Mechanicville Hydroelectric Plant

History

2021: Start of Bitcoin Mining

In mid-2021, the Mechanicville Hydroelectric Power Plant, which is located in New York State, and is one of the oldest in the United States, began to extract bitcoins using original equipment. As it turned out, it is more profitable for her to extract cryptocurrency than to sell electricity.

In the 1980s, Mechanicville hydroelectric power stations wanted to close, but Albany Engineering leased the building for 40 years. After 20 years, the company managed to restore the original look of the station and repair all broken mechanisms. Despite the launch of the station, the sale of electricity is not as profitable for hydroelectric power stations as the production of cryptocurrency Bitcoin.

Founded 100 years ago, hydroelectric power station in the United States began to extract bitcoins

According to Techspot, energy is generated from seven turbines, the total capacity of which reaches about 5 MW. The station uses completely original equipment, which has not changed since 1897. Due to the insignificant capacity of the equipment, Albany Engineering CEO Jim Besch began to consider more profitable uses for the generated electricity. Management found out that mining bitcoins it brings about 9 cents from each kilowatt hour, meanwhile, only 3 cents are spent on selling electricity to the national power grid.

The head of the company bought additional equipment for Bitcoin mining and believes that the cryptocurrency mining method he uses is the best, since hydropower is completely renewable and environmentally friendly. Albany Engineering sells mined bitcoins at the end of each week, as Jim Besch considers cryptocurrencies an unreliable means of accumulation due to the instability of their exchange rate. According to him, he would prefer to sell renewable electricity to real people, but the operation of the historical power plant is not cheap.^[1]

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