TeraWulf, a Bitcoin mining based in the United States, recently opened a new crypto-mining operation in Pennsylvania. This plant is powered entirely by nuclear electricity generated on-site.
TeraWulf announced in a statement released (1) on Monday, March 6, that the Nautilus Cryptomine plant is the first Bitcoin mining operation that operates “beyond the meter.”
This indicates that on-site energy is consumed immediately rather than fed into a grid and stored for later use.
The Susquehanna nuclear generation station directly supplies the Nautilus Cryptomine with carbon-free Power, which has a capacity of 2.5 gigawatts (GW).
As of right now, TeraWulf has around 8,000 mining rigs that are connected to the network, which equates to a hashrate of roughly 1.0 EH/s.
As a result of this, the organization has brought online approximately 25 MW of the 50 MW that it owns in the Nautilus Cryptomine complex.
TeraWulf has stated that the other mining rigs, which total another 8,000, will become operational over the next few weeks.
Also, the business can install an additional 50MW of Bitcoin mining capacity at the Nautilus Cryptomine facility if it so chooses.
Paul Prager, Chairman and CEO of TeraWulf, issued the following statement in response to the recent development:
“With the latest energization of the Nautilus facility this month, about 16,000 of TeraWulf’s owned miners are on-site and then being put online daily. This represents 1.9 EH/s of self-mining capability.
The Nautilus nuke mining complex enjoys what is likely the cheapest Power in the industry, with an average cost of just $0.02 per kilowatt-hour over five years.
In the upcoming weeks, we are looking forward to continuing our collaboration with Cumulus Coin as the Nautilus facility works to raise its operating hash rate.
According to TeraWulf, the Nautilus Cryptomine will be one of the largest mines in North America once it is finished and will likely have a capacity of 300 MW.
TeraWulf in Expansion Mode
The Nautilus mining station is the result of a joint venture between the nuclear mining facility division of TeraWulf and the power production and infrastructure business Talen Energy Corporation. The announcement of the joint venture was made back in August 2021.
The first stage of this partnership consists of constructing the 180-MW “Nautilus Cryptomine” on Talen’s existing digital infrastructure.
TeraWulf asserts that all its mining areas operate on zero-carbon energy by utilizing nuclear, hydro, or solar Power as their primary power source.
TeraWulf is now growing its Bitcoin mining activities at its wholly-owned Lake Mariner mine in New York. This is in addition to its 50MW investment in the Nautilus plant in New York. It is proposed that the operational capacity of this location be increased from 60 MW to 110 MW.
The company aims to provide a total operational capacity of about 50,000 Bitcoin miners by the beginning of the second quarter of 2023.
The facility at Nautilus will result in significant cost savings for TeraWulf regarding energy use. The power arrangement that the company has secured is for five years and costs 2 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) of Power.
This reduces the total average energy expenses across its two locations down to 4 cents/kWh, which is a significant decrease. This is a 50% reduction from the industrial average in the United States, which is 9 cents/kWh.