Bitmain is planning to power up its cryptocurrency mining operations at the former Alcoa smelter as soon as Saturday.
Kelly Ballew, facility manager, told The Reporter that’s the target date for power to go to the first line of 13,300 “antminer” computers.
Another line is scheduled to go on-line at the end of August with 6,480 antminers of the next technical generation.
There will eventually be 325,000 antminers operating at the site.
50 JOBS—When all the facilities re-purposed by Bit-main in the former Alcoa Rockdale Operations smelter are fired up, Ballew estimates 50 jobs will be available.
That’s a far cry from the 400 estimated when corporation executives announced the new venture almost exactly one year ago.
Still, a Bitmain representatives met this week with Rock-dale’s Workforce Solutions of Central Texas to set up guidelines for filling jobs.
Ballew said there are currently 24 local Bit-main employees and estimated a dozen of those could remain to become bitminers.
He also noted the possibility exists for “a few more jobs” than 50, including employees who would work repairing the machines and some additional space in the smelter could eventually be populated with the computers.
“People who already have IT skills might have a leg up on being selected for employment,” Ballew said.
Bitmain has spent about $20-million on the Rockdale project and currently plans to use six former Alcoa potlines.
REBOUND—Late last year, and early this year, Bit-main made substantial cutbacks worldwide and the rumor spread that the company was abandoning its Rock-dale project.
That was not the case, as was reported in The Reporter on Jan. 17.
The problems stemmed from the falling value of a Bit-coin, the object of the effort to “mine” the cryptocurrency by solving complex mathematical equations.
By December, 2018, the price of a Bitcoin had fallen to $3,195 from a high of $13,860 earlier in the year and some forecasters were saying it was the end of cryptocurrency appeal.
However, a considerable recovery has taken place in the intervening months.
Bitcoin, which can fluctuate within days, reached a recent high of over $13,000, dropped briefly below the $10,000 level and was back over $11,000 by Friday.
“We can make a pretty good profit at these levels,” Ballew said.
Bitcoin was helped last week when Jerome Dowd, Federal Reserve Board chair, termed it a “speculative store of value,” the same terms used to refer to gold.
POWER—Ballew, who lives in Rockdale, has heard some of the wilder rumors which have been circulating in the more frantic fringes of the social media.
“I keep hearing we are going to ‘take all the power’ and cause shortages,” he said.
“We are starting out at 25 megawatts, purchased off the grid from ERCOT (the Electric Reliability Council of Texas). At full operation we will take 300 megawatts.”
Ballew went to an app on his smartphone.
“Today, right now, ERCOT has in reserve, not used but there to use in case it’s needed, 3,165 megawatts,” he said. “To repeat, at our full production, we will use 300.”
See editorial, page 4A.
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