Hardin County Approves Two Crypto Mining Sites

Hardin County, in north central Iowa, has approved two new cryptocurrency mining sites.

On Jan. 24, the county’s Zoning Adjustment Board signed two conditional use permits allowing North Carolina-headquartered MiningStore to install mining facilities next to two electrical substations owned by Midland Power Cooperative.

Each permit requires MiningStore to install noise-absorbing material on the fences surrounding the lots, provide $75,000 in bond guarantees for future decommissioning and seek new permits each time the leases are renewed. MiningStore must also post emergency contact information in a prominent location on the Eldora site.

MiningStore, which opened its flagship bitcoin mining facility in Grundy County in 2019, had originally requested the parcels in Hardin County’s Eldora and Union townships be rezoned from agricultural to manufacturing, but the county decided a conditional use permit would suffice.

CEO JP Baric, 25, of North Carolina, spoke to the Hardin County Board of Supervisors in January.

Each site will feature three modular structures stacked with computers running around the clock to solve mathematical problems that create new blocks of bitcoin, the most common form of cryptocurrency worldwide. As each new block of bitcoin is solved, mining operations like this receive a payout.

Cryptocurrency mining has raised concerns in Iowa and elsewhere because of the amount of electricity it uses. The White House reported in August that global electricity use for crypto mining was between 120 billion and 240 billion kilowatt hours per year, which is more than the total annual electricity use of some countries, including Argentina and Australia. This increase in demand is happening as the world tries to reduce electricity consumption due to climate change.

Each of the Hardin County sites would use 5 megawatts, equivalent to 4,000 to 9,000 homes, according to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

But proponents of cryptomining say they add resiliency to the power grid by using excess wind and solar energy that is often wasted if the tools don’t have battery storage. In the event of high energy needs, the mining facilities would stop operations, which gave the utility more capacity for other customers.

A 2022 survey of bitcoin miners found improved energy efficiency across the system, in part due to newer computers, according to a January report by the Bitcoin Mining Council, which represents 50 bitcoin miners, including MiningStore.

The speed or power of transactions, or “hash rate,” went up 45 percent, while energy use went up 25 percent, the group reported.

Midland Power Cooperative, which will supply electricity to the new crypto sites in Hardin County, gets at least 46 percent of its power from coal, according to its website.

MiningStore also has a site in Marshall County, near St. Anthony.

The Black Hawk County Board of Supervisors decided in August not to rezone to allow a crypto farm, citing noise and energy use. Grundy County also voted down a second site proposed by MiningStore.

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