Texas heatwave and energy crunch curtails Bitcoin mining

An aerial view of the Whinstone US Bitcoin mining facility in Rockdale, Texas, on October 9th, 2021. The long sheds at North America’s largest Bitcoin mine look endless in the Texas sun, packed with the type of machines that have helped the US to become the new global hub for the digital currency.  | Photo by MARK FELIX/AFP /AFP via Getty ImagesBitcoin miners in the Lone Star State are powering down this week as a punishing heatwave stresses the power grid. Texas’ grid operator asked residents and businesses to conserve energy on Monday with “extreme hot weather driving record power demand across Texas.”
Bitcoin mining companies in the state responded by turning off their machines that otherwise would have used over 1,000 megawatts of electricity, according to the Texas Blockchain Council. That freed up about 1 percent of the grid’s total capacity.
“They are shutting down for several reasons but primarily because it is the right thing to do to be a good ‘grid citizen,’” Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council, said to The Verge in an email. There are also…

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