclear-powered bitcoin mine in the U.S.