Eli McKay and John Weber, volunteers for the Sierra Club’s Coastal Bend Group, already had their hands full fighting plans for water- and energy-intensive projects in Corpus Christi when Bootstrap Energy’s proposal for two cryptocurrency mines appeared on the city council’s agenda in March 2022.
By then, Bitcoin mines were already popping up all over Texas, following China’s ban on cryptomining the prior year. Governor Greg Abbott had swung the state’s doors open, and Bitcoin miners were flocking to cities like Corpus and to far-flung unincorporated areas, where they benefitted from sparse regulations and local officials willing to shell out lucrative tax breaks to lure a growing number of mining facilities operated by Texas firms and others based everywhere from Australia to Singapore.
McKay and Weber knew that these proposed Bitcoin mines would be monsters: Each would use up to 300 megawatts (MW) of energy to power up to 100,000 specialized computers to generate random numbers for a global digital ledger called the blockchain. They also knew that to keep the machines cool, miners employ enormous, noisy fans and often a technique called immersion cooling, which can reduce noise but increases water consumption. The pair had heard complaints from other Texans about the energy, water, and noise impacts of these types of mines.
