Carbon emissions are almost zero and there is still a problem of power abandonment. Is nuclear energy suitable for Bitcoin mining?

Wu said author | Colin Wu

Editor of this issue | Colin Wu

The energy consumption problem caused by Bitcoin mining has attracted global attention. Musk has repeatedly criticized Bitcoin's consumption of fossil energy, especially coal. Thermal power is stable but easy to cause pollution. New energy sources such as hydropower, photovoltaics, and wind power are unstable and difficult to store. For the mining industry, downtime means loss of profits. There is a view that non-polluting, low-cost, and extremely stable nuclear power may be the most suitable energy form for Bitcoin mining.

In Eastern Europe, where there is a surplus of electricity, nuclear power may have begun mining Bitcoin. On May 6, 2020, the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy released a Facebook statement stating that Bitcoin and digital currency mining is a modern and effective way to utilize excess energy. The post stated that due to the national lockdown of the new crown pneumonia, local nuclear power plants have generated a large amount of surplus electricity resources. The acting head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy asked the state-owned enterprise Energoatom to study potential methods of using nuclear power generation facilities in the country for Bitcoin mining by May 8.

However, just one year ago, Ukrainian security services arrested the operator of the power plant for mining cryptocurrencies at the Yuzhno-Kransk nuclear power plant facility. According to court documents, the employee was mining mainly using graphics cards, using AMD's Radeon RX 470, with a total of 11 graphics cards.

The latest news shows that in 2021, Ukraine's state-owned power company Eneroatom announced plans to build a number of giant data centers near the country's nuclear power plants to mine Bitcoin and store sensitive national information. The company lost $171 million in 2020. This also shows that large-scale use of nuclear energy for mining is still in the planning stage.

In addition, countries with excess electricity, such as Russia and Belarus, are also considering using nuclear energy for mining. In September 2017, the governor of the Leningrad region invited cryptocurrency miners to Sosnobyb near St. Petersburg to build an industrial-scale mine at the old Leningrad nuclear power plant. In 2019, the president of Belarus said at a meeting with IT industry representatives that he would develop digital currency mining with the whole country's strength, allow the mining industry to set up factories in the country, and use excess nuclear power to provide electricity for new digital currency mines.

In fact, due to the large number of nuclear power plants left over from the Soviet era in Eastern Europe and the lack of domestic industrial economic development, there is a serious surplus of electricity and state-owned nuclear power plants are suffering from serious losses. Similar to the abandonment of water and electricity in Sichuan, China, only by developing Bitcoin mining can waste electricity be utilized and local income growth be brought about. It can be expected that nuclear energy Bitcoin mining will be carried out in underdeveloped areas of Eastern Europe.

(Picture from Zhihu Wen Xiangmao)

What are the advantages of nuclear energy? Refer to the reply on Zhihu: 1. Clean energy, small environmental impact, and extremely small carbon emissions. Most of the current environmental pollution problems are caused by the use of fossil fuels. The combustion of fossil fuels emits large amounts of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and floating dust, causing global temperatures to rise, acid rain to fall frequently, and destroying the ozone layer, posing a great threat and damage to humans and the environment. Nuclear power plants will not cause this kind of environmental pollution because they do not use fossil fuels. 2. The operating power of nuclear power is stable. Unlike wind power and hydropower, which are greatly affected by the external environment, nuclear power generally refuels once every 18 months and needs to be shut down for 2 to 3 weeks. The rest of the time is basically running at full power, which is suitable for mining. 3. It has little correlation with the external environment, and can also supply electricity to remote areas, without affecting electricity consumption in industrial areas.

In addition, nuclear energy professionals pointed out to Wu Blockchain that the reason why nuclear power mining is suitable is also related to "abandoned electricity". The cost of shutting down a nuclear power plant after it is turned on is very high. Generally, it takes 1 to 1.5 years of continuous operation before it is shut down for maintenance. Therefore, when the power plant is in operation and encounters a low peak period of electricity consumption, the nuclear power plant cannot be shut down like thermal power. This part of the electricity is the electricity that cannot be absorbed and stored.

But nuclear power also has problems: 1. Uranium 235 burned in nuclear power plants is scarce; 2. Nuclear waste is difficult to handle; 3. Once an accident occurs, it will cause great safety hazards. In addition, due to the very strict "Nuclear Safety Law" in China, and the fact that all related industrial chains are state-owned enterprises and military industries, coupled with rapid economic development and the fact that electricity consumption in industry itself is still very scarce, the possibility of using nuclear energy for mining is almost zero.